283: I’LL KEEP A-KNOCKIN’ ON POLK’S DOOR & SLIPPIN’ AND SLIDIN’ ON HIS FOUNTAIN

Following a 47-mile drive from Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage, Tom, Vicki, and I rolled into Columbia, Tennessee at roughly 1:45pm on April 19, 2024. It had been nearly ten years since I last visited the self-proclaimed ‘mule capital of the world’, and it seemed great to be back where I’d likely make an ass of myself once again. But that was okay, because I believe in the old adage: ‘When in Rome…’

While I wasn’t in town to pay homage to Eeyore or Francis the Talking Mule, the three of us were there to visit the ancestral home of President James K. Polk. After Vicki found a place to park our Jeep alongside the historic site, Tom carried me to several locations around the exterior of the Polk home where I posed for a handful of photos. At one point, just before we made our way to the Visitor Center, Tom placed me in President Polk’s fountain that was once located on the grounds of his historic mansion, Polk Place, in Nashville. As I stood balanced halfway up the fountain, waiting to fall to my death, I felt the cold shower of water as it pummeled my head and body. I wanted to shout out loud, “Good Golly, Miss Molly – that water’s cold!” For five minutes, while my idiotic photographer took pictures and laughed at my dilemma, I got drenched from head to base. And to add insult to injury, I was experiencing a severe case of shrinkage as well.

After Tom dried me with one of his lens cleaners, the three of us went inside the Visitor Center, which was a historic home in its own right. Not only was the home built by the President’s father, Samuel Polk, but he built it for Jane Maria Polk Walker, the President’s oldest sister. After she gave birth to her eleventh child, Jane moved to a larger home and her sister Ophelia Polk Hayes moved in.

Inside the Visitor Center, Tom paid the entry fee (which had doubled in the past decade) and we met our tour guide – a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic college kid named Eli Cadle. After we watched a short film about Polk’s life, Eli began to lead us next door to the Polk ancestral home when his fellow staff member, a guy named Jim Moore, started asking questions about me. Jim said he noticed my photographer taking pictures of me all around the exterior of the Polk house and he was very inquisitive about what he had witnessed. After Tom recited his usual spiel about our blog and told him what we’ve done since 2013, Jim smiled and said, “That’s amazing, my wife does the same thing. She has a James K. Polk bobble head and takes it all around to Presidential sites. I can’t wait to tell her about you – she’s not going to believe it.” My photographer fired back, “She probably already knows about me and my bobble head because she’s copying what we do. But that’s cool – imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Maybe someday our two bobble heads will cross paths at a Presidential site.” During that verbal exchange, I laughed to myself, shook my head in disbelief, and thought, “His wife’s bobble head has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to follow in my footsteps. Even though I’m a huge fan of Polk, I’m still the most famous bobble head in the world!”

Once we made the short walk down the sidewalk, Eli opened the front door of the Polk home, and we entered the only surviving residence associated with our eleventh President besides the White House. The two-story, L-shaped brick structure was built by Samuel Polk in 1816 for him and his family, which included his twenty-year-old son James. The future President resided in the home periodically for six years until he left in 1824 to study law in Nashville. When Samuel Polk died in 1827, James became the owner of the house – although his mother, Jane, resided there until her death in 1852.

President Polk’s last visit to the home came in April 1849 when James and his wife Sarah had returned to Tennessee following their triumphant tour of the Southern states after they left the White House. Polk spent two weeks visiting his mother in this house before he and Sarah moved into their new Nashville mansion called Polk Place. Less than two months after walking out of this home’s front door for the final time, President James K. Polk died from cholera at Polk Place on June 15, 1849.

Going into the tour, one might expect the home to feature furnishings owned by Samuel and Jane Polk, the President’s parents, because it was their house. But it turned out the home was a museum and contained the largest collection of President Polk artifacts anywhere. We saw furniture James and Sarah used in the White House. There were also items Polk had in his Columbia law office. And I saw things Sarah had kept during her long widowhood while living at Polk Place. Even though the three of us were walking where James Knox Polk lived as a young adult, this home was an amazing memorial to our eleventh President.

During the thirty minutes we were inside the Polk home, James and Sarah came to life before our eyes. We were surrounded by items the couple had personally used, sat on, and slept on. And even though Eli was very apprehensive to allow me to pose on a few of the furnishings, he relaxed a bit after Tom explained I had done the same thing during our first visit in 2014. I think the kid was shamed into changing his tune when my photographer said it was an elderly lady who had first allowed me to stand on the Egyptian marble table from the White House.

There were two artifacts in particular my photographer saw ten years earlier and was anxious to see again during this visit – the President’s smoking jacket, and the Bible used during his inauguration. When we didn’t see either during our tour, Eli said both were in storage and will be featured in the newly renovated museum, located in the Visitor Center, when it reopens in a few weeks. Even though that news was a disappointment, I smiled to myself because I knew at some point in the near future we’d be returning to Columbia – and hopefully with our faithful travel companion Bob Moldenhauer.

