THE REST OF THE STORY (The sequence is from the bottom up, beginning with Longing to Be There, to Outrage, to Pipps Motel, to here.)

        While I was in Memphis, researching for the new book, I wandered into Abram Schwabb's Drygoods store.  It has been on Beale Street for 135 years, and I have written and sold many features on the place, it's museum basement, and Abram himself.  I assume he is now gone.
         I found, in the store, marvelous hats -- a striped Nemo, an alligator, and a fantastic purple octopus whose legs dangled all around me.  I felt a kinship with this hat -- I'm often running in eight directions at once.  I bought the three, and we went up the hill to the trolley stop and hopped on.  Later, I realized I didn't have the Schwabb's bag.  I called the trolley station that day and the next -- no hats turned in, of course.  If I'd found them, I'd have kept them too.
        I called the store, and a lovely lady went to see if they had more, but we were disconnected.  When I called back, she was nearly in tears -- "Honey, I could not call you back!" --she had three identical hats in a bag at the counter, waiting on me.  I hotfooted it to Beale and bought a new set, and we were off to Pig's for their famous barbecue.  I held my purse and the paper bag full of hats, rolled up, in my lap.  As we were eating, I heard a thunk and looked all around.  Nothing.
       Back at the hotel, I saw that I no longer had my phone.  Husband was frantic -- better call Verizon, cancel this and that.  I waited.  Sure enough, a call came on his phone (my first emergency number listed) "Did you lose a phone?  It's at the bar, at The Pig."
      Once more I hotfooted it down to Beale -- 5 blocks downhill from our hotel -- and back.
      Remember Pipps Motel? (scroll down).  Two days later we left Pipps, searching the room and shaking out the bedding, and headed toward home, stopping for the night in Van Buren, Arkansas, where I realized I no longer had my daughter's Kindle with me.  Oh, God, help me.   From that motel, I called Pipps, and the 93-year-old lady who had registered us through the mail slot in her porch door (among the tires and washers) answered.
      I said, "This is Carolyn Wall.  We stayed last night in Room 4, and I think I left something there."
      "You sure did," she said.  "The maid found it under the bed.  It's this thing...."  She would mail it.
      The Kindle arrived today, still clicked on the page I was reading.
      I owe so many thank-you notes, and copies of my book in appreciation, I had to make a list. 
      Where is my head?  What town is this? 
      Somebody tell me -- what's my name?