The GPS got a little confused getting out of Meridian and I had failed to
start the manual gps, but it gave us a good tour of the town. We finally found
Old US 80 out of town. The road needed a little repair and about 20 miles down
the road we ran into construction. There were several long delays and many of us
got out and visited among ourselves.
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eddie said two people had already tried to kill him today
a masked bandit on the highway
foley lives with his momma and he was going into town to walmart to pick up a few things
is that one of them italian jobs?
lewis is friendly but he does not smile
we sat here for 20 minutes as the paving machine laid asphalt through a narrow road area
We rolled into Jackson, the state capital, about lunch time and figured
this would be a great place to have lunch and leer at all the good looking
female employees roaming the side walk. So I parked in a construction zone and started walking the town. It was like a ghost town. There was no one
there. The Elite restaurant had been here for over 50 years and the waitresses have been here for 19 to 32 years and said things were a little “slow”. I
ended up on a bench with 6 guys from AT&T. They pointed to all the different
buildings and told me what used to be there and now there is nothing. It was a sad
sight.
not a soul in the coffee shop
not a soul on the road or sidewalk
the at&t guys
this rusted license plate pretty well sums up mississippi's history
We got on 49 and headed north towards Yazoo City (I have always loved that
name). I made a turn into Bentonia to make a pilgrimage to the Blue Front Cafe and home
of Jimmy “Duck” Holmes one of the best blues guitar players in the world. It
was locked up tight, but I took a few pictures and went to the cotton gin next
door where Jack builds drag racers for his boss. He, Will Young and I visited and
talked racing and then Jimmy came driving up. I spent the next hour sitting on
the front porch talking blues, life and travel with one of the greatest and a
living legend. We talked about how old juke joints like his in rural America
are just about gone. He said his business came mainly from people from Jackson
booking events on weekends for some reason or other. Interestingly he said that
very few blacks come to the blues concerts nowadays and they are mostly older
people. He figured the young kids don’t come cause you can’t do blues with your
britches below their butt. I would love to have had a few beers, but Big Red
will not let me drink and drive.
one of the winning drag racers in the cotton gin
I was on a natural high after visiting Jimmy. I told him I would work on getting him back to St. Pete again for another concert. The rest of the day was spent just wandering the back roads until I found myself in Greenville after 5 pm. It was not where I wanted to spend the night, but I could not get anyone to answer the phones in Indianola or Clarksdale so I checked into a Greenville hotel. They served chicken wings and beer for the manager's happy hour. I was happy.