Back outside, we parted ways with Eli as we began a self-guided tour which first took the three of us into the reconstructed detached kitchen building, which was located in the original kitchen’s footprint behind the Polk home. Then, my companions and I took a stroll through the beautifully landscaped garden behind the Sister’s House. Thankfully, Tom didn’t insist on me standing in the fountain again.

As I stood in the garden and looked at the two houses in front of me, I envisioned a twenty-something James K. Polk as he walked the same grounds and gazed at the same buildings. Polk had just graduated from the University of North Carolina and was looking to get his feet wet in the field of law as an apprentice in Nashville. The future President was luckier than me – he got his feet wet in Nashville, and I got mine wet in the Polk Place fountain.

In the early 1820s, Columbia was on the edge of the wild Tennessee frontier and life was anything but easy. Although the future President’s six-plus years living in that house may have seemed hectic at times for the young adult, it helped shape him into the strong leader he became. As a matter of fact, while he was still living with his mom, dad, and his siblings in the house I had just toured, Polk was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives. A short time later, James met and courted Sarah Childress – whom he married on January 1, 1824 at the plantation home of the bride’s parents near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Nothing could stop James K. Polk – he was a star on the rise. It also didn’t hurt his budding career when he formed an alliance and friendship with fellow Tennessean Andrew Jackson. Later on, Polk was dubbed ‘Young Hickory’ due to his relationship with Jackson. That nugget of trivia forced me to quote the great Clark W. Griswold when he said, “Ah, it’s nothing to be proud of, Rusty.”

Back in the Jeep after Tom had bid a final farewell to Eli and Jim at the Visitor Center, I thought we were finished for the day and on the search for a hotel in northern Alabama. “Oh contraire, Moose Face”. My photographer had one more surprise up his sleeve – he wanted to pay a visit to nearby Greenwood Cemetery where Polk’s parents were buried. At first, I couldn’t understand why we needed to see the graves of Samuel and Jane Polk. But when I heard Tom tell his wife that James likely stood at the grave of his dad after the funeral and visited the gravesite whenever he was in Columbia, it made a lot of sense to me. The Polk Family Plot in Greenwood Cemetery was a Presidential site.

Greenwood Cemetery was located less than a half-mile north of the Polk House and Vicki had the Jeep parked near the North Main Street entrance within five minutes. As Tom carried me into the 215-year-old burial ground, I was happy it wasn’t quite four o’clock in the afternoon yet. I couldn’t imagine walking among the ancient headstones in the darkness of night; especially near some of the sarcophagi which appeared to have been broken open. In the distance, not too far from where we entered the grounds, we saw the iron fence which surrounded the Polk Family Plot. It turned out that not only were the President’s parents buried within that fence, but so were seven of his nine siblings as well.

Luckily for my photographer, the gate to the enclosed plot was unlocked. Tom carried me to a row of granite sarcophagi near the western edge of the plot where we were able to identify the final resting place of Jane Polk. The identification of the badly worn tomb was made easy because there had been a historic plaque affixed to her burial box. The President’s mother, who died on January 11, 1852, outlived her famous son by nearly three years. As a matter of fact, Polk was the first of three Presidents who did not outlive his mother. James Garfield and John Kennedy were the other two.

The focal point of our visit, however, was the sarcophagus located next to Jane’s; and that was the final resting place of Samuel Polk – the President’s father. Samuel, a surveyor and prosperous farmer who owned roughly 50 slaves during his lifetime, died on December 3, 1827 when his son was a member of the United States House of Representatives. When Tom carefully placed me on top of the nearly 200-year-old granite tomb, the etched lettering on the sarcophagus was badly worn, stained, and very difficult to read. The only part of the epitaph I could decipher was, ‘In Memory, Major Samuel Polk’. As Tom photographed me from several different vantage points within the plot, it was as though I could see the Congressman standing alongside the grave as mourned his father’s death. I also wondered whether or not the former President had visited Greenwood Cemetery during his final visit to Columbia in April 1849.

We had been in Columbia, Tennessee for a little over two hours and it was time to head for Huntsville, Alabama. But first, my two companions wanted to take a trip down memory lane – at least according to the annoying television commercial sponsored by Wendy’s. As we headed south out of town, Vicki pulled into the first Wendy’s burger joint she saw, and I watched as she and Tom enjoyed their first-ever Orange Dreamsickle Frosty. Funny thing was, I didn’t know they sold Dreamsickles on Memory Lane. I did realize, however, I watch way too much television.

The 80-mile ride from Columbia into northern Alabama was rather boring, and to make matters worse, it sprinkled most of the way. I heard my photographer tell his wife we would head straight for the hotel if it was raining when we got to Huntsville. But when the skies cleared as we approached town, Tom set his GPS for a new destination – Oakwood Memorial Gardens cemetery.

