MY LAST ENTRY, THOUGH I MAY EDIT/ADD UNTIL I DIE:
I am so glad I took this trip -- glad to see sites that I have studied much of my life, glad to spend time with Amity and James (and to have Amity travel back to North Carolina with me), glad to spend time pondering and writing about my experiences, glad to know that a few of you were actually reading what I wrote. I appreciate and admire your stamina.
SERENDIPITY happened on this trip:
1) A couple of days before I left for Austin, a co-worker recommended The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I bought the book on CD and listened to it as I drove to Austin. I just happened to hear the chapter about Medgar Evers's death the night before I saw his home in Jackson. And my niece Haley, who lives in Memphis, recommended the book to me just this morning, not knowing I had "read" it. (Again, I recommend this book to you. :-)
2) As I said in one of the first entries (July 1), my friend Lisa gave me a magazine article before reporting on the annual celebration of To Kill A Mockingbird in Monroeville, Alabama.
As I prepared to leave Nashville on Sunday morning (July 11) -- as Amity practiced yoga in a studio nearby -- I turned on CBS Sunday Morning and saw a segment about the annual celebration of To Kill A Mockingbird in Monroeville, Alabama. Nice "bookends" for the trip! Lee's book, and the subsequent movie, both speak to my considerations of race on this trip, and Monroeville is so typical of many small towns in the Deep South during that time.
3) The Medgar Evers home (and museum) is not open except by appointment. I happened to drive by at a time that the curator was there. She gave me a personal tour, we talked a long while, and she had known Medgar Evers in the early 60s. She is still in touch with his wife and brother.
4) While exploring Money, Mississippi I met an old gentleman who knew all about the Emmett Till case (though he "wasn't telling all he knew" :-) ) and who had knew the primary figures in that case.
5) I spent a wonderful five days with Amity, James, Ruby, and Holden -- and was lucky enough to have Amity beside me on the long trek home! I went to yoga class three times. I ate cupcakes and watched Ruby play in the dog park and helped Amity pick out a dress for a friend's wedding (September) and went swimming with James and drank a gin and tonic by the pool.
6) I think I drove about 3,000 miles on this trip -- many hundreds of it through land that was as flat as a pancake. As we drove on I-40 through Tennessee and I saw that first mountain in the distance, I realized anew the beauty of the place where I grew up and call home.
Thanks for reading these entries!
Monday, July 12, 2010
On Saturday we drove north from Money, Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee. There we visited the National Civil Rights Museum and the site of the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was assassinated.
I had seen the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham, Alabama, which is across from Kelley Ingram Park and connected with the 16th Street Baptist Church (which was bombed in 1963, killing four young girls who were preparing for the church service on Sunday morning).
I had more time in the Birmingham site -- went through it twice, actually. I spent a much shorter time in the Memphis Museum, but found it equally informative and moving.
My impression from seeing both Museums is that the one in Birmingham focuses more particularly on the Civil Rights Movement (though it certainly contains other elements, as well), while the Memphis site speaks to the whole of the African American experience in America.
One photo on this page (if, indeed, I was actually able to get it on the page!) you will surely recognize. It is the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was shot in 1967.
A part of the Museum is across the street -- the boarding house from where his assassin fired the shot.
The other photograph you may not recognize: it is part of a huge wall, in three or four parts, and is in the entrance of the Memphis museum. The wall depicts hundreds of bodies, climbing upward -- up a mountain? "I have been to the mountaintop . . . " Up From Slavery? The sculpture is beautiful and so moving -- and I wasn't supposed to be taking photographs of it. Before entering the museum proper I made the mistake of asking if I could take photographs, and the answer was (understandably) "NO." So I recommend that you travel to Memphis and see the Museum yourself. In it you will see thousands of images, so you'd better plan to stay weeks instead of hours. In it you will see exhibits about -- among other things:
The Integration of Little Rock High School
Marcus Garvey
W.E.B. DuBois
Martin Luther King (many of these)
Lunch Counter Sit-Ins
Voter Registration
Medgar Evers
Harriet Tubman
Sojourner Truth
The Scottsboro Boys
Freedom Summer
The Freedom Riders
Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman
Emmett Till and Mose Wright
The March on Washington
The Selma March
Ida B. Wells
Gandhi
Nelson Mandela
Letter from Birmingham Jail
And There's MORE!!!!!!!!!!
You name it: If it is about Civil Rights (in American or around the world), it is in there. Plan to spend five weeks, eight hours a day. And walk slowly.
Another view of "Main Street, Money, MS," which is about the length of a football field. Maybe shorter.
And now about my visit with an eighty-seven-year-old man who lived in Money at the time of the Emmett Till murder.
On instinct, after taking photos of the Bryant Store, I drove down a small paved road opposite the store, over railroad tracks, and between two huge fields of -- cotton? (See past blog about recognizing nothing but corn if it grows in quantities bigger than a bread box.) We do know that these acres grew cotton in 1955.
A couple of miles down the road we passed a house on the right -- an older house with a tin roof and lots of big shade trees in the yard. A man was sitting out in his yard under a beautiful, old tree, repairing something. There was a modern vehicle in the yard, too, and three dogs under it, and a couple of cats lying in the sun. We had seen only one other human being since leaving Greenwood.
We passed the gentleman by and drove down to where I thought Wright's place would have been in '55, then turned around when the road started to turn from pavement to loose dirt. Nobody else anywhere, except for the man in his yard.
On the second turn I said to Amity, "I'm going to stop and ask that gentleman if he knows for sure where the Wright house stood."
I pulled over, stopped, got out of the car and approached the man, arm extended. "Hello, Sir!" The dogs loped toward me.
"Do your dogs bite?" I asked, smiling.
"Well, they have teeth," he answered.
"I'm Wanda Taylor. I'm traveling through here from North Carolina. I wonder if you might tell me where the Moses Wright house stood . . . ?"
"Oh, yes! I know where it stood . . . ." He pointed down the road. "It's the second house down. Just a few hundred feet down there."
If he had been at all unfriendly I would have thanked him and left, but he was welcoming and didn't seem to mind talking at all. "I know where his house was, and I knew Mo' Wright." (He called him "Mo'" instead of Mose or Moses.)
"You knew him! Did you ever talk with him?"
"Nope. Never had reason to talk with him. He worked on the Grove (Grover?) plantation, all this property around here. That was a bad time when that Till thing happened. It was bad around here."
"Bad -- for you?" (and for Emmett Till . . . ?)
"Bad for everybody."
He told me about how long he lived in this house ("fifty years"), about his two children and three grandchildren.
[Mose Wright left Mississippi as soon as he finished testifying at the trial.
"Do you see the man you say took the boy from your house?"
Wright stood up in that courtroom full of hatred and pointed to the defense table.
" 'Dar he." [There he is. That's the man. Those are the men.]
Wright couldn't have lived much longer had he stayed in Mississippi; he moved to Chicago and never returned to the South.
"How old are you, Preacher?" Milam had asked Wright the night he took Till from his house.
"Sixty-four," he answered.
"You make any trouble, and you ain't gonna live to see sixty-five." ]
I told the eighty-seven-year-old gentleman a bit about the mountains of North Carolina, and he told me he hated North Carolina -- had spent nine years in the military (World War II and the Korean War), and some of that time was spent at Fort Bragg and Fort Benning, Georgia. He hated Fort Benning, too. We talked about his military career (Algiers, Italy). We talked about his trees.
"You knew Moses Wright -- did you know J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant?"
"Yes. I knew 'em."
"They're both dead now, aren't they . . . ."
"Yes. And she is, too." [Carolyn Bryant]
He told me where he went to college, told me about his Black friends. "I never had any trouble with 'em. We got along just fine." (Hmmmm. Where have I heard that before? Most recently from listening to The Help on CD as I drove across Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and east Texas.) He told me that Emmett Till was "full of himself" and that he "should have gotten his butt back up to Chicago when he had a chance." (Till had a three-day window of time that he could have escaped -- gone back to Chicago before Milam and Bryant came back to town. He just had no idea what he was up against.)
"I'll bet you have lots of people stopping to ask you about the Till case." I commented.
