od.
and here is a Memphis trollop
the factory tour was really interesting. I've heard of Gibson guitars all my life and it was fun to s
Live goats and the blues in the same courtyard
Well, he had to show up somewhere. A street kid asked if I'd like him to take a photo of me with Elvis. Yeah, like that gonna happen.
Finally fishing gets its status right up there with baseball and other sports
LEAVING MEMPHIS
I was pretty tired after my late night on Beale Street. I wanted to do another afternoon, but by one or so I was very, very tired and since I was checked out there was no taking a nap.
I waited a long while to take the street car on the Riverview loop that the woman at the Visitor's Center had recommended. It was fine, but it was nothing to have waited that long for. Very little of the river was in view and the fine houses in what she called the “historic center” were visible from the back.
Beale was pretty deserted. I took a few more pictures and then wandered into two museums. I skipped the rock and roll and soul museum as it did not look like much. I used their bathroom and peeked in to some of the exhibits and it seemed they would not be memoribilia but just large black and whites and printed information.
However, I did pay ten dollars for the Gibson factory tour and that was very interesting even if I was sleepy and had not brought the means to take notes.
I'll record as much as I remember. Some I did not really understand, no knowing how a guitar works exactly.
Before the guitar it was the mandolin. Parts of violin construction was applied to the mandolin and improved the sound quality.
Les Paul, who is still alive and playing at 93 in NYC, was instrumental in moving the Spanish acoustical guitar into the electronic pickup age.
The hollow guitar tended to give off a hum so they reduced it by putting wood in the center and making it only partially hollow and eventually not hollow at all.
The Gibson is made with a minimum of machinery. Rooters and sanders are used to shape and polishers are used to buff but a good bit is done by hand. The parts are glued by hand and we saw pieces of the guitar in all its stages. It is quite labor intensive.
The wood is stored at a certain humidity for a while before it is worked. We saw all the various wood pieces used. The face is stamped in a press. The wood for the edges is bent in the particular shape and then a band saw takes slices of the that for the edges. Almost like trim a small edging is added and carefully glued. It was amazing to see all the bands wrapped around these guitar faces.
Painting and finishing is another labor intensive task. The entire guitar is painted and then the edges are scraped with a small razor blade by hand. Coats of paint and varnish are added one at a time.
It was fun to see this factory. There was only one fellow working, but that was good as it kept the noise down. As it was there was a good bit of dust and the humidity made me hot and tired.
We did not see all the process in making the necks as they come into this plant from the Nashville plant. However, the assembly was intricately illustrated and described.
Once they would sell off any seconds that did not pass final inspections, but the Gibson name suffered and now they scrap the end products if they are not perfect in every way. We saw some labeled scrap. These are just cut up and discarded.
I wandered down and heard a couple guitarists and then saw another half set of the Earl Drew band with all new material. I was just getting too tired so I went back to the car, took some Sami's wraps, carrots, hot sauce, and nuts and sat in the park on the bank of the Mississippi watching the old river run by. Another set of twenty or so barges moved by me pushed by a tug. It was very nice. The weather was warmer, no rain, but overcast and no sun. Also from the park I could better see those old historic houses that face the river high up on a bluff.
I headed back to Tunica, yawning all the way, and was happy to get here and get checked in. Immediately I took a nice nap. These rooms are not quite as plush as the Veranda, but they are still very nice with refrigerators. The old fashioned televisions are here, but for reliability I prefer them.
From my window I can see the little pond. A blue heron struts along the edge. I am only on the second floor so the view has some bit of roof in it as well, but it is a fine overcast brown and gray March view and I'll enjoy a walk tomorrow morning if the ground is not too wet and squishy for walking.
So I napped and still did not have much energy. I did manage to unpack more from the car and organize a bit. But I did not want even to drive to get supper and snacked on the last of the Sami's wraps from Tampa with hot sauce and some chips.
I also had Negro Modelo on ice. That is the way the Costa Rican's like to have it. We think beer on ice is pretty bad. But we drink lite beer. Strange. The only real difference between beer on ice and lite beer is that beer on ice is always cold.
So I am hanging out playing with my photos and enjoying just relaxing and watching a little of television as hard as that is with it so packed with commercials.
Still, I did not want to play poker tired.
I could have used a nice juicy steak, but I did not have a buffet appetitite either. I'll plan out a bit of what I do. I need to see the other casinos in Tunica as while Keith was here I concentrated on Gold Spike and Horseshoe.
Hollywood has great advertisements and somewhere I have $10 freeplay at Sam's Town.
MONDAY
I slept the night and am back in my old sleeping pattern. This is not the best pattern for poker when it is better to have a nap and some late night awake time, but it is a better pattern for traveling home from here.
It will be good to be in one spot for a few days and not have that constant checking in and checking out. That can get tiring. If it is not raining this morning, I think I'll go looking for the Tunica River Park. Warm days are supposed to return. Even yesterday was much warmer and I was more comfortable outdoors. Elizabeth told me yesterday that the lake was only open in front of the house and that the water fowl were coming into that watery section. I suppose that the ice out is a long time coming this year because the temperatures were so low that the ice must be thick. I hope that the wind stays easy as the ice melts. We had some loss of pine branches during the ice storm. Jeff and chuck are going to clean it up. One of the falling limbs dented the boat, but it does not look like it did serious damage
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