I'm glad to see you had such a good time in TN. Nashville is one of my favorite cities. I used to live there and have been trying to get back for the last couple years.
As far as Memphis goes, I'd have to agree with the no one lives in Memphis by choice thing. Although, Ive never heard anyone actually say those words out loud. My dad works in Memphis, but lives an hour away and drives in everyday. This is pretty common. Memphis has a lot of problems left over from desegregation, bad schools, corruption, poverty, limited public services, etc. If you really look around the city, not just the tourist areas, you will notice a lot of unofficial segregation going on and tension between the races. You have to be really careful where you go in the city. It actually makes me nervous to think of you guys going to the mall in Memphis. There is only one Memphis mall I feel safe visiting, and as it is on the East side of town, I doubt it was the one you went to. I've never felt especially safe in Memphis, and most of the city does seem dirty and run down to me. Memphis also has one of the highest crime rates in the US. I will go around the city alone, but only because I have years of learning my way around, and where not to go. It's not a horrible city, but I wouldn't live there, and I'm extra careful about where I go when I am there.
Now as to the ducks, aren't they just so cute? Did you make it up to the roof to see their pent house? That is always part of the fun for me.
Also, for anyone visiting Memphis in the future, if you take the bridge down by Mud Island across to the residential part of the island, there are some parks and boat docks. You can actually walk down to the waters edge and put your feet in. Then you can say you've actually been in the Mississippi, not just seen it. We let the kids do this one trip, and they got a big thrill out it. We had a picnic there afterwards and watched the barges float by.
I'm glad you enjoyed Corkey's, probably more people who live in Memphis have eaten there than at Rendezvous which is more a tourist or business lunch place. Corkey's is a pretty well known chain and not confined to Memphis, but in other southern areas as well. It's the McDonalds of BBQ for this area. I've never been particularly fond of it, but I know a lot of people who love it. I'm just too much of a Texas brisket girl to give in to the whole pig with slaw on top they try to pass off as BBQ around here.
I'm excited to here about your upcoming trip to New Orleans as I lived there a few years ago before I moved to Nashville, and thought it was a lot of fun.
Thanks for reading along and for your detailed comments! I read your thoughts on Memphis with great interest. As we were driving around, ti was hard to tell whether or not we were biased because of what the locals had told us or whether it was truly run down. I'm glad I didn't know about the "unsafe" malls before we went! Although we were only there for a short time and we stayed pretty much mostly within Best Buys and Target. I know I know...don't laugh. Being New Years day, it was pretty much deserted. 