He said that yes indeed, he does. "You never know who you're talkin' to," he said. "Had one fellow come here, askin' questions, said he was from Florida. But we talked a while longer and I found out he was from New York! New York! People will lie, wantin' to get information."
I assured him that I'm from a small town in North Carolina, and as honest as the day is long.
We talked a while longer about nothing in particular. About the "damned casinos" they're putting up for the Choctaws. "Oh, those Choctaws are doin' fine now," he said. We talked about gambling in general.
I introduced him to Amity, who had sat in the car all this time. "Amity. That's a pretty name," he told her.
And then he said, "You know, I don't tell everything I know."
"You don't, eh?"
"No. You can't afford to tell everything you know."
I teased him, "You can afford to tell me anything, because I live in North Carolina and you'll never see me again!" (I won't publish your name on my blog. You have my word . . . .)
But he didn't tell all. And I didn't ask all that I wanted to ask. A thirty-minute encounter -- however friendly -- doesn't give me permission to pry into his secrets. Even if we had all day to talk, and even had I been inclined to argue some points of the Till case with him, there would have been no point. Even if he were my father, there would have been no point.
I don't project anything onto this man's past. He was an old man who welcomed me and was willing to answer (some of) my questions. He had actually seen Moses Wright -- one of the most courageous men I ever encountered, in history or otherwise. And he had actually known J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant -- two of the most despicable, cowardly men I ever encountered, in history or otherwise.
All players in this drama were products of time and place; how do courage and cowardice grow in any person of any time and place?
I am one who feels a thrill of -- connection -- just being in the space where an important historical event happened. And that sense is enhanced -- sometimes even sanctified -- by a human connection.
Dear Reader (if, indeed, you are reading this): I can only begin to tell you how frustrating it is to attempt to post photos on this blog when I don't know what the hell I'm doing. In an early post I placed a photo of my friend Val near a paragraph about James Earl Chaney. They are not the same, nor should they be considered such. ("Why doncha jist write it acrost m' fore-head: F-A-Y-L-U-R!!!" ) I am terrified of writing for two hours, playing around with this thing, and then accidentally erasing everything I've written, deleting all my photos of the trip, and melting my monitor.
LET US CONTINUE AS BEST WE CAN UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES:
On Saturday, July 10, Amity and I drove north, through the town of Greenwood, and then drove Hwy #7 to Money.
I knew that Robert Johnson's grave was supposed to be around Greenwood somewhere -- and though I wasn't specifically looking for it, there is a marker (above) on the road between Greenwood and Money. I also took a photo of the little churchyard and graveyard near the marker, but don't know where to post it.
"I have all of Robert Johnson's recorded songs on CD at home!" I told Amity. She was only mildly impressed. Listening to those in the car would have greatly enhanced my Delta experience, if I had only thought of it.
The photo to the right (above) is what is left of Bryant's Grocery in Money, Mississippi.
It seems strange to me that everyone wouldn't know every single detail of the Emmett Till case, as long and hard as I have studied it -- but then many of us wear blinders where our own interests are concerned. My idea of heaven (and hell) is to stand in the spot where some monumental historic event happened and to imagine the place at the time of the event. Can't help it; I was born that way.
HISTORY LESSON: In the summer of 1955 a fourteen-year-old boy from Chicago, Emmett Till, went to Money, Mississippi, to spend some time with this great-uncle, Moses Wright. Wright worked cotton on the Graves plantation outside Money.
Emmett ("Bo") was an only child, big for his age, a prankster, and completely oblivious to the cultural differences between the city of Chicago and the very rural South. Before he left Chicago, his mother (who moved to Chicago when she was a child but who had strong family links to Mississipppi) warned him to be extremely careful in dealing with White people in the South.
On Wednesday, August 21, after having worked half a day in the cotton field, Emmett rode with this cousins into Money to hang out at Bryant's Store.
In 1955 the town of Money had one street and only five or six stores. Bryant's Store was owned by (and was the residence of) Roy Bryant and his wife, Carolyn, and served as a grocery and "hangout" for the sharecroppers living nearby.
On August 21st only Carolyn was working in the store; her husband was out of town. According to one of Emmett's cousins, as they drank Nehis on the porch Emmett bragged about his White girlfriend(s) in Chicago, and another young man in the group dared him to go inside the store and "make a date" with the White woman there.
Nobody knows exactly what happened then; the only two people in the store when it happened are dead. Some say Emmett bought gum and then turned at the door and whistled at Carolyn as he left. Others say he grabbed Carolyn's hand as she handed him change. Others say he blocked the door as she tried to go to her living quarters through a back door.
At any rate, what he did seemed serious enough to his companions that they feared Mrs. Bryant was going to get a gun, and they jumped into Wright's truck and drove away as quickly as they could. (Of course, even a Black man's failing to step off a sidewalk to let a White person pass was a "serious offense" in that time and place.) As they drove away, Emmett begged his cousins not to tell Wright about the incident.
At 2:00 AM Sunday morning (August 25th), J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant -- who had been out of town on the night of the incident -- showed up at Wright's place, entered with a gun and a flashlight, and demanded to see Emmett Till.
They threatened Wright and the rest of his family, forced Till into their car, and left.
Three days later Till's body was found in the Tallahatchie River, severely beaten, shot in the head.
Surprisingly, Milam and Bryant were arrested immediately. Not surprisingly, they were tried an acquitted by an all-white, male jury after just a few minutes of deliberation.
Immediately upon learning of her son's disappearance, Mamie Till notified Chicago authorities and the newspapers. She insisted that Emmett's body be returned to Chicago (the local authorites were eager to bury him in Mississippi immediately), and she displayed his body at the funeral in Chicago.
She -- and numerous northern photographers, reporters, and a Black Congressman -- were in Sumner, Mississippi for the trial. The case became a huge national story and (some believe) was the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1950s and 1960s.
END OF LESSON
(written Monday morning, July 12, 2010 morning after my return home)
regarding: SATURDAY, JULY 10, 2010
from Vicksburg to Memphis to Nashville
THIS WILL BE A LONG ENTRY BECAUSE IT WAS A LONG, EVENTFUL DAY. I fear that the familiarity of home and the preparation for getting back to work will make me forget everything, so I write at length today. For those who have faithfully "followed" me on this trip, remember that there is no way for me to check if you read the whole entry, and there will not be a test at the end.
VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI: We (Amity, my sidekick and I) stayed in the hotel in Vicksburg -- arriving very late on Friday night and leaving very early on Saturday morning. I did want to drive the few miles back from the hotel to the Welcome Center, mostly because I wanted to see if there was printed information on the Delta -- mostly Greenwood and Money -- and to take a photograph of the mighty Mississippi.
I admit that I haven't even glanced at the copy of Twain's Life on the Mississippi I brought along -- too busy reading The Eyes of Willie McGee; Letters from Mississippi : Personal Reports from Volunteers in The Summer Freedom Project, 1964; Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case; and The 2011 Rand McNally Road Atlas.
When I went to the Welcome Center and asked about information on the Emmett Till case, the older White lady behind the counter looked at me funny and said she didn't know about that. My guess is that she -- and many other people of her generation in Mississippi -- would rather forget that case. (Or, hey. Maybe her memory is like mine and she actually has forgotten it .)The same thing happened to me in 1974 when I was in Fall River, Massachusetts and asked about the Lizzie Borden case: it was either forgotten or everyone was trying to forget.
I probably would have visited the Vicksburg battlefield near our hotel -- especially would like to have visited the caves where people hid during the seige -- but there was so much to explore, and only days, not years, to explore it.
We drove northward on Hwy #3 and 49E -- through Satartia, Crupp, Yazoo City, Eden, Tchula, Cruger, and Sidon. I wanted the Delta Experience, and this was it. We drove for many miles on the two-lane road and hardly ever saw another car -- just hundreds of thousands of acres of cornfields and (I assumed) cotton and soybean fields. I recognize corn; cotton and soybeans, not so much.
After seeing these vast fields spreading out for miles on either side, I can understand how it would have taken hundreds of people per-farm/plantation to harvest so much cotton.
