The Pothole Lady: She's on a mission to cure Memphis' 'Pothole Blues' and make you smile

Sybil Presley, the self-styled “Pothole Lady,” does not own a car.

All the same, she believes the frustrations — and bruises — of a pothole-tossed passenger are no less legitimate than those of a pothole-dodging driver.

“When my friends pick me up, we’re always bouncing over potholes,” she said. “A friend of mine, she lives over behind Graceland, she drove over a pothole and had to buy two new tires. A lot of people are really stressed out by potholes.”

How to channel or exploit or express this stress? For Presley, 76, a longtime Memphis gadfly, eccentric, comedienne and self-identified "Tennessee Ham," the solution was evident.

Dressed in what she calls her "little Minnie Pearl outfit," Presley attended the April 9 meeting of the Memphis City Council at City Hall, where she introduced her latest character, "The Pothole Lady," who announced the formation of a pothole support group, to meet for the purpose of "pothole fellowship" (“the fun part is to adopt a pothole in your neighborhood and give it a name,” she said), and debuted an original song, “The Pothole Blues.”

“Memphis, there’s potholes everywhere/ When you go out ridin’/ You better bring a spare…”

Presley's performance earned television news coverage and follow-up feature stories, as well as applause from some of the assembled dignitaries. City Council chair JB Smiley Jr. shared a video of the Pothole Lady, which earned praise on his social media accounts.

Presley wasn't surprised at her reception. "Those meetings usually are boring as heck," she said.

Smiley said Presley's song was "meant to be entertaining, but it also illuminates an issue that many cities have to deal with." In fact, Memphis Mayor Paul Young's proposed $880 million budget includes $25 million for infrastructure improvements, to reduce blight and to accelerate the city's already robust Public Works pothole-repair schedule.

Smiley said the citizens who address the City Council during the public comments portion of meetings “usually do not express themselves in a manner that I would call ‘civil,’ so the Council appreciated Sybil Presley's unique approach. We would all take 'humorous' over 'angry.'"

MEMPHIS HISTORY: A look inside the Mid-South Coliseum: Arena holds mix of mold, memories and possibility?

Presley is nothing if not humorous. A "lifetime waitress" who has poured coffee and toted vittles at such eateries as the Blue Plate Cafe, Johnny Rockets and Peggy's Heavenly Home Cooking, Presley used jokes to earn tips while also creating such characters as "The Elvis Lady" and "Scarlett Magnolia Parsley," for shows in comedy clubs, senior centers and elsewhere, sometimes in coordination with "The Stress Busters," a volunteer performance troupe.

"I'm available as any of these characters for commercial, movies and personal appearances," she said, hopefully.

In fact, Presley has appeared in local music videos and in small roles in made-in-Memphis movies. She's also published books of comic poems ("As the Table Turns: Through the Eyes of a Southern Waitress"); and she led the push to get January recognized as "Be Kind to Food Servers Month" in Chase's Calendar of Events, the definitive guide to honorary holidays. "I'm a walking networker," she said.

Whatever she is, Presley has staked a claim in the colorful landscape of the Memphis eccentric, a vast territory inhabited by a variety of self-invented characters across a wide spectrum of success, celebrity and sincerity, from Sputnik Monroe to "the Bongo Lady," from National Civil Rights Museum protester Jacqueline Smith to Prince Mongo of the Planet Zambodia, from folk artist Joe Light to the Baffling Mr. Baker, the magician with the kung fu grip. (And we haven't even mentioned any musicians...)

"I just lead an interesting life, and I try to cheer people up with a smile," Presley said.

Presley’s niece, Jenny Hill, seconded that emotion. “I’ve been her biggest fan since the day that I met her," said Hill, 60, who lives in Mobile, Alabama. "I told her, ‘Your purpose in life is to make people smile,’ and she’s been accomplishing that as long as I’ve known her.”

Born Sybil Marie Allen in Mobile (an appropriate city name for someone now obsessed with potholes), Sybil was living in Nashville when she married a man who legally changed his name to Elvis Aaron Presley Jr. The couple divorced but Sibyl kept the Presley name, and in 1992 relocated to the original Presley's Memphis hometown.

INSPIRING STORIES: Once broken 'from head to toe' this Memphis businesswoman is now a Playboy cover model

Presley says the late Tiny Tim — the falsetto-voiced old-time song stylist whose "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" was a 1968 novelty hit — was a mentor who demonstrated how to build a career with fanciful clothes and a whimsical persona.

Presley met Tim in Nashville, “then I went up to New York City to visit him and I stayed for a year and a half. I was his dancing girl in some of his shows. While I was in New York City they were filming (director Milos Forman’s adaptation of) ‘Hair’ in Central Park, and I played a hippie girl, and that gave me the acting bug.”

Now, that bug gets its buzz via the Pothole Lady. Said Presley: "I'm just bringing people together through potholes."

To this end, she recently performed a set of what she calls "pothole comedy" at an open-mic night at the Slice of Soul Pizza Lounge and launched a Pothole Lady Facebook page. For a photo shoot for The Commercial Appeal, she carried a pothole sign she created on poster board bought at a discount store. However, her hat, she hastened to add, was from a thrift store, because "you don't find a hat like that at the Dollar Tree."

Because Presley doesn't own a car, she caught a ride to the photo shoot with the reporter writing this story. The intention was to find an appallingly photogenic pothole to appear in the picture alongside the Pothole Lady, but a new truism soon revealed itself: "You can never find a pothole when you need one," Presley said.

But, for now, she's glad potholes have found her.

Said Presley: "The pothole thing has really taken off, so that's top priority." In fact, she said, "I'm right in the middle of writing another book, called 'The Potholes of Life.' Potholes of depressions. Potholes of this and that. I provide inspiration about how to fill the potholes of life."

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Who is Memphis' Pothole Lady? Meet the woman with 'The Pothole Blues'