06)12(05 its 443pm

The interesting thing about the week after Natchez, even the two weeks after Natchez, is that we were suddenly restless. Or at least, we weren’t comfortable staying in any place for a very long time.

Following our thunderstormy night outside of Natchez, we headed up north through Mississippi, along its muddy river. The Delta region of Mississippi is absolutely astounding when it comes to its feel, its contribution to America, and its brooding undercurrent. We really only passed through, as opposed to relished, The Birthplace of The Blues, and yet the feeling of the place slung to our skin like smoke from a crowded juke joint.

The towns that edge the Mississippi as you head north along its banks are gritty, worn, revolving around the abandoned city centers of 40’s and 50’s glitz no more. When we headed into most of these places it was obvious, so obvious that we were the only white kids to be cruising through town in a long time. Faces turned towards us out of curiosity, as curious what we were doing there as we were. Despite any initial trepidation, I was again amazed by how friendly people were, with a genuine concern and politeness that I’ve only seen in the South.

The rain drops are sticking hesitantly to the Super 8 Motel window which looks out at the lush green hills of Asheville, North Carolina. Kate is sprawled out on the tacky bedcover, sick from some sort of quick flu. Her sickness set in this morning unexpectedly as we were lying in the back of the truck listening to the storm that had been pushing and pulling all night. We hoped that finally for once the rain would let up, but it was in vain. I knew when she said she was feeling sick that we needed to abandon our ridiculously soaked camp and head for civilization. Our tarps that had been set up were ragged, our equipment completely muddy and soaked. In the pouring rain I pulled it all down and cramped it into the back of the poor beat up truck.

Its been a rough week, the weather unrelenting, and the small mishaps piling up. It peaked for me as I backed the truck into the front bumper of a ’75 Chevy, smashed the taillight and crunched the rear panel. It broke my heart that the truck should be looking as beat as we were feeling. Too many one night camp outs in haphazard locations, too few complete night sleeps, and too much worry about money and timing. And still the weather charts for the week ahead picture five straight lightning bolts poling out of dark gray clouds. How perfect then that I’m listening to Bob Dylan sing “Hard Travel”, wailing on his harmonica, ‘carrying a load on my worried mind, looking for a woman that is hard to find…’.

In Leland Mississippi we stopped into the Jim Henson museum and browsed through the nostalgic shelves full of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy memorabilia. It was sweet to be there, where Jim Henson was born a poor creative boy in the heart of Mississippi, feeling parts of my childhood resurface and remind me that they were there. It made me think of my brother Pete, of us sitting on Saturday mornings making forts out of blankets and camping out in front of the cartoons for innocent hours on end. Kermit was our friend, and it was good to hang out with him again.

We headed west towards Clarksdale, where Robert Johnson was born and lived. Robert Johnson was in many ways the predecessor to rock and roll as we know it, his fingerstyle playing and dark lyrics, together with the voodoo mysticism that he has come to embody make him live as a legend to this day. The story goes that Mr. Johnson took his guitar one night to the crossroads of Clarksdale. He sat down to play and a large figure approached him, dark like a shadow. The figure took the guitar and retuned it, and then played the most amazing music. He handed the guitar back to Robert Johnson, and to his amazement he was able to play with the same grace. Its interesting that most people refer to this shadowy character as the devil, it could be a voodoo God, or in my mind, it could be the artist accepting his self, the part of him that was genius.

So the town of Clarksdale was old, felt old. Old traditions, old ways, old buildings, old streets, worn and rubbed down. The feeling of poverty cracked the sidewalks, and the isolation of the delta, its limited opportunities, weighed heavily on my mind. I felt that this was a part of the world that was hard to escape. i felt that this black America was suffering the weight of a brutal and strange past. I felt that this was a place that should be worshiped by all Americans, for the legacy that it holds in its broken neon signs. But I was only passing through. We stayed in a $29 hotel in the heart of downtown, and walked through the warm evening streets peacefully as groups of people met and passed by on foot. It could have been 1956, 1975, or 2005, it was so specific of a place and feel.

Oxford, Mississippi, home of William Faulkner and Ole Miss U. was a stark contrast to Clarksdale. Shimmering clean sidewalks and a renovated downtown was filled with hopeful Mississippi college kids, mostly white. Coffee shops and book stores overflowed with tradition and vitality, there was a definite sense of pride in the town. We sat down in the early afternoon to a good hearty southern meal, fried catfish, collard greens, sweet potatoes and eggplant and felt too full for words. Weather again was a factor, but we decided to tough it out. Even at $29 a night, motels were stressing our budget, so we were going to camp out, and nothing was going to stop us, not even the rain, or the fact that the only campsite available to us was 30 minutes away into the woods and empty save for us. We set up a screenhouse on the misty shores of a beautiful lake and drank bourbon into the night to tide away the strange lonely feeling of the campsite. We talked about life and friends and laughed and recalled the trip until we were far too detached to care about how strange it felt to be so far from civilization that we knew. It kept raining through the night but we both slept sound until a groggy wake up.

We both had Memphis, Tennessee on our minds. The allure of rock and roll, and the home of Elvis Presley was just too strong for us to miss. We had basically come this far north to see the city on the Mississippi that was as vital as New Orleans. So many musicians had earned their place on its famous Beale St. Strip, so many battle for civil rights had found a center there.