Hats off to Major General Ulysses Grant. His creative strategizing led to a crucial Union victory here. Unfortunately he first had to conclude that 17,000 dead Union soldiers was enough, to find his winning strategy: a siege. After trying countless direct amphibious attacks from the Mississippi River (where the Confederate Army up on Vicksburg’s high ground repulsed them, and repeatedly sunk Union gunships like sitting ducks below them), he tried mining under the fort and setting explosives, failing once again to breach this impregnable site. He also built a bypass canal to no avail.

The Mississippi River was the conduit of supplies and new recruits for the Confederacy. President Lincoln told Grant that Vicksburg was “the key” and said, “The war can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket.” Grant finally changed strategy, marched his troops across the River 60 miles south, marched 100 miles northeast to take control of Jackson, and marched along the Southern Railroad to the west to Vicksburg’s eastern perimeter. He built 8 miles of zig-zagging trenches outside the Confederate lines…and kept them pinned into their own fortifications until 1/3 of the 30,000 Confederate soldiers were too ill to fight, their water was contaminated, and there were limitied supplies of food and munitions. 46 days of this made General Pemberton see that his options were surrender or rescue. When he was notified that the Mississippi Confederate Army was too weakened to provide support, he surrendered.

This enormous site with a 16 mile road tour, is filled with bikers, walkers and joggers…. over 1000 monuments, and as many trenches. I enjoyed sitting in the spot where Pemberton and Grant met to hammer out the terms of the surrender. I kept thinking…why did 17,000 Union and plenty of Confederate soldiers have to die to come up with a less violent and more effective strategy for gaining control of this important piece of ground? At least Grant continued to think more strategically when he set the terms of surrender: lay down all arms, pledge never to fight the United States again…and then go home. What good would 30,000 prisoners of war do for the Union who would have to feed them? Too weakened to fight, they just had to make their way home as best they could. I wish they could have sprouted wings as I recall the hardships the weakened soldiers had trying to get home in the great novel, “Cold Mountain”. Still better than the conditions shown in the great movie, “Andersonville”, (Camp Sumter) where 45,000 Union troops were imprisoned in Georgia with no food, water and overrun with disease. More than 13,000 soldiers died from the deplorable conditions in the Confederate prison.

Within 5 days, the only other Mississippi River obstacle was toppled, and President Lincoln stated, “The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.” Mississippi was readmitted to the Union in 1870, but Vicksburg remained occupied by Federal Troops, in this case ‘United States Colored Troops’ until the end of Reconstruction in 1877….that must have chafed some Confederate be-hinds! White rule returned with a vengeance  until the Civil Rights Movement and Brown v. The Board of Education ordered equality under the law in 1954. However, much of the South sabotaged segregation far longer. Atlanta, for instance, did not desegregate their schools until 1970!  What is it with the South? Every time (daily) I see a monument to Jefferson Davis, I want to yell, “You lost! ….in battle, in court, in public opinion….Give it up! Don’t celebrate your awkward, ugly history…”  Imagine Germany today putting up monuments to Hitler. Why isn’t it shameful today to celebrate historic efforts to continue human slavery?

It was bound to happen eventually, the “meh..” point in our travels. Our unflagging curiosity and enthusiasm since August 2012 is challenged by Alabama. Perhaps it is because my son is home from college visiting our friends in Albany, CA and…I wanna be there with him!

Perhaps the multigenerational poverty, seeing people and places where “tough times” is a chronic condition, not a new concept from a recently bad economy. Driving through too many small towns where the housing stock is characterized by stove in trailers, or every 5th house is boarded up, burned and sagging, creates sadness in any compassionate person. Maybe ugliness, like observing a merchant ( a new immigrant himself) denigrate an older black man with a snarl (he lost our business instantly) is getting to us. We found some downtowns with populations of 17,000 just like Albany, CA where there was no WiFi and no public bathroom available in the Downtown area, no matter how many merchants we asked. Was it our attire? Accent? Did we just look too much like Blue State people to merit their welcome? We just weren’t feeling that Southern Hospitality in Alabama. But then again, we failed to visit Birmingham, the “Big City”, where they might even have Wi-Fi somewhere in the Downtown area….

