Tennessee

Chattanooga

11/24/2003
Dominick A. Miserandino
A family friendly destination and an adventure in rediscovering Dominick's Grandma's wedding history.

When most people think of Chattanooga, they think of the famous song. They envision a young man asking about Track 29, boarding at New York and heading to Chattanooga and they picture a little train heading south. I'll burst that bubble. The song took a large bit of poetic license.

The good news is that the real story is a bit better. Picture it: America in the early 1900s. The Civil War is over, but generations of veterans aren't too happy. They've lost friends, families and entire towns. How would things ever get better? Well, inevitably, when people did business they had to travel.

Opryland

2/11/2003
Dominick A. Miserandino
True, 'down home,' southern hospitality at its finest can be found in one of Country Music's oldest living legends, Opryland. Just don't ask them for Iced Tea, or expect to have the last word. But they do it with a smile, so you may get used to it!

As far as I can tell, there is only one negative aspect in going to Opryland. Most of the populace who have never been to Nashville seems to believe that the town is simply the domain of Hee Haw, country music, and possibly a cowboy here and there. This is a fallacy, as it's not entirely based on country music, and there certainly weren't as many cowboys as I'd hope to have seen.

The weekend that we chose to go to Opryland also happened to have been the weekend of the first major snowstorm in Nashville in almost ten years.

Memphis

9/5/2002
Dominick A. Miserandino
The city of blues, music, Elvis and ribs. An adventure in the path of W.C. Handy, to Martin Luther King to Peabody Ducks.

Day 1

As we left the Delta Queen to go to our hotel and settle in, we were humming the song "Walking in Memphis" by Marc Cohn. Memphis is a city that carries with it a lot of expectations. People expect to hear the blues on every street, to see Elvis on every corner, and to chow down on ribs every week. Those expectations do not often get let down.

We settled in at the "Sleep Inn," located at Court Square right off of Main Street.

Nashville

4/4/2002
Dominick A. Miserandino
Searching for a unique American Cultural identity? Our writer finds it within the city limits of Nashville.

I remember getting in an argument in college with a friend of mine who prided himself on having lived in almost every country that made up the G7. By the time Sven reached college he had lived in almost a dozen countries and he would constantly argue that America had no culture of it's own, no heritage. America was simply the conglomeration of other cultures and lacked an identity.

Then I went to Nashville.

When I got off the plane, I was reminded by our friend Staci, who picked us up, that Nashville is a cultural center. In fact, it's called the Athens of the South.

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