Trying to Give You a Hint of It - 6 photos »

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.