We got a momentary thrill from some local art exhibits like the amazing glass exhibit at the Montgomery Museum of Art! Watch out Dale Chihuly….you have some competition out there!

 We also got a lift from a wonderful children’s museum, ArtWorks, especially the duct tape art…..

…and this totem pole:

Perhaps we are just tiring of constant movement? We have had at least week long stops monthly with friends and family in Reno, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, and Nashville, providing the comforts of home: wifi, laundry, great meals and deeper connections. Part of the problem is that we now enter the land of antebellum architecture and civil war sites, which gets less thrilling after multiple examples. It is hard to get excited about states that still celebrate the Confederate President’s Birthday with a state holiday.

Also, after the very moving Civil Rights exhibit in Auburn Sweet (Atlanta), every other similar exhibit pales in comparison. Even walking the Selma-Montgomery Civil Rights March Trail over the Edmund Pettus bridge where Bloody Sunday occurred, felt unremarkable as the downtown there is mostly closed down due to the loss of manufacturing jobs overseas. We keep seeing the results of this flight in small towns across the South. Depressing. This is why the Blues exist as a musical form…to bring joy from suffering. We are hoping that getting to Western Mississippi to explore the Mississippi Delta Blues Trail will inject us with, “What “The blues are… living, loving, and, hopefully (sic) laughing”, as Riley B. King said, (A.K.A. B.B. King).

We wonder how those who have been domestic traveling for almost three years (see the travel blog: www.Everywhere Once.com) handle the travel blues. The main blogger has solved the problem by becoming a skilled photographer who creates photographic essays, and writes less. They travel in a larger RV towing a city car (the two of them live in about 5 times the space that the 3 of us share in our 17 foot RoadTrek). Maybe that extra space is exactly what is required for extended travel in a vehicle. We are thinking we may need to rent a furnished apartment for a couple of weeks and “layover” for a rest…but where? New Orleans is calling, with a ready supply of our passions (extraordinary food, lakes to paddle, trails to bike, quirky artistic culture, and live music and Tango!)…maybe after everyone else’s holiday travels end. Then again, we will miss the rural South’s lousy economic position in this gas guzzling nation… that allow us to fill up our gas tank once again for $2.95/gal.

Okay, I know this is a lyric of the Ray Charles’ standard, “Georgia On My Mind”, and he was born in Albany, GA. But it is the State Song so I take artistic license to use it in the title to evoke, uh…the sweet sound of music emanating from the South! I will just list the heavy hitters from the music scene in this town: Little Richard, James Brown, Otis Redding, and the Allman Brothers. Favorites, all!  Redding (like my darling Patsy Cline) was killed in a small aircraft accident, just a month before the release of his biggest hit, “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay”.

James Brown, from Augusta, recorded several hits here. Little Richard is a native of Macon, and the TicTocRoom where he washed dishes and started his musical career is still on site. The Allman Brothers lived in the “Big House” (18 room, 6,000 sq. ft. mansion), now a museum to Southern Rock. This town is on the “Antebellum Trail” and appears to have more gorgeous, well-preserved Greek Revival and Italianate mansions like the Hay House, but many of them are up for sale. The Downtown was dead; locals explained that it had been a major manufacturing area, most of which left the area for India, Central America, etc.

Steven and I, attended college near San Francisco just after the “Summer of Love”….and yes, unlike Bill Clinton, we inhaled. We recall “Be-ins” in Golden Gate Park with the Grateful Dead, and Janice Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company. We still love the Dead, Allman Brothers, and New Riders of the Purple Sage. Although Duane Allman and Barry Oakley are buried here in Macon, visiting “H and H Soul Food Cafe” is like visiting Duanne Allman’s gravesite. Mama Louise still serves the same vittles (Meat N’ Three) as she did for the Allman brothers, and the walls are a testament to their long relationship.

