What a doof
The news that the Mississippi River is now THREE MILES WIDE at Memphis, TN, reminded me that I lived in Memphis for six months in first grade. My dad was working for Chevron Oil (his employer for 38 years and 11 months, his entire post-Army work life) and got a promotion to "traveling salesman" in a territory that included western Tennessee and eastern Arkansas. When we moved there I was one of four kids (eventually there were seven) and my baby sister (now the middle child) was 2 months old. We attended a Catholic school, of which I can't recall the name, and we got on a yellow school bus every morning and afternoon to go to and from school.
When I was a first grader on that bus, Elvis Presley was extremely popular. I mean, like the Beatles in the mid-60s (or, gag, Justin Bieber now). The older girls on the bus, the 7th and 8th graders, routinely said stuff like, "I heard that Elvis is going to fill his pool on Friday afternoon. So I'm going to go to Graceland to watch that." I believed what they said, and I also believed that Graceland was literally "on the other side of the forest" that was near our house. Fast forward to today, when I suddenly remembered the address of our little working-class house in Memphis. I Googlemapped it, and then Googled for Graceland... and discovered that the distance between my house, in northeast Memphis, and Graceland, in southwest Memphis, is more than 15 miles. *facepalm* I guess that forest was really, really wide ;)
When I was a first grader on that bus, Elvis Presley was extremely popular. I mean, like the Beatles in the mid-60s (or, gag, Justin Bieber now). The older girls on the bus, the 7th and 8th graders, routinely said stuff like, "I heard that Elvis is going to fill his pool on Friday afternoon. So I'm going to go to Graceland to watch that." I believed what they said, and I also believed that Graceland was literally "on the other side of the forest" that was near our house. Fast forward to today, when I suddenly remembered the address of our little working-class house in Memphis. I Googlemapped it, and then Googled for Graceland... and discovered that the distance between my house, in northeast Memphis, and Graceland, in southwest Memphis, is more than 15 miles. *facepalm* I guess that forest was really, really wide ;)