Preparing the Way
by Melanie Hemry
On April 4, 1968, 25-year-old Barry Tubbs left the headquarters of the wholesale paper company in an industrial area of Memphis, Tenn., where he was training for a new job. A warm breeze ruffled his hair as he climbed into his 1961 white Lincoln Continental.
After work, Barry and some of the guys met at a beer joint for drinks and to play shuffleboard. It was a dump in a bad part of town, but the beer was cold and the music loud. Barry parked his Lincoln across the street from the bar where a Budweiser® sign sagged in the window. On the second floor, above the bar, was a weary-looking flophouse with a bathroom at the end of the hallway, with a view of the Lorraine Motel behind it.
Barry stepped inside the bar, blinking against the dim light. One of his buddies fed coins into the jukebox, and strains of The Beatles singing “Hey Jude” made the seedy place seem a little more uptown.
Barry started a tab, then joined one of his friends in a game of shuffleboard.
Memphis seemed a lifetime away from the small town of Marked Tree, Ark., where he was born. He lived there with his grandmother after his dad had been deployed in World War II. To make ends meet, his mother had moved to Memphis to work. Following his dad’s death at Normandy, Barry had remained with his grandmother in Marked Tree. When he was 7, his mother remarried, leaving him with his grandmother. The two lived in a shack next to the railroad track, with no telephone, television or indoor plumbing.
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