Tango remains alive and well in Macon, as we enjoyed their weekly “Practica”…far more fun and educational than our practice sessions in the WalMart parking lot!

On the way here we also had to stop at the Uncle Remus Museum in Eatonton, GA. The tales of Uncle Remus, and Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book are my earliest story memories. Br’er Fox thought he finally had Br’er Rabbit in his clutches as he was stuck fast to the Tar Baby….”Please, Bre’r Rabbit, whatever you do, don’t throw me in that Briar Patch!”  …and that sly rabbit slipped away, safe as can be when thrown into the Briar Patch, his playground.  The author of the Uncle Remus stories, Josh Chandler Harris, was my distant cousin Lucy Stanton’s next door neighbor at Wren’s Nest in Atlanta. Her portrait of him hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. He was a humble man, and reported that his response to her request to paint him was, “Why would you ever want to paint ME?” Lucy Stanton answered, “Because I love you”. He said he couldn’t argue with that and proceeded to sit for the portrait.

Until “Song of the South”, the Disney rendition of Uncle Remus’ stories, Disney had only used “voices”, not actors, as he produced animated stories. The first actor he ever hired was James Baskett to play Uncle Remus, showcasing black talent for the first time in a feature film. “Zippity-do-dah, zippity-ay, my oh my, it’s a wonderful day!…”, was one of the great songs from the movie.  We are pleased it has crossed our travel path once again, not just in the title of our travel blog.

Our second day in Macon was spent hiking the prehistoric mounds, and trails through the swamps and along the Ocmulgee River in the National Park. This site was the biggest dig in the U.S. as the WPA provided 800 employees to meet the archeaologists’ goals for preserving a site of continual human habitation for 17,000 years. Unlike the Camp Leaky site we visited outside Las Vegas (see blog blog: October 2012) that has no objects showing human habitation, the Ocmulgee site provides the important “Clovis Point”, a Paleoindian chert spearpoint . The name Clovis came from a site in New Mexico where they were first discovered. Among the oldest discovered in the U.S., they are usually found among ancient bones from long extinct mammoths, mastodons, and other large mammals.

We originlly were not planning to visit Athens, in spite of it being a major music scene in Georgia. The B-52s and REM came from here, and the scene still rocks on as it is a college town. Campy Art fans and University of Georgia fans enjoy seeing “Uga”, the English Bulldog mascot dressed in drag, among other costumes, throughout town.

However, while in Atlanta we learned that Lucy May Stanton, my cousin thrice removed (her closest aunt was my great, great grandmother), is exhibited at the Georgia Museum of Art, so we had to become Athenians for a day! With over 10,000 pieces in the permanent collection of American Art here, it was thrilling to see 12 of Lucy Stanton’s paintings displayed, get a warm welcome from the curator of the Lucy May Stanton exhibit, and an invitation to dinner! Betty Alice Fowler was also able to provide the exhibition catalogue, filled with details about Lucy Stanton’s training, education and experience, and 58 paintings beautifully reproduced. Clearly, Lucy Stanton has become an obsession for this dedicated curator.

Betty Alice sent us off to view the Lucy Stanton house in Athens, where I met neighbor Mayor Gwen O’Looney, toured her house, and met her portraitist painter husband John O’Looney (see his self portrait below). Clearly, eccentric and creative Southerners are thriving in this lovely town…rare Obama supporters in a very Red State!

I have learned so much about the amazing Lucy May Stanton, truly a revolutionary in her time. I had seen some of her paintings of family members at my mother’s home, but never knew she had an international reputation as a miniaturist portrait painter on ivory, the first to apply Impressionist painting technique to the 15th Century genre. She also was the first American Painter to paint miniature portraits of African Americans, expressing their dignified characters and personalities.

 In Atlanta, I viewed photos of her miniatures owned by Emory’s Woodruff Library, as well as her original sketches and correspondence, along with two large portraits of my great grandfather and the family progenitor, my G-G-GF. Lullwater House at Emory has a painting of my mother’s grandmother Ida, and we received a tour of the house by the Emory President’s wife, Debbie Wagner, who has Grandma Ida featured prominently.

