Next, I head up the street to the Peabody Hotel, the nicest digs in
town. It's here that the famed duck march takes place every day at
11 a.m. and 5 p.m. This silly tradition began in the 1930s and is
still quite a spectacle. It revolves around hordes of folks lining
up around the lobby's central fountain, martinis in hand, to watch
as five of the cutest mallard ducks you've ever seen swim up out of
the fountain and march along a red carpet into a nearby elevator.
Don't ask.
Watching adorable ducks waddle through expensive hotels does
nothing to spoil my appetite for dinner, incidentally. After last
night's ode to pig, I make a beeline for Gus's World Famous Hot
& Spicy Fried Chicken. I don't want to hear anything about your
grandma or the Colonel. Save it. Gus's chicken is undeniably the
best fried bird you'll ever eat. "I don't even know," says night
manager Scott Ramboin, when I ask him what the secret is. "They
just tell me how to cook it, not how to make it."
I douse my three-piece white-meat plate ($7.80) in hot sauce and
devour this
heart attack on a platter like a contestant on
Survivor. It's so good, despite scorching the roof of my mouth, I
continue on undeterred. Then I realize, I too am a survivor.
I stumble back to the Sleep Inn, dizzy from a cholesterol-induced
food
coma, having survived a budget weekend in
Memphis with enough
spare change to upgrade to the MATA airport shuttle ($12) the next
morning and still have 86 cents worth of jingle in my step.
Now if I could just bring the
Chicago Cubs a World Series and put
Bob Knight back in charge of the
Indiana Hoosiers, my father could
rest easy. Pretzels, anyone?
sean mccormick is a dallas-based photographer. his images
have appeared in publications such as
fortune small business,
parents, and
men's health.