Greenwood to Tupelo

We left Greenwood early, knowing there would be a lot of interesting things to see along the way, so it was just midmorning when we finished our “The Help” tour here at the Tallahatchie  Bridge. The bridge is on Money road, near Tallahatchie Flats and the house where Skeeter's outside home scenes from "The Help" were filmed.

Until we got close enough to read the whole plaque, we really thought they might be touting this bridge as being “the one” where the imaginary Billy Joe threw an imaginary something into the water in 1967's “Ode to Billy Joe.” (Remember, we were on "The Help" tour, so our sense of reality/Hollywood was a bit blurred.) But in fact, no one is trying to make something out of nothing; it's a Mississippi Country Music Trail marker acknowledging the success of former Greenwood resident Bobbie Gentry.

And we want to make it perfectly clear that we threw nothing - nothing at all - off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Although it was tempting.

This ballad struck a cord with millions of people and still gets a surprising amount of air time. It was a huge crossover hit and appealed to people of all ages, many of whom – despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary – seemed to believe the story was true. People spent hours debating what Bobbie and Billy Joe had been doing on Choctaw Ridge, why they threw something off the bridge, what they threw, why he jumped....Unencumbered by the fact that Bobbie Gentry repeatedly said she made up the story, folks soldiered on with their speculations. We remember adults in Tupelo, people who ordinarily had neither the time nor the inclination to engage in gossip, discussing at length the identity of the couple who “bought a store in Tupelo.” Seriously. Any male store owner with a wife named Becky (or a wife not named Becky) was fair game to be the unnamed "brother." For some time the gossip revolved around a shoe store owned by a couple who had lived in town for years and were well known locally. Their long history in town and the fact that anyone could just walk in the store and ask them – to say nothing of the fact that they probably didn't even know Bobbie Gentry – warranted no consideration. The fun was in the speculation. And it was fun for a lot of people, because it's exciting to be part of something the whole country is talking about. And the whole country really was talking about that song.

DOCKERY PLANTATION

Moseying on toward Cleveland, we came upon Dockery Plantation. Although it hadn't been on our agenda for this particular trip, we had time to look around and take a few pictures. Dockery was a huge player in its day, a 10,000 acre cotton plantation that once employed 2,000 people. Because it functioned until 1982, there is still a lot to see, and because influential blues man Charley Patton once made his home there, a lot of people want to see those things. 

Like most large plantations, Dockery was self contained – it had its own cotton gin, school, post office, store, churches, money, and even a running railroad track to connect the plantation to the main railroad line in nearby Rosedale! Private tours can be arranged, but we were happy just to stroll around and admire the place.

The next two pictures are for our readers who have never visited the Delta but have always heard how flat it is. It is.

CLEVELAND

We had been to Cleveland years ago, and we loved it. So, we wanted to go back and take a longer look at Delta State and possibly pick up a couple “Fighting Okra” tee shirts for some of our favorite little people. Delta State took us by surprise last time, and we wanted to spend more time there. We drove around campus, toured their student center, and once again, were stunned by just how large this university is, to say nothing of how lovely it is. 

It's also lively! Even in late June the campus was a hopping, vibrant place.  (See Delta State website)

Near DSU, we passed the construction site for the huge (27,000 SF) building that will be The GRAMMY Museum Mississippi. Most Mississippians are aware that our state has produced some of the world's finest musicians/singers/songwriters of every ilk. It almost defies belief that such a small state could house such a wealth and variety of talent, and it's heartening to see  the world acknowledge Mississippi's bounty. Apparently, the site is actually on the university's campus, which we hadn't realized was that huge. It is though, and the school is (not coincidentally) home to the Delta Music Institute.

While hosting such a museum is quite a coup for Cleveland, we think the town is pretty incredible anyway. Their pretty train station, cool clock, and charming, beautifully landscaped downtown (with plenty of parking!) make it a pleasure to visit.. 

Also, they are kind to ducks.