HISTORY LESSON (Todd, are you paying attention? You're the one who asked for this!) : The invention of the cotton gin, which separated the cotton fiber from the seed, made growing cotton much more profitable for the landowner and therefore increased the need for workers to grow and harvest it. The demand for human beings -- used exactly like machinery, used until they were broken -- increased dramatically after the invention of the cotton gin. The plantation owner could buy thousands of acres for cotton and use his slaves to plant, chop, and harvest, while the gin (short for "engine") could prepare the cotton for shipping much faster than by hand. I saw the very fields where this cotton was grown and where these people were used. LESSON ENDED.
GREENWOOD, MISSISSIPPI: I wanted to visit Greenwood, I told Amity, because it figures in my study of the Civil Rights Movement, Freedom Summer, Black voter registration, Emmett Till.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
SATURDAY, JULY 10, 2010, EXTREMELY LATE .... NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
I have had some really amazing experiences on this trip, but today was extraordinary!
I can't do full justice to this subject tonight because I am exhausted and I am still "digesting" everything I experienced today.
The photo here was taken by Amity from my car today. I didn't know she was taking it at the time -- but I am so glad she did!
I had just seen "downtown" Money, Mississippi -- where the Emmett Till "whistle" happened (more photos later). After seeing Bryant's Store, I drove down the road to the site where Moses Wright (Till's great-uncle) had lived, and from where Emmett Till was kidnapped that summer night in 1955. (I knew from my studies that Wright left Mississippi soon after the murder and that another house now stands where his house once stood.)
I stopped my car and introduced myself to this older gentleman who lives just a few hundred yards down the road from the Wright house site. The man not only knew Mose Wright -- he had lived in / near Money all his life -- but he also knew Milum and Bryant (the men who went on trial for Till's murder) and Carolyn Bryant. Mr H.T. (in the photo above) was a young man -- a young White man -- in his thirties when Emmett Till was killed, and he had a lot to say.
I can't do justice to our discussion now; I'll write more very soon.
How could I have gotten so lucky, to have met two people (Minnie Watson at the Medgar Evers home, and then this gentleman today) who have direct lines to the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi?
I have had some really amazing experiences on this trip, but today was extraordinary!
I can't do full justice to this subject tonight because I am exhausted and I am still "digesting" everything I experienced today.
The photo here was taken by Amity from my car today. I didn't know she was taking it at the time -- but I am so glad she did!
I had just seen "downtown" Money, Mississippi -- where the Emmett Till "whistle" happened (more photos later). After seeing Bryant's Store, I drove down the road to the site where Moses Wright (Till's great-uncle) had lived, and from where Emmett Till was kidnapped that summer night in 1955. (I knew from my studies that Wright left Mississippi soon after the murder and that another house now stands where his house once stood.)
I stopped my car and introduced myself to this older gentleman who lives just a few hundred yards down the road from the Wright house site. The man not only knew Mose Wright -- he had lived in / near Money all his life -- but he also knew Milum and Bryant (the men who went on trial for Till's murder) and Carolyn Bryant. Mr H.T. (in the photo above) was a young man -- a young White man -- in his thirties when Emmett Till was killed, and he had a lot to say.
I can't do justice to our discussion now; I'll write more very soon.
How could I have gotten so lucky, to have met two people (Minnie Watson at the Medgar Evers home, and then this gentleman today) who have direct lines to the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi?
Friday, July 9, 2010
FRIDAY MORNING, JULY 9
MORNING
Well, I'm loadin' up the ol' wagon with provisions (most of them covered with chocolate) and gear. Headin' out with my sidekick, Amity, in a coupla hours. She don't eat chocolate, and I don't eat tofu, so we'll make good pardners.
Plan to make it to Vicksburg tonight, Memphis on Saturday night, and (maybe) pullin' into the ol' homestead by late Sunday.
Goin' northeast today, split up diagonal' through the state. NO INTERSTATES.
Did Clint Eastwood take Interstate Highways? Y' bet yer boots he didn't! And I can think of a few others who didn't: Cheyenne, Bronco Lane, Calamity Jane, Sugarfoot, Yancy Darringer, Bat Masterson, Cattle Kate, Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Annie Oakley, and that little wagon train on th' tee-vee, pulled by them dogs and rollin' right under yer kitchen table. (Awright. So maybe not all of these wranglers were from Texas. Maybe they weren't even wranglers. What the hell is a "wrangler," anyhow? I'll have to Google it.)
For now --while my daughter is doing yoga and I crave espresso -- I yell, "Rollin', rollin', rollin'! Keep them doggies rollin'!"
MORNING
Well, I'm loadin' up the ol' wagon with provisions (most of them covered with chocolate) and gear. Headin' out with my sidekick, Amity, in a coupla hours. She don't eat chocolate, and I don't eat tofu, so we'll make good pardners.
Plan to make it to Vicksburg tonight, Memphis on Saturday night, and (maybe) pullin' into the ol' homestead by late Sunday.
Goin' northeast today, split up diagonal' through the state. NO INTERSTATES.
Did Clint Eastwood take Interstate Highways? Y' bet yer boots he didn't! And I can think of a few others who didn't: Cheyenne, Bronco Lane, Calamity Jane, Sugarfoot, Yancy Darringer, Bat Masterson, Cattle Kate, Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Annie Oakley, and that little wagon train on th' tee-vee, pulled by them dogs and rollin' right under yer kitchen table. (Awright. So maybe not all of these wranglers were from Texas. Maybe they weren't even wranglers. What the hell is a "wrangler," anyhow? I'll have to Google it.)
For now --while my daughter is doing yoga and I crave espresso -- I yell, "Rollin', rollin', rollin'! Keep them doggies rollin'!"
Thursday, July 8, 2010
THURSDAY, JULY 8th
SOMETIME IN THE EARLY EVENING
I still don't have the hang of how to arrange photos on this blog. I just hope those of you who are following me note the box of cupcakes somewhere on this page.
They are Austin cupcakes: two chocolate ones and two carrot cake ones. It rained most of the day, and I stood in line to buy cupcakes.
Twenty minutes after I "woke up" this morning, Amity called into my room: "Mom, if we're going to yoga today, we have to leave in ten minutes!"
I didn't know what time it was, I didn't know what day it was, I didn't know which door to leave out of, I didn't know how not to bump into the wall.
But I stumbled down the steps and into the car, and Amity drove us to yoga class.
This Friday, tomorrow, will be Amity's 100th day in a row of going to yoga class, and I feel certain she wouldn't have made it these past four days without me. If she travels back home with me we'll have to wait until after her yoga class -- understandably. As James said today, "I haven't done anything in my life 100 days in a row!" Putting my clothes on, maybe brushing my teeth.
We had a great day today -- even in yoga class. James was working, but Amity and I drove around town, ate lunch, window-shopped. We went to a half-price bookstore and I bought a bagful of books, mostly about the African American experience in America. Then, to the cupcake stand.
Austin is a beautiful city (not only because it sells delicious cupcakes). It is a city full of creativity and youth and funk. I know there must be some old people here (besides me), but I didn't see any today. And it is the most dog-friendly city/town I've ever seen. Instead of "NO DOGS ALLOWED," it's "DOGS WELCOME ON PATIO!" and "YOUR DOG WELCOME HERE!"
Everyone seems to own a dog (several were lined-up with their owners at the cupcake stand), and everyone in this apartment complex seems to have one.
I'll miss being here.
Tomorrow, to Vicksburg. I think.
SOMETIME IN THE EARLY EVENING
I still don't have the hang of how to arrange photos on this blog. I just hope those of you who are following me note the box of cupcakes somewhere on this page.
They are Austin cupcakes: two chocolate ones and two carrot cake ones. It rained most of the day, and I stood in line to buy cupcakes.
Twenty minutes after I "woke up" this morning, Amity called into my room: "Mom, if we're going to yoga today, we have to leave in ten minutes!"
I didn't know what time it was, I didn't know what day it was, I didn't know which door to leave out of, I didn't know how not to bump into the wall.
But I stumbled down the steps and into the car, and Amity drove us to yoga class.
