Keon Cooper, 23, was my personal Memphis tour guide one Saturday night. He is a firefighter and cooks at at The Pier Restaurant downtown, where we met when he helped guide my RV into an alley so I could plug in and have AC.
(I overloaded my system and had to unplug for the night at 7:30, but that's another story).
I hadn't planned to spend the hottest weeks of the year in the South, but I'm trying to hit a tier of states I wanted to see and would have otherwise missed via my planned coastal itinerary. Unfortunately, the heat and humidity are merciless. More for Armani than me. Humans can escape for dinner into air conditioned restaurants. Humans can sweat. But she has to weather this out in her giant, metal dog house.
Thankfully, in the crazy scavenger hunt that is now my world, there are messengers sent to help me.
Anthony Gales (who I met when I mistakenly pulled into his gas station from yesteryear) was one of those. He told me about The Pier.
And when I got there, manager David McCain (right) was surprisingly OK with the idea of donating electricity to me.
He claims he's gotten stranger requests — like a group of 17 filing in at once to use the restroom.
McCain actually spent much of his childhood in the Ozarks where I'd just come from.
"Don't fret," he said to me, while I was thanking him excessively.
"Ha, I must me in the South," I responded. "I could use a little less fretting.'
Outside of the tourist draw on Beale Street, Memphis was surprisingly less lively than I thought it would be. It almost seems this city had it's musical moment in the sun and now that creative energy is hovering some place different.
It is still incredibly historic.
Keon and I had a good time walking around and talking about life.
In fact, I think we made a kickass team – this 115-pound blond girl and the 260-pound black guy. If only because the world reacts to us so differently.
He got searched at the entrance to Beale Street and they waved me on through.
"Wow," I said. "They hardly even looked in my purse. I guess they don't think I'm much of a threat."
"Yeah," he said with a laugh. "People usually get out of my way."