Re-orientation/Part one

As I explained before, the first three months of my early retirement in 1982 were harrowing. I had clips from the Christian Science Monitor, the three Philly dailies, and several national magazines. But my queries to the San Francisco Chronicle and the Oakland Tribune elicited only form letter rejections! I began to think that my melodramatic rejection of tenure in a letter dated Walt Whitman’s Birthday 1982 was turning out to be a silly and self-destructive gesture.

Greyhound had rejected my Visa card for my trip to Philly for my son Tim’s 26th birthday on August 21. I ran out of funds in Oklahoma City, and Tim wired me enough to get home. I spent a day in Memphis swearing never to patronize Greyhound again! Looking for something to do before the last leg of my trip, I asked what was new in Memphis. “Mud Island” was the puzzling reply. It turns out that the only rock music venue in the Big M was in Overton Park, a blue rinse section. They had told the mayor if he didn’t get that noise out of their ears, they’d do their best to get him out of City Hall.

He called on the city’s most renowned architect (he had done the International Airport to great acclaim) Roy Harrover, a Yalie favorite of Vincent Scully, to get him out of this bind. Roy made a deal: Let me do a walk through museum of the Lower Mississippi on Mud Island (a vagrant swatch of land in the river that ebbed and flowed on its own whims), and he would make a rock venue out of earshot of those blue rinses.

I walked to the river and started asking where MI was. I was stunned by its brilliance. Each river contributing to the final flow was represented by a sculptural waterfall. I still think it is the most original piece of tourist architecture in the country. I had lunch with the director to hear his plans. And spent the afternoon on the top of the National Bank of Commerce Building palavering with Roy over his overall plans for the river’s downtown.