This Friday, tomorrow, will be Amity's 100th day in a row of going to yoga class, and I feel certain she wouldn't have made it these past four days without me. If she travels back home with me we'll have to wait until after her yoga class -- understandably. As James said today, "I haven't done anything in my life 100 days in a row!" Putting my clothes on, maybe brushing my teeth.
We had a great day today -- even in yoga class. James was working, but Amity and I drove around town, ate lunch, window-shopped. We went to a half-price bookstore and I bought a bagful of books, mostly about the African American experience in America. Then, to the cupcake stand.
Austin is a beautiful city (not only because it sells delicious cupcakes). It is a city full of creativity and youth and funk. I know there must be some old people here (besides me), but I didn't see any today. And it is the most dog-friendly city/town I've ever seen. Instead of "NO DOGS ALLOWED," it's "DOGS WELCOME ON PATIO!" and "YOUR DOG WELCOME HERE!"Everyone seems to own a dog (several were lined-up with their owners at the cupcake stand), and everyone in this apartment complex seems to have one.
I'll miss being here.
Tomorrow, to Vicksburg. I think.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, MORNING SOMETIME
No, that is not I in the photo; that is James Clark. And that is a gin and tonic in the red cup, because glass is not allowed around the pool. And I am taking this photo, so what does that tell you? (You can take a photo with the camera in one hand and a gin and tonic in the other.)
I greatly fear that those of you who are following me on my journey to/from Texas do not believe that it is actually I who am writing it, because it seems so devoid of whines and complaints.
"That is just not like Wanda," you are saying. She sounds too relaxed, too happy, too optimistic. Someone else is writing these entries as she lies by the pool and/or takes naps."
Well, to prove that I am, indeed, the writer, here is a list of complaints about being here in Austin with Amity and James and Ruby (my granddog) and Holden (my grandcat). Take heed:
1) There are too many fruits to choose from in the grocery store here -- and some really strange ones that I didn't recognize. Exotic fruits. Colorful fruits. Just give me some of those delicious green grapes, some of those plump, red cherries, some of those limes (for gin and tonics), and let it go at that.
2) The pool water is just too warm here. I mean, when one goes to the swimming pool near my house in Canton, the water is cold and refreshing. (I guess. I mean, it looks cold as I drive by on my way to the salt mines every morning. At this apartment complex where Amity and James live, the water in the pool (which has a sort of fountain attached) is just too warm. What do I want? A warm bath, for god's sake?!?
3) Yesterday at the grocery I bought diet tonic water for the gin, and it wasn't quite as tasty as the other. Someone should have told me.
4) We haven't been to visit a cupcake stand yet. The last time I visited here Amity took me to a cupcake stand -- one of many such stands that dot the landscape. These stands are sometimes little shed-like buildings (like a hotdog stand at the fair), and sometimes they are a Silverstream trailer. But almost all of them have a big fabricated cupcake on the top, and all of them sell dozens of -- styles? -- of cupcakes: chocolate and chocolate chip; red velvet; carrot cake with cream frosting; vanilla (with vanilla frosting or chocolate, pick your choice); orange with orange frosting; strawberry; blueberry -- and some probably made with those strange fruits I mentioned before. I WANT A CUPCAKE!!!!!!!!!!
Now. NOW do you believe that it is Wanda writing, and not some stand-in?
Other than the other extremely annoying points above, I am pretty much in heaven here. Oh, an occasional thought rips through my mind ( 'In twelve more days you must return to work!') -- but I can usually brush those thoughts aside with a good book, something to eat, a rest at the pool (warm water be damned!), another gin and tonic. I do get by.
Yoga. I forgot to whine about yoga. I went to another class yesterday (Tuesday). On Monday it was the Restorative Yoga class; yesterday it was "Gentle Yoga." (I had previously thought all yoga was gentle, in a bizarre sort of way, until I saw photos of my daughter's body, twisted into positions that remind me of the cords under my computer table.) The class yesterday was more strenuous than the one on Monday. I mean, instead of lying on the floor relaxing and listening to gongs, I actually had to move in this Tuesday class. Like, I had to raise my arms above my head and stuff like that. It was exhausting, but I did rather enjoy it.
Yesterday Amity and I took Ruby to the dog park here in the apartment complex. (That's Ruby in the photo above, with her pal Pup. Ruby is the solid-colored one. They are looking through the fence toward another dog coming. "Oh, BOY!! Here comes another one of our species!") I had great fun watching Ruby play with her dog friends -- Pup, Mocha, and Addison -- while Amity and I sat and talked with their owners.
(I am extremely tempted to complain about the heat at this point -- you'll notice I didn't list that in my complaints above. It is as hot as hell here, but no humidity, which really makes all the difference. (I hope that, if I do end up in hell, it will be dry heat.) I have not whined and complained to Amity about how I can't breathe, I need a shower, my clothes are drippy, I'm dying here! -- and I think it worries her some.
Amity is going to be in her friend Rebecca's wedding in September, and we have gone to a fancy bridal shop Monday and Tuesday to choose her dress. That was fun, except that they had mirrors all over, and I couldn't help but see myself in them. (See "I want my cupcakes," above. Life is full of bitter irony.)
I am already planning my trip back -- don't know yet whether Amity will accompany me. I am currently reading The Eyes of Willie McGee -- but it's too late and too southeast to visit Laurel, Mississippi. However, I do plan to go through Money, Mississippi on my drive home. Minnie Watson (at the Medgar Evers home) told me that there is a small museum in Money (where the Emmett Till murder took place). I definitely want to travel through that section of the state.
You choose your ideal vacation, and I'll choose mine.
More soon.
Monday, July 5, 2010
MONDAY, JULY 5, 2010 Late Night
I have still not figured out this Time Zone thing. My cell phone says one thing, my car clock says another, Amity's clocks say another, my computer says something else. I am beginning to think only in terms of morning, noon, and night.
I didn't say much about the trip from Jackson down to Beaumont. I did travel the Natchez Trace Parkway -- from Jackson toward Natchez-- which looked almost exactly like the Blue Ridge Parkway, but without the mountains. I drove for miles and miles on that highway without seeing another car, which was good for pondering what I had seen and learned and experienced in Jackson. (I may take add to my comments on that later. I am still pondering.)
I had originally planned to see Natchez because the Mississippi River is there; I brought one of my copies of Twain's Life on the Mississippi to compare and contrast. Unfortunately there was no time to travel to the banks of the River. I did drive through Port Gibson, established about 1811, which still has numerous antebellum homes standing and in beautiful condition. There were lots of historic markers that I sometimes stopped to read, though I considered it prudent not to knock on doors and ask for tours.)
I passed by Alcorn College and again remembered Medgar Evers, who attended school there.
I can now say that I have seen Louisiana -- but mostly through a violent, driving rain with my windshield wipers on "Fast" and still not going fast enough. Traveling West on I-10 toward Beaumont (and a night of rest), I thought I might have to pull over to the shoulder of the road because I could see nothing but the emergency blinking lights on the car in front of me. It was the kind of rain, however, that discourages pulling over because you don't know exactly where the shoulder is. I figured it must be remnants of Hurricane Alex; I expected to find globs of oil on my car when the storm ceased, but did not.
It was good to reach Beaumont and check into the hotel, where I wandered around with my mouth hanging open (see previous entry).
After my night in Beaumont, Texas, I drove for hours toward Austin.
Having no desire to drive south to Houston and then northwest to Austin, I took Highways 90 and 290 across the state north of that city. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for the Houstonians), that city is expanding northward and bumping into the roads I tried to take.
Phone call to Amity:
Me: I see a city in the distance, and I'm not supposed to be near a city. I think it's a mirage.
Amity: I don't think so. Maybe it's one of those Texan factories -- some of them are pretty big.
Me: This is not a factory. This is a city. It sort of looks like the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz, except it isn't green -- sort of foggy and gray, like a mirage. I don't know where I am. I don't like this. I've never seen a mirage before. And I'm concerned because I think it may be Houston, and I don't want to go to Houston.
The traffic became heavier and heavier, and there was BIG highway construction -- as in three levels of highway above me and three levels below.
I finally exited Super Highway of the Future and walked into a service station.
"Where am I?" I asked the clerk at the counter.
