Randomly Highway 61

There is a lot to see if you go to Clarksdale Mississippi, there is a lot to see if you travel Highway 61 North, the thing is you have to look for it. What I have found is that you need to go to the places the tourists don't go, and in those places I find gems. For me a good place to eat is a gem. I have posted one of my favorite places to eat on 61 Highway, just North of Clarksdale outside of Lyon.  This Shady Nook is called "The Shady Nook"

I know what you're saying, Clarksdale is the blues capital of the world (yes I said the world, Memphis just happens to be a larger city therefore it likes to claim things like world capital but I have my opinion) Clarksdale has a crossroads where Legba has been spotted and more Juke Joints than you could ever want. If you want some bbq, Lebanese, there are great places, I will have posts about them, just don't forget the Shady Nook. 

I generally find that the locals in small town Mississippi eat at these small restaurant/ gas stations. There is a great place for a sausage biscuit in Coldwater, wonderful egg rolls in Crowder, and here, bbq, bbq known by the locals. 

I have met folk from all up and down the delta while eating a delicious plate lunch. You get the basics 1 meat 2 vegetables a coke and desert all for 6.99. I became a fan one random visit when I was hungry and the food smelled too good to pass up. I ended eating some of the best banana pudding ever to grace the orifice on my face. 

This place is chock full of the local population and the local population from Cleveland to Tunica. During my most recent visit I spent some time with the local Constable, and while retelling my Banana pudding story to the cook made a friend. 

I encourage you to never pass up your chance to eat at the local gas station... if you really want to get the flavor of the city, of course you could just be a tourist all your life. 

Need Some Tires?

There was point for some sadness today, I was going to take pictures of the old North Panola Hospital in Sardis Mississippi, but there was some business going on there so I decided I would another day, to find out that part of it has been converted to the justice court, you can actually see it behind the photo beneath this text. 

I never paid any attention to what the above site was. After reading the sign I couldn't help but take the picture. The proprietors were walking back to their building when I took the picture so I didn't want to spend a lot of time explaining why I was taking a picture of their structure.  For any of y'all who didn't get it, this is a tire place. Looking at the sign spray painted on I wondered if they ever closed.

Guess they do. 

The above building is right across the county line in Lafayette County Mississippi, I don't think there is a city associated to this area, they call it Como on the address books, I can tell you, this is not Como. I hadn't been out this way in a long time

What can I say, I like pictures of dilapidated buildings. You are going to get a lot of them. 

The other pic from Yesterfday

I didn't post this picture yesterday because I didn't have a photo editor and I didn't want to post the feller's tag numbers. 

I snapped this picture really quick at a stopsign between main streets in Senatobia Mississippi. I say between main streets because Main street jumps in Senatobia. I was worried I wouldn't have enough time to get the shot off but my camera takes quickly. 

I can't help but wonder what the the owner is trying to say... We all decorate our vehicals somehow, I have a vanity tag on the front of my car that says "Blues," other people think bumper stickers look good. These get me though, generally the owner is representing a pair of testicles. sometimes the hanging scrotum looks even more like a scrotum. What is the point here? Is the owner of the truck trying to tell us he is a pervert?

Things I saw... Today

Now that I have been given a camera as a gift... by a beautiful woman, I can fulfil my dream and take pictures of things I see while driving that are cool or rediculous. I see a lot of neat things and wish I could experience them with others this is my chance.

This cemetery is in Longtown Mississippi. Longtown does not have its own post office so all mail comes through Sarah Mississippi. This cemetery struck me because most of the town seemed to either be cemetery or farm land. I would have liked the chance to walk through the cemetery but I am already pretty macabre don't need to look more like it. 

I can't help but wonder though, this town is a divit in the map. I wonder if this town has gotten smaller or if everyone in the area just gets burried here. 

I thought this was the best shot and wanted it to be on top but I don't think that far ahead when I am uploading.  See that rise... I wonder if it is natural or created... I wonder how far back this cemetery goes... I will ahve to look one day. 
 