I scratched my painted, resin-based head – I knew there weren’t any Presidents buried in Alabama. Then, when I heard my photographer tell his wife we were headed to the gravesite of one of the most famous and electrifying piano-playing showmen in Rock and Roll history, I was stunned. I didn’t realize Elton John had passed away. Perhaps someone shot him because he was only the piano player.

Just as the song ‘Funeral for a Friend’ ran through my hollow mind, we had made our way from the parked Jeep towards a set of three giant crosses. Once there, we ended up at a small headstone that was surrounded by an array of floral arrangements and other mementos. When Tom set me down on the small, gray granite tombstone, I saw the name that was etched into the face of the marker. It was Richard Wayne Penniman – who was more famously known by his stage name ‘Little Richard’.

The first thing that popped into my mind was “A wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom!” That’s due to the fact Little Richard was one of the founding fathers of Rock and Roll, and his energetic, ground-breaking style earned him his rightful place alongside some of rock music’s legends when he was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 1986. Some of the other artists who were included in the inaugural class were Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, James Brown, Fats Domino, Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Sam Cooke, the Everly Brothers, and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Even though Little Richard had passed away at his home in Tullahoma, Tennessee on May 9, 2020 from issues related to bone cancer, the 87-year-old rock star was laid to rest roughly sixty miles to the south in Huntsville. It turned out after Little Richard had recorded and released a string of huge hits in 1956, he enrolled at Oakwood College in Huntsville where he began to study theology in 1957. Even though he dropped out of college before he graduated, the controversial recording star was buried at Oakwood Memorial Gardens, located on the campus grounds where he studied to become a preacher.

It was an honor for me to stand on the grave of Little Richard where I paid my personal homage to a true Rock and Roll pioneer. During those ten minutes, my head bobbed to the beat of ‘Tutti Frutti’ as Tom used his phone to play the 1955 song that helped shape the sound of Rock and Roll. As a matter of fact, ‘Tutti Frutti’ was listed by a popular UK magazine as the number one song in the ‘Top 100 Records That Changed the World’.

As I was still singing ‘Tutti frutti, oh rootie. Tutti frutti, oh rootie. A wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom”, Tom began to carry me back to our Jeep. That was the moment the two of us noticed a most unusual coincidence – a majority of the death dates on the headstones we walked past were between Spring 2020 and Summer 2021. Then it dawned on me of what could have caused such a massive number of deaths within such a short period of time – Covid-19. And even though the cause of Little Richard’s death was listed as “causes related to bone cancer”, it made me wonder if the 87-year-old singer had contracted Covid and never recovered. Oh, I realize there were a vast number of Americans, most of whom were disciples of Donald Trump, who truly believed Covid was no different than the flu and our government overreacted beginning in 2021. One recording legend in particular, who was a Republican contributor over the years and admired President Trump, said in August 2021, “I hug people in the middle of COVID. I understood stopping life for a little while, but they cannot continue to stop life because of politics. If I die, I die, but I’m not going to be controlled.” Rock star Meat Loaf passed away from complications due to Covid on January 20, 2022 at the age of 74. Ironically, and unfortunately, Meat Loaf’s death came roughly six months after the larger-than-life singer publicly headed the warnings. In my resin mind, the rock star was killed by former President Trump – and the end came exactly one year after Trump left office kicking and screaming.

Exhausted from a long day that began at the Hermitage over nine hours earlier, the three of us arrived in the parking lot of the Fairfield Inn – which was located less than five miles from the cemetery. While Vicki registered at the front desk, Tom unloaded their belongings onto a luggage cart for the short trip to our room.

For dinner, my photographer and his wife opted to get take-out from the nearby Panda Express. Their reasoning was the service in their room, which would be carried out by the two of them, would sure in the heck fire be better than what Jeremy had provided at the Cracker Barrel outside of Nashville the night before. But after I saw Tom spill some of his orange chicken on his bedspread, I questioned his competence as a server.

For the remainder of the night, my photographer and I watched a Billy Joel concert on television. Just before Tom killed the lights at nine o’clock, we heard the Piano Man as he performed ‘Only the Good Die Young’. From my usual position alongside the TV, that song resonated in my mind as I thought about some of the Presidents who died young. As a matter of fact, the four youngest Presidents to pass away were some of my favorites and some of our nation’s best. John F. Kennedy was the youngest at 46 years old; James Garfield was 49 when he died; James K. Polk died at age 53; and Abraham Lincoln was only 56 when he was shot and killed.

If Joe Biden wins the 2024 election, he’ll be 82 years old when he’s inaugurated. Donald Trump will turn 78 on June 14th and is no spring chicken either. When I think about the way both old men had led the nation as President, I’m convinced Billy Joel was absolutely correct. Only the good die young!