And, they have some of the finest small town shopping we have ever stumbled across – thanks (we assume at least in part) to it being a university town. We had fond memories of our last shopping excursion there, and sure enough, we had an equally good experience this time. 

We started our visit at Neysa's Fireside Shop – a beautiful store bursting with desirable things for the home; we could have stayed for hours. It's run by really nice people too, which always helps. We admired everything, and Marian picked up some great Mississippi pillows. Then we moved two doors down to another place we remembered fondly from our last visit: The Monogram Store. This place has everything you might want to monogram, plus a lot of things you didn't even realize could be monogrammed. It's just a wonderful store.

From there it was only a few steps to The Sweetery. You have to love a place with a name like that. We stopped in for a visit and a really delicious cookie and we're so glad we did; it's a fun place to spend a little time. They have all sorts of goodies, but we had learned our lesson the day before. We walked off our cookies by checking out the rest of downtown (and trying on a few things in a fashionable clothing store), and then it was time to move on. There was just no way to see all the things we wanted to see in Cleveland as a sidetrip, so we plan to return and spend a day there once the GRAMMY Museum opens. There are several restaurants we want to try and a few landmark buildings we'd like to check out, plus we really want to see DSU during the regular school year, when everything is going full on. But for today, Oxford called us and we had to go.

We can't help it. We left our youth there and it's such fun to revisit it. Every time we go, we spend a few minutes looking for changes on campus and taking delight in anything that is just as we remembered. Then we check out Oxford's seemingly infinite number of new streets, intersections, houses, and buildings and complain about how different (that would be, better) Oxford was when it was just a simple country town. And then - not being ones to dwell on the negative - we proceed to eat and shop in all the wonderful places that didn't exist in our day.

Greenville - Cleveland - Merigold - Clarksdale August 1, 2009

DAY 2

CLEVELAND

Our first stop on Day 2 was Cleveland. We were looking forward to it as neither of us had ever seen Delta State and the town is supposed to have good shopping. Delta State was much bigger than either of us had thought, and it’s a truly beautiful campus – we were both impressed. Sadly, it was Saturday morning and the campus store was closed; we had wanted to buy one of their “Fighting Okra” tee shirts. They’re really the Delta State Statesmen, but some kid came up with the “fighting okra” and it caught on. It is not popular with alums apparently, but it’s cute. We did find the shopping all it was rumored to be in Cleveland, and we ended up buying a lot of gifts.

MERIGOLD

Our second stop was McCarty’s Pottery in Merigold. My, it’s well hidden. You wouldn’t think it would be hard to find anything in Merigold, but it is. I suspect that it might be the one ugly house in a pretty old neighborhood, because they’ve hidden the house behind a wall of bamboo. Even knowing the house number, you really have to look for the large number of cars parked across the street to spot the place. We met Mr. McCarty and looked around, but neither of us was in a pottery-buying mood, so off we went.

THE SHACK UP INN

Next on the agenda was a visit to the Shack Up Inn, just outside Clarksdale. For those who aren’t familiar with it, some guys around our age hauled some former sharecroppers’ cabins to the Hopson Plantation, set them in a line, plumbed and wired them, and opened a B&B (Bed & Beer) sometime around 2000 as I recall. I stayed there in 2002, and it’s an experience. My shack was as clean as it could be (but not as clean as clean could be) – its age and history pretty much preclude the use of terms like “pristine,” “sparkling,” “antiseptic,” or even "clean" if you're totally honest. We’re talking peeling linoleum, old plank floors, etc. They wasted no money on furnishings, paint or anything like that; they kept the shacks in their original state and (apparently) used whatever furniture they found by the side of the road. The sheets (which don’t necessarily match) are worn and faded, and the towels look like those your grandmother had – with all the terry nubs worn off so that you can see through some places. The bed was comfortable, as I recall, but everything else is “to the period” so to speak. My room (my sister and I splurged on the two-bedroom shack) had a Hi-Fi that worked and plenty of records (some nailed to the wall as decorations). Our refrigerator was an old Coke machine, our kitchen and bathroom sinks had the biggest rust stains I have ever seen, and the kitchen wall was covered with newspapers from the 1960s that had been glued on for insulation – they advertised $5 dresses and stuff like that. One cute thing though: when we checked in, we found a mini Moon Pie on our pillows. (Sadly, they’ve stopped doing that. The guy at the desk told me that it turned out that rats love Moon Pies. I can only imagine.) Marian here -- Any of you who know me know that this cute little story completely ruled out any possibility in this life of my staying at this Inn. In fact, Moon Pies are also off my list...just to be safe.

