Goodbye Memphis

I finally left Memphis this morning. It was hard to say good-bye. I'd been there a little over two weeks, including one week all by myself at Greg's townhouse on Mud Island, in the delightful Harbortown development. I dogsitted Lou, walking him twice a day along the Mississippi and being in awe of the flow of the current every time I saw it.

It had been two and half years since I'd last been in Memphis and stayed him Greg and his two boys, of whom he shares custody with his wife. It's like a little male bachelor paradise when I there, and become one of the clan---like some kind of sit-com. But of course it's all coming to an end---or at least changing, at the end of June when Greg gets married to Caitlin, who currently lives in Omaha with her two teenage daughters. The women are all moving down to Memphis later this summer, and they will all live together. The Brady Bunch jokes have been flying around a lot. It will quite a change for them all. And alas, no more bachelor paradise.

Greg is about the most incredible host and friend I could possibly imagine having. I knew him in high school, but ironically he and I were not good friends until a couple years ago, when I had friended him on Facebook, along with half of my graduating class. When I was passing through Memphis in the fall of 2009, I contacted him, and he enthusiastically invited me. It was as if we were long-lost best friends. It was a nice balance to the loss of many old friends I've felt over the last few years.

This time, when I wasn't by myself dog-sitting while Greg was away on business, the four of us spent the time lounging watching television, going to trivia night at the nearby pizza place (we came in second place last night thanks partly to my knowledge of 1980's Country Music and the fact that Wyoming is the least populous state of the union).

I even got to get in some theater-going. Greg's older son Nate, who is in middle school at the Montessori school just across the street from their townhouse, was in a production of Shakespeare that was performed in the basement of St. Mary's (Episcopal) Cathedral (which has incredible stained glass, by the way). The production was performed by the middle schoolers and was called "Hamlet in their own words." It was essentially Hamlet but with the dialog transcribed into phrases and sentences by the kids themselves, interpreting it in modern language.

Ironically it was the second such highly adapted Hamlet performance I've seen in the past year, the other one being a spoofish repetoire of all of Shakespeare's plays performed in one night, in Forest Grove, Oregon.

Before the show in Memphis, I assumed it would be an abridged production of Hamlet, since it was done without scenery or costumes on a small stage. To my surprise, I induced from the first scene that there would little abridgement of the story.

In all fairness, the kids did a great job for this type of production. It was amazing on many levels, in fact, that they could pull it off. But in all fairness, it's hard to compete with the original poetic wording of the bard.