Ditty Bout a Girl

I wanted to write a poem

Cause I care so damn much

Describing your eyes and lips

Longing for your touch

 

Talking about why I care

And how great you are

Thinking bout all your attributes

And how you must’ve fallen like a star

 

I try and relate you to the cosmos

The sky and sunsets and shit

But the words I have don’t describe

The feelings and all of it

 

I can only stare blankly

And listen to your words

And in the silence smile at you

And pray for what to say…

When it is my turn

 

Pictures of Mississippi

Now that my camera has a phone I am able to take some random pics as I drive through Northwest Mississippi. I have two that I would like to show you. Remember all I have to go off is the camera on my phone so the artistic level may be low, but you might see some interesting things.

I titled this "The Meat People." If you don't understand why this stuck out to me think back to your childhood days (guys) when farts were still funny. This is at a grocery store in Grenada Mississippi. Grenada is a decent place to stop in if you are traveling from Memphis to Jackson or Vice Versa, it is 200 miles from Memphis to Jackson and Grenada is almost the middle, the actual middle is a place called Duck Hill, actually duck hill is a few miles off the road but right off interstate there is a gas station called Midway, it has a small deli, and you will catch a lot of local folk sitting and eating at the right time of the day.

But back to Grenada, there are plenty of fast food restaurants, and there is a decent Barbeque place called Jake and Rips.

I call this pic "This Old House." We are now Northwest of Grenada, a good deal Northwest, in Tunica County. This is real Tunica, not the part you see at the casino's. Harrah has never been here. This is old Tunica, off White Oak Rd, off Highway 4. If you are on 61 going south take a left on highway 4, for less than a quarter mile and take the next left (I believe and you will be on White Oak. Keep moving North and this house will be in the middle of nowhere on the right. I don't recomend going unless you have some reason to be in that area, remember this is Old Tunica, there is no security here, you will be surrounded by cotton fields, trailers, and a lot of nothing. In the Delta you can still dissappear and never be found.





Though if you choose to travel along highway 4 from 61 to interstate you will pass a BP gas station on the left, it will be your last chance to stop for 20-30 miles until you get to Senatobia. If you happen to be going through this part of Tunica at night and are traveling toward Memphis, it is best to stay on HWY 61 North, if you really want interstate look for 69/304.

I am not going to say a lot about this pic, lets just say it is for purification.

Something to say

I was lying on the floor considering my life… and I laughed. Thinking back to the winding road walked, I couldn’t help it. I spend a lot of time walking the line between life and death, searching for something… not sure what, just something. On more than one occasion I have felt the heavy black robe on my shoulders, the cold face of death masking my reflection, sometimes hoping to God that it was just a mask and worried that the true mask I wore was the face I show my friends when I walk out of my house.

I have presided over a half dozen weddings, but only one funeral, but in that time over 100 deaths. It is easy when my life surrounds so much death to feel like my Bible is a scythe and my smile is hidden behind the bones of the Ghost of Christmas Future. Commonly I feel like I sit outside of life watching the living, and I sit outside of death watching the dying. Can’t help but think the words, “Love is not a victory march but a cold and a broken hallelujah.”

I don’t know if I would say I had ever lost hope of the good things, but I know I have never lost sight of the bad. Weeks have begun to roll by, so have many lives, and I can’t help but mourn for the bit of life that I let slip by in my own fears. For the longest time the only way to hold back the onslaught of grief was to dance. There is something naturally healing when two human being hold one another and converse without words. It makes it easier to remember that the blood in my veins is warm knowing that I have not faded into the background of existence.

But there came a time when dancing didn’t work anymore. Well, maybe it wasn’t that dancing didn’t work, it was just that my heart had become to heavy to lift for the time it takes to ask. Though I guess my imagery of the road isn’t complete unless I mention the mountains. I can’t walk straight up a mountain, I walk from side to side in that direction, and I suppose descent is the same. It is manageable if I go back in forth and avoid falling off the mountain.

And the ideas of the prophets fill the corners of my waking mind. Looking back the prophets spoke of the better times, begging that if those who hear would return to those times better times would return. Reminding me ever to have faith in God because God has always been faithful. I do remember a time, my happiest time. There was a time when life was ascent only, with small descents but mostly ascent.

Those were great times but I also can’t help remember the conversations I have had with others in the valley. To put it more succinctly the love I felt from those in the valley. When I am forced to play the serpent, or the psychopomp I am met by those other tribes wondering in the valleys, and we all become one because we have to.

This is purely a rant, I don’t know where it was going, all I know is that as I laid on the floor, I laughed, and it was good.