Daily Archives: May 18, 2013
Wherefore Art Thou, Sleepy John Estes
We went clear the fuck out to Fort Pillow, which was hot as balls. And I am covered in mosquito bites. Then we tried to find Sleepy John Estes’ grave and we finally found the cemetery and we looked all through it and even took the find-a-grave picture of his gravestone as a guide, but we never found it. We found other Esteses, but whether they were sleepy, I cannot say; their gravestones were silent on the matter. I took a few pictures of them. And we did see the oldest synagogue in Tennessee and it is charmingly small. Like a large gingerbread house. And, my god, we saw this thing. I don’t… I can’t even begin… You hear about folk art installations, but I’ve never seen anything like this. None of my pictures do it justice. And then I dumped Dairy Queen in my purse. And it was awesome and wonderful. And I am so tired. But I think Brownsville is now one of my favorite places in Tennessee.
Edited to add: And we saw a camel!
- The dog sniffs around Fort Pillow.
- The Professor laughs when I tell her I’m going to take a picture of her looking cross with the dog.
- Here’s some part of the fort.
- Okay, so this was cool. Out there is the Mississippi.
- And over there, where the mist is is a lake that is actually the old river channel.
- Here’s an Estes.
- Here’s another Estes.
- Was this his grave? Probably not.
- But there were graves in the trees. So, he could be covered over.
- Okay, this is that thing. It’s hard to explain. It’s like a deep, narrow lot of land with this extraordinary this thing.