Ribs, Ducks and the Blues
January 15, 1986
The main thing I regret about my pilot logbook use is insufficient detail recorded in the "Remarks" section. I'm not really sure that the logbook entry shown here is the correct logbook entry for the trip my memory prompts me to write a story about. I think it is, but there's insufficient detail to completely support my memories of the trip. Only the "Rendevous" note exists to give me a hint.
Our company flew many trips to Memphis. The Memphis trip was usually a pretty boring routine run, and when they were RONs, we usually stayed at a boring airport hotel. So for one scheduled RON trip on which I was crewed I asked our scheduler to book us into a downtown hotel: the Peabody - a noted Memphis historic landmark.
The Peabody hotel is not only a Memphis landmark, it also is known for its curious tradition about ducks that parade into and out of the hotel lobby. So we got to witness the Peabody hotel duck parade (photo below). The Peabody is also very nearby to a famous rib joint - the Rendevous (located, appropriately, in a basement, with its entry off an alley), so we went out to eat that night at the smokey Rendevous and enjoyed some delicious Memphis-style slow-cooked ribs. And they do know how to do ribs in Memphis, no argument there, based on other flights and other rib joints at other destinations.
But the third special memory of this trip is that the hotel is located very near to Beale Street, and so the next morning I walked over there and up and down, and back and forth, to look around at a historic blues music landmark, and this was at a time when it was still just Beale street, and before it was remade into a major Memphis tourist attraction.
I'm sure every corporate pilot has many such memorable story moments that have nothing whatsoever to do with the flight itself.
11-27-2022
-------------------------------------------------------------------
References for Non-Pilots:
-------------------------------------------------------------------