She seemed reluctant to tell me, because I think she didn't want me to stay there. "Uh, where you goin'?"
"I'm trying to get to Austin."
"Oh. Austin is THATaway."
I apparently was on the right road, but it was a detour. I hate detours.
Finally back on track, I began seeing signs telling me how many hundreds of miles to Austin. Highway 290 passes through what used to be cattle drive country, before railroads. I could almost see big clouds of cattle dust and hear the cattle bellowing. Scenes from Lonesome Dove, Days of Heaven, and Giant flashed across my mind. (Poor James Dean, poor Rock Hudson. Poor cattle.) I passed by gates that were obviously entrances to huge ranches -- again, no desire to stop and pass the time of day. I was too eager to get to Austin.
At the state line between Louisiana and Texas there is a mileage sign: El Paso, 858.
James says that Texans just want people to remember how big the state is. I'll give them that, and gladly.
I arrived at Amity's at around 4:00 PM because I overshot my mark and drove almost to El Paso. Amity's calm voice on the cell phone "Uh, Mom.... I think you've gone too far) guided me back in and to their place. (Remember phone booths? Where would I be on this trip if I had to stop at a phone booth every time I needed guidance?!?)
The photo above is taken from the balcony of their apartment.
This morning I attended a yoga class with Amity and James. Don't laugh. Some of those positions remind me of someone who has fallen off a high cliff and needs to be scooped up and carried home in a basket. But Amity loves it and is really, really good at it. The class I took this morning was a "restorative" class -- and there was nobody in the room who needed restoration more than I, after that drive of over a thousand miles. (Admittedly, some of those miles were backtracking. About four or five hundred of them, it seems.)
During one pose , where we put our hips against the baseboard and our legs high up on the wall, the instructor walked over and said to me -- in front of the whole class, and loudly -- "This position will help with the swelling in your feet." (Damn Mister. These are my feet's normal size!)
Later I will post more photos of Austin and my loved ones here. Amity hates having her picture made -- I think she is in the Witness Protection program -- but James, Ruby, and Holden don't mind.
Thanks for reading this, you guys who have told me you are. (Remember that our friendship does not require it.) I am just enjoying having a reason to journal more extensively than I might otherwise.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!
I don't know what time it is, so I won't post it. I do know that I'm at breakfast at the Holiday Inn in Beaumont, Texas, and that's about all I know at this time of morning. I know of know way to gauge the time except that I feel I should still be sleeping -- but I feel like that until about noon every day of life.
I am almost embarrassed to be staying in this Grande Hotel for "free." (Of course, it is "free" in only one sense. I have paid for it in blood, sweat, and tears, months of working the Tri-State market for the past eight or nine years.) At the risk of sounding like Country Girl Come to Town, I will say that the facility is HUGE; this ain't your Murphy, North Carolina, Holiday Inn Express. The lobby has fountains and several seating areas and a couple of glass elevators that go up and down by just pushing a button. ("I got to Kansas City on a Fridy. By Saturday I larned a thing or two! 'Cuz up to then I didn't have an idee Of whut the modren world wuz comin' to!" Remember that song from Oklahoma?)
I digress, which is what I do this early in the morning. Or not.
After finishing breakfast I plan to pack the wagon and drive West toward Austin -- straight through on small roads, cause I ain't tacklin' Houston.
Have a great Fourth of July!
I know I will, because today I see Amity, James, Ruby, and Holden for the first time in months!
I don't know what time it is, so I won't post it. I do know that I'm at breakfast at the Holiday Inn in Beaumont, Texas, and that's about all I know at this time of morning. I know of know way to gauge the time except that I feel I should still be sleeping -- but I feel like that until about noon every day of life.
I am almost embarrassed to be staying in this Grande Hotel for "free." (Of course, it is "free" in only one sense. I have paid for it in blood, sweat, and tears, months of working the Tri-State market for the past eight or nine years.) At the risk of sounding like Country Girl Come to Town, I will say that the facility is HUGE; this ain't your Murphy, North Carolina, Holiday Inn Express. The lobby has fountains and several seating areas and a couple of glass elevators that go up and down by just pushing a button. ("I got to Kansas City on a Fridy. By Saturday I larned a thing or two! 'Cuz up to then I didn't have an idee Of whut the modren world wuz comin' to!" Remember that song from Oklahoma?)
I digress, which is what I do this early in the morning. Or not.
After finishing breakfast I plan to pack the wagon and drive West toward Austin -- straight through on small roads, cause I ain't tacklin' Houston.
Have a great Fourth of July!
I know I will, because today I see Amity, James, Ruby, and Holden for the first time in months!
Saturday, July 3, 2010
SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010 10:00 pm EST
Well, I didn't make it to the Eudora Welty house in Jackson, Mississippi today. And I didn't make it to the Vicksburg seige site / battlefield, and I didn't see the Mississippi River at Natchez.
All these things I had planned to do -- but I was so overwhelmed by my experience with Medgar Evers that, once I left his house, I just drove West to Beaumont, Texas, where I am staying the night.
You may recognize the house in this photo if you have ever seen film clips of Medgar Evers or if you have watched (I have begged you to watch :-) ) the series, Eyes on the Prize. (Actually, this series is currently being shown again on Monday nights -- PBS. )
The house is the site of Medgar Evers's assassination. He was killed in the driveway as he arrived home from a late-night meeting. His pregnant wife, Myrlie, and his three children were inside the house as someone shot Evers from across the street.
My GPS device, housed in my cell phone, is sometimes my friend and sometimes my enemy. I had entered the address of this house (on Margaret Walker Alexander Drive), and it took me through a labyrinth of streets in a rather delapidated section of Jackson. The GPS told me, "Your destination is on the right" -- but all I saw were houses that did not look like the Evers site, a couple of gas stations / convenience stores with bars on the windows, streets with potholes (a la Highway 240 in Asheville), empty lots with lots of concrete and no grass.
Several times I have found my White face in places where I saw only Black faces around me, but in those circumstances I have usually been with a friend. Today was different.
I drove for miles through small Black neighborhoods, carefully following the GPS instructions to "Turn right. Turn right again. Turn left, then prepare to keep right." I thought if I heard "Recalculating route" one more time I would throw my cell phone out the window into one of the grassless lots. Not only that, but I was very quickly running out of gas.
I stopped at one of those convenience stores to fill up. You couldn't use a credit card at the pumps -- cash only -- so I had to go inside to pay. I was going to ask the man behind the counter where the Evers house was, but he hardly spoke English, and I didn't want to spend time asking and explaining. My day was getting away from me, with all that turning right and preparing to keep left and recalculating routes through the neighborhoods for the past hour.
I almost decided to stop looking, but then I stopped at another gas station where a gentleman was putting gas into his car. I approached him, introduced myself (offering my hand to shake -- a habit I have learned from my job, I guess), and asked my question. He knew the Evers house was "over in that direction" but he wasn't sure of the street name. He asked another man who drove up in a pickup truck -- and who looked a lot like Taj Mahal -- if he knew the exact location. They gave me good instructions, and as I left them, the first gentleman said, "If you get lost, just go up there to Freedom Corner. Anybody standing around up there will know where it is, for sure. And they won't bother you none."
I didn't know what to say to that. I was embarrassed. Had I done something, indicated somehow, that I was frightened? I didn't think so. My embarrassment made me stumble over my response, "Oh, I didn't think anyone would bother me!" -- which seemed to embarrass him.
Why should such a simple exchange -- asking directions -- elicit such feelings from us both?
I pondered that as I drove back toward Freedom Corner -- which I couldn't find. I finally pulled over into a lot near a school and tried the GPS device again. This time it guided me directly to the house.
The Evers house was several streets from the neighborhoods I had been cruising. This neighborhood was neater, with lots of same-style houses surrounded by grassy yards and flower beds and trees. I recognized it immediately from film clips, from photos in magazines and books, from Myrlie Evers's book , For Us, the Living, which I had read in my mid-teens.
This street wasn't busy. I guessed that these houses were air conditioned and that their residents didn't have to sit on porches or in yards to try to escape the heat.