Almost all the porches have an old couch, the back seat of an old car, a broken recliner or plastic chairs (something to sit on), and an old washing machine, a big console radio, a refrigerator or some other broken-down appliance. We had an old refrigerator sitting on our side porch, and various items in disrepair on the front porch. Outside walls are further decorated with hub caps or things like a large shard of broken mirror or really, any hangable piece of junk.

The Inn stays full – you have to book months in advance. When we were there, it was all booked up (except for two shacks with other guests) by a family’s family reunion. They had even booked most all the (nicer) hotel-room like rooms in the big building (the Cotton Gin Inn). There is a new luxury suite in that main building too, with a view of the stage from the room! It’s a really nice room too, and will probably be constantly sold out when there is entertainment going on. This picture of the luxury room shows a very nice flat screen television mounted on the wall above the air conditioner beside the comfy rocker. Sorta makes you want to settle down and relax a while, doesn't it? -- Marian

The Shack Up Inn isn’t for everyone (my husband wouldn’t stay there – period), but it’s an experience. When I stayed there, I couldn’t help but think of all the people who had lived (and been born and died) in my shack…what their lives had been like, how the world had looked to them…things like that. It raised my consciousness a good bit.

The Inn is especially popular during the Blues festivals, and with songwriters. The guy behind the desk told me that many songwriters want to come down there for a month or more, but that they don’t ever have that kind of availability. So…they are opening a Shackominium development across the road. Seriously. He showed me this awful looking shack that will be part of it, and then told me that the shack is beautiful on the inside. These new shacks are meant to look bad on the outside, but people can buy them and decorate them nicely or in keeping with the Inn. At first it sounded like nonsense, but a little further thought made it sound pretty good. The price will be right, and it’ll be a place to kick back or rent out to long or short term guests. With our huge generation retiring, it will probably do real well.

CLARKSDALE

We tore ourselves away from the Inn to go to Clarksdale for lunch. We ate at Morgan Freeman’s club, Ground Zero, and what a kick that was! It’s a big, barn-like place downtown, and the first thing you notice when you walk in is that the walls are covered in graffiti. And, we mean covered. All the walls are covered, people have even signed the glass on framed photos, the windows, the load-bearing columns, the mirrors, walls, stalls and ceilings in the bathrooms – everything is covered in writing. Neither Marian nor I had ever written on a wall – it’s something that had never occurred to either one of us to do – but hey, we’re getting on in years and need to experience these things, so we scribbled our names (small and lightly) and now we have actually written on a wall. By the way, the club has great catfish. The picture above shows the grafitti...written in magic marker (be sure to take one with you when you visit...) almost all the way up to the top of the 12' ceilings. -- Marian

The picture above shows the ladies' restroom. I just don't know how to explain this....ladies normally are much neater than this! Even the mirror had grafitti on it. -- Marian

Next we moseyed down the street to a country store and looked around, but by then it was raining and it was mid afternoon, so we decided to forgo any further touring and head home. So off we went, and...guess what we saw out our car windows when we pulled out of Clarksdale?!? The exact same thing we had seen since we hit Greenwood the day before!!! Really, the exact same view!!! Cotton fields, corn fields, soybean fields, and barren fields – all flat as a flitter. Not a hill, not a bump, not a knoll, not a lump. Just “miles and miles of miles and miles.” That’s the Delta, for sure.