Tupelo

I found a Good Sam RV park near Tupelo and drove the Fit into town to get groceries. With more time and perhaps energy one might have explored this historic town but I did a drive by (it was Sunday evening and it was closed) the birthplace of Elvis Presley. He was born into a poor family but at an early age clearly had musical skills. It was said that he could not read music but composed everything in his head or learned it by ear. One woman who would have been a teenager during Elvis’s time, whom I met in Vicksburg (during the General’s performance), told me she thought he was just a poor talented  local boy that became a puppet of big commercial interests (radio stations and record companies). That resulted in him becoming drug addicted and to his early death.

He is however an American icon. At his birthplace they have turned his parents one roomed house and local chapel into a museum. There is a statue of Elvis as a 13 yr old.  As it was Sunday evening I did not see inside.