Memorial Day

The last Monday of May is a U.S. national holiday called Memorial Day. On this day the fallen soldiers serving the US armed forces are remembered. This day was first observed 1865 to remember fallen Union soldiers during the Civil war. It took many years before this day was accepted by everyone in the US.

On this day, a ceremony took place a the Houston National Cemetery, which is the second largest National Cemetery in the US. I arrived early to beat the crowd and got a good seat at the ceremony.



I’m not really sure why, but there is a strong relation between motorcyclists and veterans.






There was a bit of controversy about the priest below, because he was asked by a federal judge to remove a reference to Jesus Christ from his speech. He didn't comply. When he spoke the words ‘Jesus Christ’, most people attending cheered for several minutes.

Memphis day II

The disaster stories about the Mississippi flooding proved to be largely exaggerated. Some low-lying neighborhoods got flooded, which is of course disaster for the people who live there, but downtown was not affected. After Graceland, Sun Record Company was the other must see in Memphis. On Saturday July 18 1953, Elvis recorded the first of two double sided demo acetates. Since parking is relatively scare around the Sun Studios, we decided to be at Sun when the opened up at 9am.



The museum has an interesting collections of music memorabilia from the 20th century, like this chair used by B.B. King.


For the afternoon, we took a city tour to get a taste of the city. Interesting was the music scene in Beale street. In the early 1900s, Beale Street was filled with clubs, restaurants and shops, many of them owned by African-Americans. It was not until the 1980s that Beale Street was redeveloped which led to an economic revitalization with new clubs and attractions opening.



For a photographer luckily some of the old attractions are preserved.

Memphis

On my way to Houston, I had to make a stopover. I could choose from Chicago, Atlanta and Memphis. Since my mother is an Elvis fan, I choose Memphis. Later I got the idea that it would be nice to bring my mother along. The week before our visit to Memphis, the media predicted the highest water level ever at Memphis just as we would visit the city. My contingency plan was to book an hotel south of Memphis since the airport and Graceland are also to the south of Memphis.

While I’m writing this post, it is exactly 34 years ago that Elvis passed away, on Aug 16t 1977. But Graceland is still visited by 600.000 visitors each year.

On our way to Graceland, I found a Elvis channel on the satellite radio in rental car. This was a good start of an all Elvis day. We arrived at Graceland just when the museum opened. The first stop in the tour was Graceland itself. Since flash photography is not allowed, I had to rely on a large aperture lens to get acceptable photos in the sometimes near dark.

Elvis’ living room.


For today’s pop stars, Graceland might be a modest house, but in the late 50s twenty-three rooms, including eight bedrooms and bathrooms was pretty large.

Besides the living quarters in Graceland, there were numerous rooms with special exhibits about Elvis’ live.




Elvis' Automobile Museum


The ‘Elvis Presley - Fashion King Exhibit’ was very nicely done. Elvis was bling before the word was in the dictionary.



After spending nearly the entire day at Graceland, we went to the National Civil Rights Museum. The museum is located around the former Lorraine Motel at 450 Mulberry Street, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Unfortunately no photography is allowed in the museum. Therefore I have only a few shots from the outside. To make sure a thief wouldn’t steal my camera with photos, I just kept the memory card with me.



King was standing on the motel's balcony at the place near the wreath, when he was shot.



The museum was very impressive. While I was researching for this post, I was surprised to learn that the museum opened on Sept. 28, 1991. More than 23 year after ML King was assassinated.