The Lucy May Stanton family connection has opened the homes of many gracious Southerners to us, enriching and personalizing our traveling experience greatly. I will write a blog solely on the topic of Lucy May Stanton as we will again see her work at the Met in NYC, the National Portrait Gallery in D.C., the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Boston Fine Arts Museum. It has been thrilling to see her work, meet her fans, and enjoy swimming in the same DNA gene pool with her.

Growing up in the Greater Los Angeles Municipality, I know from “Sprawl”…and the resulting traffic. However, LA is contained by mountains and ocean, unlike Atlanta, which just keeps seeping out in every direction. Trying to accomplish our adventure goals in all parts of the “City” and its’ immediate suburbs meant hours of inching…along…in…traffic. We were also on a cleansing diet for a week and couldn’t even drink cocktails at the end of these long days on the road (see the blog, “Fried and Battered”, November 2012 to explain why the extreme diet was necessary). However, the sites we visited were just outstanding and we stayed here for a full week. The Arts and Music Scene is well funded here by Coca-Cola Chairman of the Board, Robert Woodruff of the eponymous Art Center Atlanta. But other adventures called to us as well:  Silvercrest rail/bike trail conversion (goes West to the border with Alabama),  4 tango events with our new tango pals, and the outstanding exhibit, “Black Jaguar, Shamanistic Arts of the MesoAmericas” at Emory University’s Carlos Museum.

The CDC Musuem (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) promised to be filled with ghastly pictures of Ebola Virus and Guinea Worms (Yippee!!), but was really too geared for younger children to be very interesting to anyone who reads even a little science or is thrilled by really disgusting photos of the effects of tropical diseases.

An exhibit, a monument, an inspiration to what one person with resolve and great sacrifice can accomplish, is displayed at the Civil Rights Museum. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s efforts along with many regular citizens, far braver than most of us, ensured that, “Freedom and Justice for All”, meant something. We spent 6 hours there and were speechless most of the day with emotion. Martin Luther King, Jr. was raised in the Ebenezer Baptist Church, now owned by the National Park Service. His grandfather and his father were the preceding pastors here, as pictured below on the pulpit. We sat in the original pews listening to recordings of Dr. King’s sermons here, with Mahalia Jackson singing back-up hymns. So strong, so brave, and so loving.

We were struck by how young he was, age 26, when he led the Montgomery Bus Strike and led the Southern Baptist Leadership Conference. His intense study of Mahatma Ghandi and application of the principles of non-violence gave the protests national coverage as the world watched passive protesters including elders and children be set upon with attack dogs, clubs, tear gas, firehose spray, and horses…just for demanding that the U.S. Constitution, keep its’ promise to Black Americans. For this he and his family received up to 40 death threats a day and a bombing of their home, he was jailed 14 times, and he was criticized by other Southern Baptist pastors for creating unnecessary trouble and risk for the Black Community.

A turning point in public support was the coverage from Chicago, where Dr. King said he met greater animosity than any other city, including Black Sunday during the Selma/Montgomery march. Dr. King just used that abusive experience to call for the “March Against Fear”, and filled the Washington, D.C. Mall. He clearly presaged his death as he begged that the struggle continue, stating that he may not be around to see it to its end. Below is his wife and youngest child at his 1st memorial service.

His lasting message to us after a life of sacrifice for the principle of freedom…

…in need of a great, high end burger joint! Otherwise, this small city in Western North Carolina has it all. We were impressed by the number of independent book stores.  With this greater sophistication, there are of course, higher prices for services like the YMCA, organic food, and high end chocolate stores. The city also gets an A+ for window design. One clothing store is well known for a yearly window display created by the staff, all made of paper.

  I can’t remember what this store sold, but it was eye catching and invitingly weird.

