On the road: Find Americana in the deep South

Spring Break nowadays seems like every student's escape to some libido fantasyland with roaming college kids looking to ride their next ride, hoping to win their next stuffed doll.

Just watch MTV and you can get the picture live and hardcore. In much the same way nightly news anchors brought the Gulf War into our living rooms, veejays named "Electra," "Blade" or "Flame" expose college ballyhoo live on the bikini-filled, ego-littered sands of Daytona.

As the veejays provide color commentary, we are watching, thinking: "Oh Rod, you shouldn't have booted out your motel balcony on that poor girl. Oh no! Tell me it wasn't Isabel! Not Isabel! Not the chick from W&L! She's a Delta Gamma!" Makes you think twice about joining a sorority.

Spring Break encapsulates those very ideals we strive for: independence, abandon, sex. (Projectile vomit is optional). For those of you not able to "sun or ski" this break, you can live those characters' lives vicariously through the boob tube as it flashes the truth, as naked as it is hard to swallow, of collegiate male-female hysterics. But if you decide to venture from your carrel or couch, then here's an education you won't want to pass up.

Must we trudge down to Daytona to reinforce the ideals we own up to as students in college? For the genuine enthusiast, the week of reprieve poses a challenge: What can you do in ten days that isn't "sun or ski?" Dispense with the clichés and the circus of Blade, Flame and Co. and take your week to discover patches of Americana that can't really be televised via satellite with elegant journalists like Electra reporting live on location.

We can still go South for the warm weather, but to a different brand of South altogether. Here's a trip that requires you to plunge into the depths of the Midwest, then finally to pop out wildly into the South: from Scranton to Toledo to Memphis down to New Orleans.

A preview trip to its bigger brother across the state, Nashville serves as a good stopping point after driving 15 hours from Princeton. So wake up afresh the next morning and leave behind your Dave Matthews. Here, Hank Williams and Kenny Rogers are gods – don't dare try springing any of your boarding school anthems on these fellas. Check out the wax museums showcasing Hank and even his son, Hank, Jr., known as "Bocephus." Be sure to pick up a deck of Bocephus trading cards before hopping town to Memphis the next day.

For something more substantive, stop by the Lorraine Motel, the site where Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, now the National Civil Rights Museum.

Graceland may be a tired mecca for most folks these days, especially after last summer's nationwide pilgrimage to honor the 25th anniversary of the King's death.

But beyond the Elvis mansion brimming with impersonators, the real action takes place on Beale Street crowded with bars and street musicians.

Princetonians who actually hail from Memphis will tell you they rarely hung out there in high school. But now, as self-respecting collegiate minors armed with proper documentation to prove otherwise, we should take advantage of a bar scene steeped well in blues, rock and soul. For those of you still wanting to stroke your libido, that's fine; Marvin Gaye cover bands are ubiquitous.

A trip to the South demands hefty eaters – skinny, wide-bodied, it doesn't matter. So don't be afraid to get dirty and mushy. Go to Corky's Bar-B-Q for some mean baby-backs. But if you like to stick to one area, then spend your time on Beale St., and try dinner at B.B. King's.

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You won't have to pay a cover charge to get in once you've realized they have the best live bands on the street come midnight. Smoke some cigarettes, too. (Women, especially, will ask you for a "light" and it's such a thrill bending over with your Camel firmly in place and watching things heat up.)

Even though you spent one day in Nashville, you need to take a full two days in Memphis. There's much more than Beale Street. Check out the no longer operating Sun Records, chock full of memorabilia from the Elvis days.

There's also the Hotel Peabody, famous for its ducks swimming in the lobby fountains and for hosting Elvis' senior prom. (He ditched his date, by the way.)

Off to New Orleans. Welcome to a metropolitan version of Tiger Inn, the eating club well-known for late night debauchery and all kinds of fireworks. The French Quarter should serve you well in your pursuits in this cursory three-day approach. The only city to serve as an understatement for sin, the Quarter is a bevy of strip joints and other seedy establishments. (One's called Pleather and Pleasure.)

As far as food goes, try the beignets, doughnuts that you can find at Cafe du Monde. These French fried wonders put Krispy Kreme to shame. Try the po-boys at Frankie and Johnny's that are usually subs stacked with fried oysters and special sauce.

Check out The Gumbo Shop with its generous servings. If you plan on filling your stomach with extra Dixie Beer, then play it safe with an appetizer portion of the Chicken Gumbo in a Bread Bowl, simmering with zesty okra spice and a brownish, red broth that's thick and sloppy. You don't need butter to make this bread taste better.

Music-wise, avoid Pat O'Brien's, the well-advertised hot-spot. Pat's teems with forty-year old male tourists from Kansas City flaunting some half-interest in the New Orleans culture. Two pianists facing each other on the stage attempt to beef up the ambience by having sing-alongs with the crowd. Unless you like Elton John or Rod Stewart, don't stay too long. But, do try their Hurricanes that will set you back seven dollars. But you do get to keep your decorated cocktail glass that's sure to come in handy.

For those seeking something in the Quarter resembling any authenticity, go to Preservation Hall, a dingy and dusty bandroom where genuine New Orleans jazz flourishes. Sit back and relax – this is the real deal.

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, comprised of six or so players many in their upper seventies, perform classics and standards ranging from spirituals to gospel to hymns, including Duke Ellington's "When the Saints Go Marching In." Watching them play, you get the feeling you're not a tourist anymore. And that's a gratifying notion, especially after you've already forked over 50 bucks on Dixie beer, beignets, postcards, palm-readings and po-boys.

With about four days left to get back to school, lunge up to Tunica, Mississippi for some gambling. Then trek to Tennessee again and visit a quaint town called Bucksnort. And finally, spit yourself up to Kentucky, the Bluegrass state well-known for bourbon, tobacco and all sorts of herbal refreshments.

Sure to please the more aristocratic side of your personality, Bardstown, the bourbon capital of the world, is just an an hour south of Louisville. The small town is home to such fine distillers as Jim Beam, Maker's Mark and the perennial frat favorite, Heaven Hill. (No shame at all here.)

So there you have it. Just be sure to bring along three or so close friends because road trips are very long and this Southern Extravaganza, coarsing through the belly of the sweaty South, demands patience and compromise. A word on the car-music: dare to leave home your Jewel or Blues Traveler. Stop at a gas station for some cheap Elvis, Merle Haggard, Bocephus and Kenny Rogers.

This road trip ought to be as hedonistic as it should be educational – so long as you steer clear of guys named Rod or Blade.

Isabel's fine, though – just don't vomit gumbo on her head.

Save that behavior for Florida.