I'm going to Graceland on Tuesday! I cannot wait. The itinerary for my trip with my mom is: Roanoke, Memphis, then New Orleans. In New Orleans we will spend probably two days on camping chairs and air mattresses, then all the furniture (and zillions of photos and knick knacks) arrive. Look for a future picture blog of my 10 day trip, sometime after I come home.
I am taking the following books for the trip: Dover Thrift Edition Selected Walt Whitman, my brand-new-to-me If Not Metaporphic by Brenda Iijima, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Opening of the Field and Real Simple magazine. I started a new notebook today, so I'll be bringing that.
I'm excited to travel through America on her 234th birthday! I really do love this country. Patriotism is not a conservative value! This is the land of John Wieners, Emily Dickinson, Sweet Potato Pie, Mad Men, Rothko, Maine Microbrews, baseball and ELVIS. How can you not love it? (While still hating fat cat oil business, McDonalds, Real Housewives of New Jersey, beef jerky, the KKK, the Modern Day Teabaggers and pragmaticism over bold reform...)
Here's a song from my fellow July 14th Birthday Baby, Woodie Guthrie (70 years apart though).
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
words and music by Woody GuthrieChorus:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me
As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me
Chorus
I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me
Chorus
The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me
Chorus
As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!
Chorus
In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.
Chorus (2x)
©1956 (renewed 1984), 1958 (renewed 1986) and 1970 TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc. (
BMI)