“Dad, can I change it?”

Adam, a gangly 13-year-old with braces, all skin and bones and pubescent curiosity, gives his father a sideways glance. They’re heading south on US-78 from Memphis to Ole Miss for a football game. He’s itching to fiddle with the Sirius XM app on the dashboard screen, which is to the “Venus” channel. Fetty Wap is wailing a remix of ‘My Way’ with Drake.

“Change it to what?” Scott asks. “Ozzie’s Boneyard?”

“Puhleeze!” A moan from the back seat, where 15-year-old Melody barely looks up from her iPad. “Not Ozzie’s Boneyard again. That’s so lame.”

Adam reaches for the touch screen, dabs it a few times, and turns up the volume as the throbbing sounds of Black Sabbath pulsate through the car.

“Ozzy’s cool. Do you know that he bit off the head of a live bat during one of his shows?”

Melody rolls her eyes and reaches over from the backseat to pull on Scott’s elbow.

“Daaad — please, make him stop. I hate this music. He can listen to it on his iPad with his earplugs on.”

“I used to listen to them all the time,” Scott grins.

“That’s where Adam got his perverted taste in music then!”

“What am I missing?” Their mother Wanda, riding shotgun, looks up from her Kindle. “What are you arguing about now?”

“Dad is letting Adam change the station to Heavy Metal.” 

“What would you like to hear?” Wanda asks her daughter.

“Anything but that.”

“Can you be more specific?” “Anything else.”

“Maybe Justin Bieber?” Adam mocks. “Or Bruno Mars? Iggy Azalea? Taylor Swift? Nicki Minaj? Ariana Grande?” He pronounces it Minaaaaash and Graaaan-day.

“And you think Heavy Metal is any better? Headbangers. Eighties’ stuff. So totally out.”

Scott looks tries to make eye contact with Wanda, who glances out of the window at the billboards flying by at the side of the Interstate. Even with iPhones and iPads and ear plugs, road trips never change.

“Are we about ready for a rest stop?” she asked Scott. “Already?”

“Might as well. We might be able to seize this as a teachable moment.” “Anything you say, luv. Where would you like to stop?”

“How about taking the Clarksville Exit?”

Adam and Melody shoot quizzing looks at their parents.

“You’ll see,” Wanda says with a secretive grin, and points at a billboard that keeps coming closer.

‘Dockery Plantation’, the sign reads. ‘Home of the Blues.’ 

“Will there be food?” The question comes out of both kids’ mouths simultaneously.

“Yes. Food for your stomach and food for your brain.”

“Like what?” The siblings roll their eyes in unison. 

“You’ll see.”

“What’s the Blues, anyway?” Adam asked.

“Old people’s music,” Melody says. “Even grandma has Blues CD’s. She played one the other day when some guy named B.B. King died.”

“The Blues is what started it all,” Scott says, instantly aware of Wanda’s intentions.

“It’s America’s root music. It’s part of our musical identity. Before modern day Blues, there were Son House and Charley Patton and Willie Smith and Robert Johnson and Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, and many others who paved the trail for them. Actually, the road we’re about to turn on is called ‘The Blues Trail.’

“So where are we going?” asked Adam.

“Dockery Plantation, the Home of the Blues”, Wanda announces.

“Are we going to a concert?” “No, we are going to a museum.”

There’s a moment of awkward silence as Scott pulls up and everyone peels out of the minivan.

An hour later, when they emerge from the dark museum into the bright sunshine, the kids’ incessant chatter is silent for the moment, their minds still occupied with processing the stark black-and-white images of a long gone, but still very present era of racial tensions, the struggle for civil rights, the unexpected head-on confrontation with African American culture in America.

The stroll through the museum took them back to a time that appeared as ancient as the last century to them, a time when there was no television, computers, or Internet. No CDs, MP3 players, iPhones, iPads, or thumb drives. No MTV, Spotify, Apple Music, Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. A time where schools were segregated, and blacks were seen as lower- class citizens who were enslaved to work as laborers and servants for the white upper class.

They learned that the Blues was brought to America by African slaves who used the chants as relief from the hardship of oppression, humiliation, and laboring in the cotton fields. Later, before the term cultural appropriation was coined, it was perpetuated by the likes of Elvis Presley, Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones, and even some contemporary favorites like Amy Winehouse and Sam Smith.

There was an uncharacteristic silence until Adam asked, “When are we getting to the intersection?”

“Soon.”

“What intersection?” Melody wants to know. 

“Didn’t you read about Robert Johnson?” 

“No.”

“Figures,” Adam retorts, only too happy to demonstrate his newfound knowledge.

“It said that Robert Johnson got to be the best blues player ever by making a pact with the devil. He disappeared for a few weeks and met the devil at the crossroads of Hwy. 61 and 49 South. After he made his pact with him, the devil gave him his guitar back and he became one of the greatest blues performers ever. He died at 27; they think he was poisoned. They say that the Blues was born at that crossroads.”

“Okay,” Melody yawns. “Can we turn Venus back on now?”