I parked across the street from the house. The internet had told me that the house was now a museum, but that it wasn't open except by appointment. I didn't have an appointment, but after searching all that time I didn't intend to make this a drive-by looking.
Then I noticed a woman at the house. She was sweeping the carport and driveway.
Minnie Watson is her name, and she is the curator of the house/museum. She told me that the only reason she was there today is that she expected a group to come for a tour -- a family reunion group. They were expected at noon (it was now about 11:45 -- Central Standard Time :-) ), and I was welcome to wait and tour with them, if I wanted.
She swept, we talked. The group didn't arrive.
"Come on in," she said, at about 12:10, "Let's get out of this heat."
She told me that Myrlie Evers (who was pregnant at the time of the killing but who lost that child) had sold the house after the assassination and moved with her three children to California. The house then fell into in disrepair -- and was getting worse every year -- until the producers of the movie, Ghosts of Mississippi, wanted to use the house in the film. They repaired it -- new roof, new floors -- and redecorated it much as it was when the Evers family lived there.
I stayed there, talking with Minnie Watson (age about sixty-seven?), for at least an hour and a half.
She had actually known Medgar Evers, and she knows Myrlie and Charles (Medgar's brother, who still lives in Jackson). She knows the ninety-five-year-old lady who still lives in the house next door, and whose husband it was who fired his gun into the air when he heard the gunshot in the driveway next door.
Minnie was a freshman in college when she met Medgar Evers. He often spoke to groups of young Black students about education, jobs, about the importance of registering to vote. "This is your country, too," he told them.
The first time he ever really thought about being Black -- about being different from Whites -- was the day his father seemed especially sad. When young Medgar (about nine or ten at the time) asked him why he was sad, his father answered, "Because they hanged one of my good friends last night." They.
The family reunion group never showed up. I toured the house, we talked.
I recommended a book I have been listening to on CD as I drive: The Help, by Kathryn Stockett -- and of course Minnie has already read it. Stockett grew up in Jackson, Mississippi and has written this astonishing novel about the relationships between the Black "help" and their White employers in Jackson in the early 1960s. A strange coincidence, that just last night I listened to the section in the novel about the killing of Medgar Evers and the effect it had on Jackson's Black citizens.
Seeing this site was worth the driving, worth the time, worth missing the other sites I had planned to see today. Except for seeing Amity and James, I think that seeing this house and talking with Minnie Watson mayh well be the highlight of this trip.
Well, I didn't make it to the Eudora Welty house in Jackson, Mississippi today. And I didn't make it to the Vicksburg seige site / battlefield, and I didn't see the Mississippi River at Natchez.
All these things I had planned to do -- but I was so overwhelmed by my experience with Medgar Evers that, once I left his house, I just drove West to Beaumont, Texas, where I am staying the night.
You may recognize the house in this photo if you have ever seen film clips of Medgar Evers or if you have watched (I have begged you to watch :-) ) the series, Eyes on the Prize. (Actually, this series is currently being shown again on Monday nights -- PBS. )
The house is the site of Medgar Evers's assassination. He was killed in the driveway as he arrived home from a late-night meeting. His pregnant wife, Myrlie, and his three children were inside the house as someone shot Evers from across the street.
My GPS device, housed in my cell phone, is sometimes my friend and sometimes my enemy. I had entered the address of this house (on Margaret Walker Alexander Drive), and it took me through a labyrinth of streets in a rather delapidated section of Jackson. The GPS told me, "Your destination is on the right" -- but all I saw were houses that did not look like the Evers site, a couple of gas stations / convenience stores with bars on the windows, streets with potholes (a la Highway 240 in Asheville), empty lots with lots of concrete and no grass.
Several times I have found my White face in places where I saw only Black faces around me, but in those circumstances I have usually been with a friend. Today was different.
I drove for miles through small Black neighborhoods, carefully following the GPS instructions to "Turn right. Turn right again. Turn left, then prepare to keep right." I thought if I heard "Recalculating route" one more time I would throw my cell phone out the window into one of the grassless lots. Not only that, but I was very quickly running out of gas.
I stopped at one of those convenience stores to fill up. You couldn't use a credit card at the pumps -- cash only -- so I had to go inside to pay. I was going to ask the man behind the counter where the Evers house was, but he hardly spoke English, and I didn't want to spend time asking and explaining. My day was getting away from me, with all that turning right and preparing to keep left and recalculating routes through the neighborhoods for the past hour.
I almost decided to stop looking, but then I stopped at another gas station where a gentleman was putting gas into his car. I approached him, introduced myself (offering my hand to shake -- a habit I have learned from my job, I guess), and asked my question. He knew the Evers house was "over in that direction" but he wasn't sure of the street name. He asked another man who drove up in a pickup truck -- and who looked a lot like Taj Mahal -- if he knew the exact location. They gave me good instructions, and as I left them, the first gentleman said, "If you get lost, just go up there to Freedom Corner. Anybody standing around up there will know where it is, for sure. And they won't bother you none."
I didn't know what to say to that. I was embarrassed. Had I done something, indicated somehow, that I was frightened? I didn't think so. My embarrassment made me stumble over my response, "Oh, I didn't think anyone would bother me!" -- which seemed to embarrass him.
Why should such a simple exchange -- asking directions -- elicit such feelings from us both?
I pondered that as I drove back toward Freedom Corner -- which I couldn't find. I finally pulled over into a lot near a school and tried the GPS device again. This time it guided me directly to the house.
The Evers house was several streets from the neighborhoods I had been cruising. This neighborhood was neater, with lots of same-style houses surrounded by grassy yards and flower beds and trees. I recognized it immediately from film clips, from photos in magazines and books, from Myrlie Evers's book , For Us, the Living, which I had read in my mid-teens.
This street wasn't busy. I guessed that these houses were air conditioned and that their residents didn't have to sit on porches or in yards to try to escape the heat.
I parked across the street from the house. The internet had told me that the house was now a museum, but that it wasn't open except by appointment. I didn't have an appointment, but after searching all that time I didn't intend to make this a drive-by looking.
Then I noticed a woman at the house. She was sweeping the carport and driveway.
Minnie Watson is her name, and she is the curator of the house/museum. She told me that the only reason she was there today is that she expected a group to come for a tour -- a family reunion group. They were expected at noon (it was now about 11:45 -- Central Standard Time :-) ), and I was welcome to wait and tour with them, if I wanted.
She swept, we talked. The group didn't arrive.
"Come on in," she said, at about 12:10, "Let's get out of this heat."
She told me that Myrlie Evers (who was pregnant at the time of the killing but who lost that child) had sold the house after the assassination and moved with her three children to California. The house then fell into in disrepair -- and was getting worse every year -- until the producers of the movie, Ghosts of Mississippi, wanted to use the house in the film. They repaired it -- new roof, new floors -- and redecorated it much as it was when the Evers family lived there.
I stayed there, talking with Minnie Watson (age about sixty-seven?), for at least an hour and a half.
She had actually known Medgar Evers, and she knows Myrlie and Charles (Medgar's brother, who still lives in Jackson). She knows the ninety-five-year-old lady who still lives in the house next door, and whose husband it was who fired his gun into the air when he heard the gunshot in the driveway next door.
Minnie was a freshman in college when she met Medgar Evers. He often spoke to groups of young Black students about education, jobs, about the importance of registering to vote. "This is your country, too," he told them.
The first time he ever really thought about being Black -- about being different from Whites -- was the day his father seemed especially sad. When young Medgar (about nine or ten at the time) asked him why he was sad, his father answered, "Because they hanged one of my good friends last night." They.
The family reunion group never showed up. I toured the house, we talked.
I recommended a book I have been listening to on CD as I drive: The Help, by Kathryn Stockett -- and of course Minnie has already read it. Stockett grew up in Jackson, Mississippi and has written this astonishing novel about the relationships between the Black "help" and their White employers in Jackson in the early 1960s. A strange coincidence, that just last night I listened to the section in the novel about the killing of Medgar Evers and the effect it had on Jackson's Black citizens.
Seeing this site was worth the driving, worth the time, worth missing the other sites I had planned to see today. Except for seeing Amity and James, I think that seeing this house and talking with Minnie Watson mayh well be the highlight of this trip.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
7:34 AM
That is CENTRAL Standard Time, so in God's time it is really 8:34.
