Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Tag: Memphis

  • What the Cove?

    What does someone call a short street with only a single outlet to a larger street? I wondered because I found different terms that varied geographically. There seemed to be a cultural dimension to it as well. Certain suffixes seemed to be more prevalent in the United Kingdom and others in the United States, with…

  • Skewed Perspective

    There was a time in the early days of Twelve Mile Circle when I used to devote entire articles to differences in distances that didn’t seem plausible, although of course the actual measurements didn’t lie. For example, sticking with the Twelve theme, the twelfth article I ever posted on 12MC all the way back in…

  • Riverboat Adventure, Part 6 (Signs)

    I thought I’d focus the final installment of the Riverboat Adventure on something a little more whimsical. Sometimes I have trouble remembering facts for a given place so I take photographs of informational signs. Usually this happens at historical sites. Sometimes signs provide greater explanation or context than what’s available on Internet pages. They serve…

  • Riverboat Adventure, Part 5 (Americana)

    One of the reasons I enjoyed the various marathon series offered by Mainly Marathons — other than the fact that I didn’t have to run them — was that they provided an opportunity to see parts of the country not normally experienced by casual tourists. I’ve done this twice now, first with the Dustbowl Series…

  • Riverboat Adventure, Part 1 (The River)

    12MC is back! Thank you for bearing with me while I took a brief respite from posting new articles. There were logistical reasons. Each race in the five state series took much of the morning, then we’d have to drive to the next location (stopping at geo-oddity sites along the way), arrive late each afternoon,…

  • Named Like a Whole Other Country

    What if I said that I could drive from Atlanta to Detroit, or Cleveland to Santa Fe, or Miami to Memphis in an hour and a half? So how about driving from Jacksonville to Buffalo in an hour? No, I didn’t say fly, I said drive. My apologies in advance to the international audience that…

  • Move Along, Nothing to See Here

    The signs claimed “On this site in 1897 nothing happened.” It felt mildly amusing, maybe even a tiny bit clever the first time — the first time! — I saw one of their ilk several years ago. They mimicked the look-and-feel of genuine historical markers with faux cast iron, bold font, adorned with a couple…

  • The Cult of Elvis

    Oddly I’m not much of a fan of the music of Elvis Presley but I’m a huge fan of the Cult of Elvis. His staying power and continuing impact upon the cultural landscape long after his passage to the great beyond (assuming one believes he’s truly gone) simply cannot be denied. Let’s explore a few…