I guess when you have the Biltmore in your town, you would just have more sophistication than the average WNC town. Vanderbilt’s 255 room home, was done up for Christmas. Their floral design curator has 12 full-time staff, as every inch of the place is decorated with fine detail…65 tall trees, wreaths, swags in the house, the visitor center, the onsite hotel, Village and Vineyard. His goal was a castle bigger and finer than any in Europe.

Okay, Vanderbilt, you won, but we find the Hearst Castle on the California coast more of a realistic size for an American magnate, and featuring more American Art and Design. Wouldn’t most of us choose a weekend riding horses, having cocktails at the Neptune pool, while hanging out with the artists of the day? Perhaps, that is just this California Jewish cowgirl’s bias.

The Western approach to Great Smoky Mountain National Park is a blighted landscape of billboards (in Sevierville, pronounced “severe-ville”) and goofy monuments to American Family Entertainment (Pigeon Forge)…and we didn’t even get near Dollywood Theme Park, on the outskirts of town. Sevierville is all about shopping, and during this season, you know they pull out the stops to get your buck: the biggest drive through neon light exhibition ever! Dancing Cleopatras doing the King Tut walk, rock bands drumming, genies popping out of bottles…you get my drift. However, a Best Buy-sized store that only sells knives is more like a museum. Cool!

Thinking we had already finished with the craziness, we were shocked by 10 miles of main road lined with wacky architecture to lure the needs of the American Family for….entertainment of  course! You can travel the world without leaving town…

Home Sweet Home in Appalachia…

Manhattan…

We definitely prefer tin-can pigs pulling sleighs!

We Americans know how to have a good time!

We got to Knoxville, TN just after the front page story in The Tennessean (Nashville newspaper) celebrating Knoxville’s status as one of three completely economically recovered cities. Unemployed residents we met at a Tango Practica here, disagreed.

However, the Downtown area on a Sunday morning was thriving with locals and their dogs enjoying the pedestrian art park that runs for blocks with outdoor dining and a creek. There’s even a downtown dog park!

Old structures are preserved, and new amenities make it inviting. The University of Tennessee campus (400 acres) and the Tennessee Valley Authority (which oversees a regional network of over 20 dams) have shaped this city. Where else can you find a Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame?

Replete with 60 miles of dogwood trails, art laden bike paths, and free transportation on the Trolleys, it is easy to get around. We are just sorry we missed the Boomsday Festival on the river waterfront during Labor Day weekend, the largest fireworks show in the South.

President Andrew Jackson had his home in Hermitage, TN. It is very well preserved. However, President Jackson is an evil jerk and historians agree…sort of.

He was asked to lead very poorly performing troops against the British. Instead he chose an army of freed Blacks, and Indians as he believed that they wouldn’t flee in the heat of battle against seasoned troops. He was right. He ascended all his public offices and survived a hard fought battle for his second term in the White House, based on his win in the Battle of New Orleans, and earned the nickname these brave troops gave him for his ferocity, “Old Hickory”.

Here comes the evil jerk part. He then turned around and engineered the Trail Of Tears, wherein four thousand Cherokees, Choctaws, and Seminoles died, of the 15,000 forced to relocate by U.S. troops. Their lands provided space for frontier development.

In just 41 years at The Hermitage, Jackson’s original 425-acre frontier farm evolved into a diversified 1,000-acre cotton plantation by the time of his death in 1845. He pulled that off with the free labor from his slaves. He even advertised that he would give a reward to anyone who would give his escaped slave 300 lashes.

He betrayed the same people that gave him his success and reputation. Any question he is an unapologetic evil jerk?

After visiting the museum, I could not enjoy the house with fine original wall paper and furniture; it made me too angry to hear the “spin” that the costumed docents are trained to give. They say his evil acts are balanced by the “rights” he put in place that Abolitionists, African Americans and Native American Indians later used to argue for their equality under the law. Puh-leeeeze!

I left the manse and wandered out to the fields, imagining humans toiling there against their will. Instead, my mood improved when I found these Belted Galloways from Scotland! Apparently the CEO here is a Scotsman and found a good tax loophole for his darling herd.

