Memphis, Tennessee, was only ninety miles west of Jackson, my home. But Memphis was as far away as the North Pole in my mind. People in Jackson were always talking about somewhere else, mostly Memphis, because it was a close somewhere else and you could drink alcohol there, while Jackson was in a dry county...The city had started as a midway market, a meeting place on the banks of the Mississippi River that squatted in the muck almost squarely between New Orleans and Chicago. Excerpt from Gil Scott-Heron, The Last Holiday: A Memoir (New York: Grove Press, 2012)Tuesday, January 8, 2013
"memphis...a close somewhere else"
Memphis, Tennessee, was only ninety miles west of Jackson, my home. But Memphis was as far away as the North Pole in my mind. People in Jackson were always talking about somewhere else, mostly Memphis, because it was a close somewhere else and you could drink alcohol there, while Jackson was in a dry county...The city had started as a midway market, a meeting place on the banks of the Mississippi River that squatted in the muck almost squarely between New Orleans and Chicago. Excerpt from Gil Scott-Heron, The Last Holiday: A Memoir (New York: Grove Press, 2012)
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