100 Miles from Memphis

One of the stories that came back from the Vegas boys' trip several weeks ago had to do with Sheryl Crow - or rather, Sheryl Crow's doppelganger.  According to J, the look-alike and her entourage were wandering Vegas casinos, trying to convince people to "hang out" (whatever that meant) with Sheryl Crow. When the group approached J at a blackjack table, he called BS and asked them about Crow's hometown of Kennett, located in the bootheel of Missouri. Well, actually, he forgot the name of Kennett and asked about Sikeston, a town about an hour from there, but that didn't matter - the blank looks he got told him everything he needed to know. He did say the doppelganger looked enough like Sheryl to make him do a double take, but the Canadian accent pretty much sealed the deal. A little while later, he saw the entourage getting into an elevator with several college-age looking boys, who apparently expected to get to meet Sheryl Crow. Good luck with that, boys.

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J was familiar with the small southeastern Missouri towns because I have a great deal of family in that area. A large number of my family members live in Kennett, a town with a population of less than 11,000. The bootheel is home to some fantastic farmland, a lot of flatness, wonderful people, and some of the biggest mosquitoes I've ever seen (with northeastern Arkansas possibly the only exception). One of my parents grew up in Kennett, many aunts, uncles, cousins, and other assorted relatives live or lived there while they were alive, the graveyards there have familiar family names, and the town is still alive with memories for my family.

Driving through downtown Kennett is very much like stepping back in time - the storefronts are dusty, the lettering is outdated, and the world has very much moved on from this area. We were on our way to St. Louis several months ago and stopped at a restaurant along the main drag for lunch. We were the obvious outsiders; everyone else exchanged greetings and handshakes as they came and went, with a lot of generational mingling. It very much had a small town feel, reminding you that there are still towns where no one is a stranger. At the same time, this small town in rural Missouri is home to a Grammy winning musician, and unless I'm mistaken I have an aunt who sings (or at least sang) with her in the church choir. Sometimes the world feels very small.

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The first time I remember hearing Sheryl Crow on the radio, I was early  in my college years. I was driving from Fayetteville to Little Rock, down Highway 71, just south of Drake Field (used to be "The Airport" but XNA has taken over that role now) when the song "All I Wanna Do" came on the radio. It's rare for me to remember a detail like that. J can remember almost every movie he's ever seen, what year it was, what grade he was in, what theater he was in, strange details like that. He's sort of freaky sometimes; me, not so much. For whatever reason, though, I clearly remember rolling down the windows, cranking up the radio in my old Civic, and loving that song.

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As I was running my three miler this morning, I listened to Crow's new album "100 Miles from Memphis." My brother-in-law recommended this album several weeks ago, and I finally remembered to download it last night. I queued it up in my Shuffle today to help my run, and while it doesn't contain the best rhythms for running fast, it was terrific for mind wandering. The album reminded me of several artists as I made my way through the songs - Tony Joe White (musician out of Louisiana, wrote "Rainy Night in Georgia"), Janis Joplin, some Elvis, and maybe a little Cash here and there. The rhythms and bluesy sounds reminded me of the many summertime family reunions I dearly loved when I was growing up. The feel of the album reminded me of these extended family members, where I came from, and the different places that I call "home" in this world. Even though I've never lived in the bootheel of Missouri, my roots are there, my history is there, and a large part of my family is still there. So for me at least, Crow's album was reminiscent of my memories of - and connections to - Kennett, a town about 100 miles from Memphis.