My body shrieked at me as I fell out of bed an hour ago, "ARE YOU CRAZY?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!! IT AIN'T NOON YET, SO GET BACK IN THAT BED!!"
Nope. I have miles to go today, and many things to see before reaching Beaumont, Texas tonight. (That is, "If nothing happens." My grandmother used that phrase in regard to almost any future plan -- a certain way to guard against hubris.)
I staggered out of the elevator and felt my way along the walls to a booth in the hotel restaurant. There are small television screens at each booth, and all the tvs are muted until a man sits in the booth next to mine and turns the volume up. WAY up.
I prefer reading the captions scrolling across the screen, as this is quieter and less invasive this early in the morning and I have no newspaper.
"BAR ATTACK IN COLOMBIA KILLS AT LEAST EIGHT . . . . ." Oh my god! Eight people killed by a bear in Colombia?! I didn't know they even had bears in Colom . . . . . . . Oh. It was a BAR attack. Not a BEAR attack, as my brain initially signaled me. Is this mis-firing of electrons (or neurons or w-h-a-t-e-v-e-r) in my head a result of the early hour, or what? Too tired to think about it now.
It's beginning to get busier here now -- more folks coming in for breakfast. Occasionally -- and this is NOT a misfiring -- I hear just the beginning strains of "Dixie." (And it isn't a custom-made car horn on a pickup truck, as I have sometimes heard near Canton.) Where is that coming from?!
I hope my head clears before I pack my car and start out toward Jackson.
7:34 AM
That is CENTRAL Standard Time, so in God's time it is really 8:34.
My body shrieked at me as I fell out of bed an hour ago, "ARE YOU CRAZY?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!! IT AIN'T NOON YET, SO GET BACK IN THAT BED!!"
Nope. I have miles to go today, and many things to see before reaching Beaumont, Texas tonight. (That is, "If nothing happens." My grandmother used that phrase in regard to almost any future plan -- a certain way to guard against hubris.)
I staggered out of the elevator and felt my way along the walls to a booth in the hotel restaurant. There are small television screens at each booth, and all the tvs are muted until a man sits in the booth next to mine and turns the volume up. WAY up.
I prefer reading the captions scrolling across the screen, as this is quieter and less invasive this early in the morning and I have no newspaper.
"BAR ATTACK IN COLOMBIA KILLS AT LEAST EIGHT . . . . ." Oh my god! Eight people killed by a bear in Colombia?! I didn't know they even had bears in Colom . . . . . . . Oh. It was a BAR attack. Not a BEAR attack, as my brain initially signaled me. Is this mis-firing of electrons (or neurons or w-h-a-t-e-v-e-r) in my head a result of the early hour, or what? Too tired to think about it now.
It's beginning to get busier here now -- more folks coming in for breakfast. Occasionally -- and this is NOT a misfiring -- I hear just the beginning strains of "Dixie." (And it isn't a custom-made car horn on a pickup truck, as I have sometimes heard near Canton.) Where is that coming from?!
I hope my head clears before I pack my car and start out toward Jackson.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010 8:45 PM
It is good to have a long-time friend who not only allows me to stay at her place on my road trip, but who insists on getting up early -- on her day off -- to make coffee and chat with me before I start out again. Not only that: she even loaned -- and packed with leftovers from our dinner last night -- a cooler for me to carry along the road. I did not share with her that I have a car full of snacks -- most of them chocolate-covered -- to keep me alive as I travel.
Val is an optimist, a great listener, and she laughs at my jokes. The only thing I think could be improved in Valerie is her neck, which -- due to an almost fatal car accident last December -- is full of hardware and doesn't serve her well when she tries to twist her head around really fast to look at something behind her. No matter. I am able to overlook this flaw most of the time. In the future, she and I are going to take a Road Trip together and it will be my job to look behind us when necessary.
I left Val's at about 9:00 and drove straight to Scottsboro, Alabama. Not only does Scottsboro have the largest Unclaimed Baggage Center in the world --which I visited first thing -- but the town is also the site of the "Scottsboro Boys" trial, which took place in the courthouse there in March, 1931.
Nine Black men, ages thirteen-to-nineteen , were accused of gang-raping two white women on a train just outside of town. They were caught, shackled, and taken into Scottsboro, where the first trial took place just two weeks after their arrests. Eight were convicted and sentenced to death; jurors couldn't reach a verdict for the youngest defendant. The case is much too complicated to write about here. There were several trials, the NAACP became involved, and the case is called "the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement," though I'm not sure I agree with that one.
There is a small church in Scottsboro -- 132 years old and built by former slaves -- which houses the Scottsboro Boys Museum and Cultural Center. Unfortunately, it was closed today. I did examine the courthouse and the historic section of town, however. Scottsboro is typical of so many Southern towns during the Depression years, which is one thing that makes it so interesting to me (besides the trial, of course). Judging from photographs and film clips I've seen, the historic section is much the same as it was in 1931.
Trivia Question: What was the site of Ricky Nelson's last concert? (First of all, younger ones, you have to know who Ricky Nelson was.) The answer: Guntersville, Alabama, which I nodded to as I drove by today. Val had told me that Nelson performed a fundraiser concert there and was killed in the plane crash the very next day as he left the area.
Highway 431, between Guntersville and Gadsden is the ugliest stretch of road I have ever seen -- and this includes Russ Avenue in Waynesville. Actually, picture Russ Avenue, but with about six lanes of traffic and going on for miles and miles. Think of any fast food restaurant you've ever seen, and there are dozens of them along that stretch of road -- along with hundreds of bargain furniture stores, pawn shops, tattoo parlors, auto repair shops, and Lord Knows What All. There was no grass, and if there were trees, they were hiding.
I arrived at the Holiday Inn Express in Meridian, Mississippi at about 5:00 PM-- and it is first class, open for only two months.
Immediately after I checked in a drove out to see the James Earl Chaney Memorial. (Here's another history lesson for you, Todd! You asked for it. :-))
During Freedom Summer (1964) scores of folks (many Northerners, mostly white, mostly young) moved into Mississippi to encourage Blacks to register to vote. (African Americans all over the Deep South were being murdered for trying to register.)
Briefly (because I know you've already stopped reading, anyhow): In the summer of '64 three young men, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman (both White) and James Earl Chaney (Black) were stopped by "the law" near Philadelphia, Mississippi, kept in jail for a few hours, and then released. Somewhere along the road, as they tried to get back to headquarters, they were stopped and driven to a remote part of the county and murdered. Schwerner and Goodman -- Goodman had been in Mississippi only one day -- were shot. Chaney was brutally beaten, tortured, and then shot. Their burned-out car was discovered after many weeks, and even more weeks went by before an informer told the FBI where the bodies could be found.
Chaney could not be buried in a white cemetery beside Schwerner and Goodman -- segregation laws and all -- and he was buried here in Meridian.
I don't know what I expected in visiting his grave and "Memorial." I left the hotel and was soon out in the country, driving along a small, two-lane road toward the gravesite. (I asked the Black receptionist at the Mississippi Welcom Center how to get there. She was able to tell me, but there was no printed information available. When I got to the hotel and asked the White desk clerk where it was, she had no idea, nor did a couple of the Black (younger) clerks with her.
The "Memorial" is about six miles out of town, and sits closer to the small, sandy dirt road than the other graves there. It sits apart from the others and is surrounded by woods -- no houses, no cars, not even many other graves there.
There had been one of those small, round "photo holders" on the Memorial/grave; it had been broken out. And something I have never seen before: the gravestone/marker was supported by large pieces of iron -- put in place, no doubt, to keep the stone from being vandalized. (I'll post a photo if I can.)
On the marker: an engraving of two hands clasped in friendship (reminded me of the Building Bridges logo); "James Earl Chaney: May 30, 1943 -- June 21, 1964"; and "There are those who are alive, yet will never live. There are those who are dead, yet will live forever. Great deeds inspire and encourage the living."
Chaney's mother is buried beside him.