Lety, our Mexican rescue dog, dressed in her white goose down vest for the cold, thinks they are just copying her fabulous fashion sense.

We agree with her as we now see her style copied everywhere we go.

Shouldn’t Bill Cunningham be documenting this new fashion trend in the New York Times?

Many also call it, “NashVegas”. You can see their point when a fat white Elvis waits with you at the traffic light. They also have an exact scale model of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece …Okay… there is some flamboyance going on here!

Otherwise, it is better than Vegas as the live music venues (called honky-tonks here) are everywhere, in volume, with talent, and charging no cover. Usually, starting at 2 PM daily, four acts are booked at each so you can wander from place to place all evening to pick your favorite style of country…and we found two blues clubs.

Named the “Buckle of the Bible Belt” due to the huge volume of religious publication centered here. There are also more than 800 churches, a lot for a population of 600,000. Yet, music reins. Although country rock and rockabilly (think Presley) preponderates, it is balanced by the lovely harmonies of gospel crossover and old tyme music. There was a good bit of the ballad/pop/modern country fusion, fortunately counterbalanced by some fiddles playing irish trad, bluegrass, and of course the banjo and strings that Bill Monroe and the Clinch Mountain Boys introduced at the Grand Ole Opry in their “Hillbilly” music lineup. Did I mention the influence of Earl Scruggs? The entire 2nd floor of the Country Music Hall of Fame is devoted to these Hillbilly artists. The exhibit is immensely well researched with evidence of the banjo’s primacy in Africa before being brought here by enslaved Africans. Musicians jam on the streets and these parking signs show the priority on music in Nashville.

The Ryman hosts the Grand Ole Opry live radio show twice a week. There’s nothing like Minnie Pearl’s traditional greeting, “How-Dee-e-e-e-e!” and  her advice, “Hey Northerners! Put something fried on that salad”! However, some of the modern country tunes with goofy titles like, “If I Could Have A Beer With Jesus”, were not sung like the humorous “achey-breakie” country style, but as a slow and mournful prayer. Yep this is a thoroughly, seriously Christian town. There are no “Happy Holidays” greetings here, as one is corrected with a pointed, “Merry Christmas”.

I learned that Bud Isaac was the first musician to create and play a pedal steel guitar. He said everybody started to try to tune their guitars differently to get that sound, but it was not possible to get it without building a whole new instrument, with a new sound.

Nashville is booming with new construction. The new convention center is being constructed on three downtown blocks, while Patsy Cline supervises.

The old and the new mix comfortably in Nashville. The mounted officers are proud to tell you that they ride only “Tennessee Walkers”, as they should as it is a really comfortable riding gait, faster than a walk, and smoother than a trot.

Boots. Western Style dress. Very big here. Every block seems to have a boot shop with some quirky marketing…

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts provided amazing eye candy. Carrie May Weems, photography exhibit was moving as she unflinchingly shoots poverty and beauty all over the world. Also, “Degenerate Art” was on view as well in the German Expressionist exhibit owned and developed since 1943 at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Hitler denounced this art and proceeded to put on the biggest and best represented expressionist art show ever produced. Over 20,000 people in Germany went to see it. Kinda backfired, I’d say. Expecially as Peggy Googenheim and Valentiner swept in to purchase and export everything they could get their hands on. Unfortunately, many of these artists later suicided when they were fired, not allowed to paint, not allowed to rent, and were shunned by Germans fearful of the Nazis. We were disappointed that none of the galleries on 5th (Gallery Row) showed local artists.

…and if that is not enough entertainment for you, how ’bout serene fishing on a lake within Nashville that has no houses on it and makes you feel deep in the country as you head out in the boat? …or perhaps 3 hours of bowling, including the shoes for $6…or maybe covered tennis courts for $30/month so you never get rained out? We really enjoyed all these things in Nashville so much and want to come back soon, but maybe we will wait for the nightmare traffic due to all the construction to end first!