Attractions

Tune in to see actor Jeff Daniels as a Buckless Yooper. In addition, learn about a professional baseball team’s mascot called Mr. Celery, and the Museum of Funeral Customs that has one focus — death.

Business

Ever drink an okra martini or lather up with a luxury soap named after the lowly boll weevil? Need live crickets – fast? Click here to find out more about these and other businesses that offer unusual products and services!

Dining

Pass the napkins, please. You can get a fried double bologna burger, or try a pig sandwich, green chili slopper or coffee potato ice cream. Wash everything down with a white birch beer from the Hall of Foam.

Oddities

Time out: A Division I college football game actually had a final score of 222-0. Also, somebody had to invent Mother’s Day, and a city called Skullbone got its name from hosting bare-knuckle boxing matches.

Festivals

What’s that smell? Be sure to attend a celebration that features outhouse races, then bring a breath mint to the annual Garlic Festival. In addition, applaud the lucky and deserving winner of the Slug Queen Pageant.

An Unsolved Mystery
There’s a ruckus being raised in Hohenwald, Tenn., over the cause of death of famed explorer Meriwether Lewis.

In 2004, Americans will celebrate the 200th year since Meriwether Lewis and William Clark first set out to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. In the midst of the party, however, will be people who still seek answers about Lewis’ "life after expedition."

After his return to civilian life, a despondent Lewis wrote his will on Sept. 11, 1809, leaving everything he had to his mother. Soon after, he was traveling the Natchez Trace en route to Washington, D.C. He lodged for the night at Grinder’s Inn, near Hohenwald, Tenn., where, around 3 a.m., two pistol shots were heard, and Lewis was found mortally wounded. He was buried nearby on what is now National Park Service land near milepost 386 on the Natchez Trace Parkway.

Lewis had tried to commit suicide twice before. He was depressed, drinking heavily and medicating himself nightly for malaria with opium. Lewis’ two closest friends, William Clark and Thomas Jefferson, never questioned the report that he committed suicide. There was no investigation.

In 1998, James Starrs, professor of law and forensic sciences at George Washington University, requested permission to exhume Lewis’ body to determine whether Lewis was murdered or committed suicide. His request was denied.

Sen. Frank Murkowski of Alaska wants the Park Service to reconsider, because he thinks Starrs has the technology available to answer questions about Lewis’ death.

David Barna, chief of public affairs for the National Park Service in Washington, D.C., disagrees. "The Park Service is supposed to preserve these [grave] sites unimpaired for future generations," Barna said. "I have probably 10 pages of letters to the director over the last couple of years from noted historians Steven Ambrose, James Ronda from the University of Tulsa and others – basically telling us, and agreeing with our own historian’s evaluation, that there is no compelling reason to exhume Mr. Lewis." Meanwhile, the monument at Lewis’ gravesite near Hohenwald has been restored in preparation for the 2004 celebration.