Hunka hunka burnin’ blog.

This just in, from a press release I received this week: “Berkshire Mortgage Finance recently provided $17 million in FHA MAP financing for the rehabilitation of Uptown Square Apartments, formerly known as Lauderdale Courts. Built in 1936, the subject property of 443 units is currently a boarded-up public housing garden-style apartment complex.

“The City of Memphis has drawn up an exciting master plan to revitalize the Uptown Memphis area, part of which includes the substantial renovation of Uptown Square. Uptown Square is strategically located in the central business district surrounding St Jude’s Children’s Hospital, and because the property includes a former apartment residence of rock and roll legend Elvis Presley, it is eligible for historic tax credits.”

Is there no sphere of human activity that the King does not touch? Music, pop culture, fashion, and now tax policy.

To continue through south-central Indiana: After we’d taken the tour of Columbus, Indiana, and eaten lunch, there was one more place I wanted to go, Nashville. Not the Tennessee city I used to live in, but a small town west on Indiana 46. It once had a reputation as an art colony, so first we make a fruitless attempt to see the T.C. Steele State Historic Site just outside of town. Steele was a muralist who lived in the wooded hills around Nashville, Indiana; but his home and studio were “closed for the season” according to a sign in front. Back in Nashville proper, we spent a while looking around the welter of junk… I mean arts-and-crafts shops on the main street, which feed off the town’s heritage as an art colony.

It reminded me of two other spots we’d seen in the last few years, Bailey’s Harbor in Door County, Wisconsin, and Amana, Iowa — lots o’ shops, lots o’ people tramping through. There was one shop in Nashville that we liked more than the others, however, just a bit off of the main street, and we bought an inexpensive watercolor there. It illustrated the town of Story, Indiana, some miles south of Nashville.

The man behind the counter, burly, tattooed, graying and about 50, told me that Story was worth seeing, very rustic, and that the drive there was hilly, not very Midwestern at all. Then he said, “Thanks for buying my painting. I did that one.” And indeed, his mugshot and a short bio were pasted on the back.

But we didn’t go to Story, because the sun was about to abandon us for the day, and we wanted to eat. We did pass through two towns whose names I liked during this part of the trip: Gnawbone and Beanblossom, not too many miles from each other. I'm always up for interesting town names.

The next day, a Sunday, we returned home to the western suburbs of Chicago in a more or less direct way, stopping for a picnic lunch at a large city park, Eagle Creek Park, in the northwest corner of Indianapolis. The grounds were very damp and at places seriously muddy. At one point Lilly lodged her foot so firmly in the mud that I, heeding tearful cries, had to help extract her. We took a stroll around body of water in the park called “Lilly Lake,” a name that of course pleased us, but actually it didn’t rise to the dignity of being a lake, but was more like a big pond. I figure it has something to do with the Lilly pharmaceutical empire, headquartered in Indy.

Been blogging a week about Indiana — who would have thought the state could be the source of so much material? But it only goes to show that you can find something to see almost anywhere.