I don't feel like writing anymore tonight.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Thursday/Friday, Julyl 1/2
12:30 AM
It doesn't seem fair, somehow, that after leaving the car dealership at around 11:30 (three hours after I had planned to set out), and going home to pack the car that I was unable to pack last night, I should go down into my basement to unplug the dehumidifier and find the basement flooded.
It was not a huge flood -- just enough to soak some cardboard boxes near the dehumidifier and to threaten electrocution from the extension cord lying in the water.
I chose not to deal with it -- just threw several rolls of paper towels in the water, unplugged the cords, packed the car and left. I wasn't even in Georgia yet and was choosing to "think about that tomorrow."
Following Michael's directions (he is my younger brother who knows how to get to places), I drove to a plot of land near Toccoa, Georgia. which has been in our family for many, many years. In the 1920s and 1930s the land was pasture and soy bean fields, and cotton grew there. I imagine that it was a sort of Depression-era compound, with several family members owning houses within shouting distance of one another. All the houses (except one very delapidated one) are gone now.
To reach the land I drove through Toccoa, turned onto Highway 17 and from there to Highway 106. Between two small country churches I turned down an overgrown lane and drove back to The Property -- now grown over with weeds, scrub pine (is that the correct term?), and especially blackberry bushes. I saw at least 6,498,278 blackberries today.
I am not fond of blackberries, but these are small and very sweet and turned my fingers purple as I picked 479 of them to give to my friend, Valerie, at whose Rome, Georgia home I am staying tonight. Val is an old friend -- a strong woman who survived an almost-fatal car accident in December. When I forget that I, too, am a strong woman, she reminds me.
When I arrived at Val's about 7:30 PM, I jumped out of the car, shoved the container of berries at her, and shouted, "Quick! Point me to a shower!" I had found a tick in my hair as I drove from Toccoa to Rome, and for many miles I imagined that his family and friends were attaching themselves to my skin under my perspiration-soaked jeans and tank-top. I had an almost uncontrollable urge to pull over to the shoulder of Highway 365 and disrobe, but I didn't.
I caught the wayward tick and wrapped him in a tissue and closed him up in a cup of salsa, lid tight. I must remember not to dip tortilla chips in that cup tomorrow.
I have no doubt that tonight, out in my car parked in Val's garage, there are angry, disease-bearing ticks waiting for me in the folds of the carseats, under the mats, between the pages of my road maps, in the bag of chocolate-covered almonds I had planned to eat on the drive to Scottsboro, Alabama in the morning. But it seems foolish to fret about that at 1:36 AM. "I'll think about that tomorrow."
12:30 AM
It doesn't seem fair, somehow, that after leaving the car dealership at around 11:30 (three hours after I had planned to set out), and going home to pack the car that I was unable to pack last night, I should go down into my basement to unplug the dehumidifier and find the basement flooded.
It was not a huge flood -- just enough to soak some cardboard boxes near the dehumidifier and to threaten electrocution from the extension cord lying in the water.
I chose not to deal with it -- just threw several rolls of paper towels in the water, unplugged the cords, packed the car and left. I wasn't even in Georgia yet and was choosing to "think about that tomorrow."
Following Michael's directions (he is my younger brother who knows how to get to places), I drove to a plot of land near Toccoa, Georgia. which has been in our family for many, many years. In the 1920s and 1930s the land was pasture and soy bean fields, and cotton grew there. I imagine that it was a sort of Depression-era compound, with several family members owning houses within shouting distance of one another. All the houses (except one very delapidated one) are gone now.
To reach the land I drove through Toccoa, turned onto Highway 17 and from there to Highway 106. Between two small country churches I turned down an overgrown lane and drove back to The Property -- now grown over with weeds, scrub pine (is that the correct term?), and especially blackberry bushes. I saw at least 6,498,278 blackberries today.
I am not fond of blackberries, but these are small and very sweet and turned my fingers purple as I picked 479 of them to give to my friend, Valerie, at whose Rome, Georgia home I am staying tonight. Val is an old friend -- a strong woman who survived an almost-fatal car accident in December. When I forget that I, too, am a strong woman, she reminds me.
When I arrived at Val's about 7:30 PM, I jumped out of the car, shoved the container of berries at her, and shouted, "Quick! Point me to a shower!" I had found a tick in my hair as I drove from Toccoa to Rome, and for many miles I imagined that his family and friends were attaching themselves to my skin under my perspiration-soaked jeans and tank-top. I had an almost uncontrollable urge to pull over to the shoulder of Highway 365 and disrobe, but I didn't.
I caught the wayward tick and wrapped him in a tissue and closed him up in a cup of salsa, lid tight. I must remember not to dip tortilla chips in that cup tomorrow.
I have no doubt that tonight, out in my car parked in Val's garage, there are angry, disease-bearing ticks waiting for me in the folds of the carseats, under the mats, between the pages of my road maps, in the bag of chocolate-covered almonds I had planned to eat on the drive to Scottsboro, Alabama in the morning. But it seems foolish to fret about that at 1:36 AM. "I'll think about that tomorrow."
Thursday, July 1 at 10:30 AM
This morning before our Yellowbook staff meeting my "gud frind"/co-worker gave me a copy of an article from Southern Living: "Monroeville's Mockingbird: 50 Years after the debut of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee's Alabama hometown celebrates the book that made it famous."
What is that word again? Serendipity?
I have read the article as I sit here at the car dealership -- after the staff meeting and after my 50% benchmark review -- waiting for my car repair to be finished so that I can Head South and West.
The article is primarily about the town and author -- how much the town has changed and how much Nelle Harper Lee (Nelle to her friends) disdains the celebrity that has surrounded the town since the publication of her only completed novel. (The Monroeville bookstore doesn't stock Charles J. Shields's 2006 biography of Harper Lee because she doesn't like it. )
Harper, now eighty-four, has lived in Monroeville all her life.
The beauty and feel of that novel may be one small part of what I would like to capture on this trip, though I know with the practical, realist part of my brain that this will be impossible. I haven't looked at my Alabama map for some hours, but I don't think Monroeville is even on my itenerary. Just didn't think of it until Lisa gave me this article.
One sentence from the article stands out: "You can't put the past behind you without understanding what it was like." I strongly desire to understand what it was like, but I have no desire to put the past behind me. I'll keep it beside me, if I can.
I had originally planned to be miles down the road at 11:00 on Thursday morning, I sit at the car dealership writing this blog. He says the car is ready to go. "The paperwork is ready." I fear I know what that means.
I didn't pack the car last night because we were apart from one another. Now from the dealership lobby to home, to some of my own "roots" near Toccoa, Georgia.
More soon.
This morning before our Yellowbook staff meeting my "gud frind"/co-worker gave me a copy of an article from Southern Living: "Monroeville's Mockingbird: 50 Years after the debut of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee's Alabama hometown celebrates the book that made it famous."
What is that word again? Serendipity?
I have read the article as I sit here at the car dealership -- after the staff meeting and after my 50% benchmark review -- waiting for my car repair to be finished so that I can Head South and West.
The article is primarily about the town and author -- how much the town has changed and how much Nelle Harper Lee (Nelle to her friends) disdains the celebrity that has surrounded the town since the publication of her only completed novel. (The Monroeville bookstore doesn't stock Charles J. Shields's 2006 biography of Harper Lee because she doesn't like it. )
Harper, now eighty-four, has lived in Monroeville all her life.
The beauty and feel of that novel may be one small part of what I would like to capture on this trip, though I know with the practical, realist part of my brain that this will be impossible. I haven't looked at my Alabama map for some hours, but I don't think Monroeville is even on my itenerary. Just didn't think of it until Lisa gave me this article.
One sentence from the article stands out: "You can't put the past behind you without understanding what it was like." I strongly desire to understand what it was like, but I have no desire to put the past behind me. I'll keep it beside me, if I can.
I had originally planned to be miles down the road at 11:00 on Thursday morning, I sit at the car dealership writing this blog. He says the car is ready to go. "The paperwork is ready." I fear I know what that means.
I didn't pack the car last night because we were apart from one another. Now from the dealership lobby to home, to some of my own "roots" near Toccoa, Georgia.
More soon.
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