Wait a minute, yes I do, there it is.
Ok, so I technically didn't eat there on my walk, but an hour after it. I still walked right in front of it the day before, in a pelting rain.
I had planned on a dozen or so places I could have stopped and sampled their BBQ, but though some could be found on Google Maps, once I got there, it was obvious they had not been in business for quite awhile. Others, by the time I got close, they were three blocks away, and it was the end of a 90deg day, and I was too pooped to walk the extra three blocks.
So, here is the winner, Smokey Joe's on E Poplar in Selmer Tenn. Stop by when you are driving through. Not to say they had the best BBQ in West Tenn, but at least the best that I sampled.
Now, on to my 'End of Trip Surprise"
I told you earlier about the Casey Jones Village in Jackson. Judy and I had eaten there earlier in the week, but had not taken the time to tour the village shops. By the time we got back into town, some of them were already closed, including the RR museum we took the kids to 19 years earlier.
After we had finished, we were sitting in our car in the parking lot and all of the sudden we started hearing bagpipe music. (So, I am not all that crazy about bagpipes, but it is growing on me. I love the joke years ago about 'when do you know a bagpipe needs tuning?'
At first, we didn't know where it was coming from. Judy commented, 'hey, he's playing Amazing Grace.' To which I answered, 'well, duh. Amazing Grace seems to be the only song bagpipers know.'
We finally saw this man about 100 yards away at the end of the parking lot, standing next to his car, dressed in full kilt, standing by himself, playing his bagpipe. I couldn't pass this up, so we drove over to where he was and just stopped and watched for a few seconds until he finished his song.
He finished, and walked over to our car. We thanked him for his music and asked him what he was doing in a lonely parking lot, by himself, playing a bagpipe.
It turned out that he was a member of the Alvin C York unit of the US Army 'pipe and drum' corp. His sole job with the US Army was to honor our war dead by playing at their funerals. He sometimes played at 4-5 funerals a day in the Tenn/Kent/Mo/and I think Illinois area.
Astounded that there could be that many in one day, he said that there are an average of 1500 military veteran deaths per day in the US. At the height of WWII there were 12M troops, and also many of the Vietnam Vets are now reaching 70 and 75 years of age and many are also dying. The numbers were staggering to me.
In the conversation, he asked what we were doing and I pointed to my t-shirt and I said, 'I just finished doing this' pointing to my 'Walking across Tenn' shirt.
'Oh' he yelled out, ' I read about you a day or so ago in the Jackson Sun. He then stuck his hand through the window, shook my hand and said, 'nice to meet you, I am Dennis Dudley.
With a name like Dudley it can sometimes be years before I meet a Dudley I'm not related to. In 60 years, I have only met about 7 Dudleys I was not related to. What a shock. And what a privilege to meet one doing what he does.
Click here for a few seconds of Dennis Dudley
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