Small towns like Louise hold their own

There's not much to Louise these days. Truth be told, there wasn't much to Louise back in its heydey. The 1950 Census counted 479 people and the 2009 estimate was exactly 200 less.

But back in the 1950s and 1960s, when we lived at Louise, we called it home.

You see, you don't need to live in some great metropolitan area to have access to what you need ... most especially warmth and friendship.

Last week, my sister and I returned to Louise to "see the flooding" in the Delta. We didn't expect to see water lapping at the town's edge, but we did expect to see people trying to secure their belongings out around Wolf Lake.

Sadly, we were not disappointed.

Even as they worked to protect Good Hope Baptist Church, Roy Lee Cleveland and Randy Hill took the time to stop and visit — hugging my sister and shaking my hand. A little ways up the road, Harold Horton and his sister, Hilma Horton Nibben, were busy trying to load their families' life history into a trailer so that it could be hauled to Harold's garage and stored safely. Harold took the time to visit and show us some of the preparations while Hilma invited Sarah inside to see the progress.

Even as they looked down the breech of what's projected to be the greatest flood in Mississippi River history, the graciousness of the people of the small town Delta rose to the surface.

In Louise, we drove street-by-street and spotted a lady walking along with her dog. We stopped, and my sister greeted her. It was Joanne Schoonover and we visited for a brief moment, then wished her well. She did likewise, and we drove off.

Out on the main drag, now not even a highway, we headed south and stopped in front of Hoover Lee's grocery so I could get my Dr Pepper fix. Hoover was stocking shelves and spoke to me, which prompted a, "I used to buy Blue Horse notebook paper here" from me.

After telling him who I was, he asked, "Where's Sarah?," followed by a, "Do you think she'd mind if I went out and spoke?"

Yankees don't do that. They don't do that because it requires personal interaction and connection. Those raised in the South, even the generations when there was so much violence, have a genteelness about them. Hoover, for example, asking before being friendly and welcoming.

After all, there are no strangers in the South, and perhaps that helps play into the warmth one feels even as they sit and look down a row of decaying buildings that were once thriving little businesses facing US Highway 49.

There's nothing left of Red Gum, out on Highway 14 where we lived, and there's little left of the school where so many of us spent time and build friendships that, as it has turned out, have lasted a lifetime.

Those friendships have lasted, as has the connection to that little town ... our classmates, our teachers and mentors, our churches and the values that were instilled in us by our parents as well as the parents of our friends. After all, we knew about being raised by a village long before the term was made popular.

No, there's not much left of the physical Louise, but the memories sure do fill one's mind.

I wish I was in the land of ... corn?

Okay, while Ohio-born Daniel Decatur Emmett, credited by most with the composition of the song known as "Dixie." wouldn't recognize those lyrics, it is what it is.

Corn is the cash crop king in the Mississippi Delta these days, adding a third "C" to the region's revenue producers. At one time, just like it says in the song, it was all about cotton ... then, catfish swam into the picture and now, corn.

Fields that not too many years ago would have produced bale after bale and left modules all along the roads, waiting to be loaded and hauled to the gins, on Saturday (May 7) had a beautiful stand of corn about three feet tall.

"Best looking corn in years," said Randy Hill as he and friend Roy Lee Cleveland prepped Good Hope Baptist Church for the coming flood. "And we've got this (the flood)."

My Daddy was a cotton farmer, managing two plantations — Red Gum, where we lived, and Good Luck, not too many miles as the crow flies from Good Hope. Daddy probably raised 2,000 acres or so of cotton, averaging better than two bales an acre with ease and as much as three bales in some years.

Daddy knew how to grow cotton — or just about anything else. Just as his ancestors had done, he watched nature's signs ... the moon, the clouds, the sunrises and sunsets. And he was successful as he grew cotton, soybeans, oats and wheat 

Nowadays, there's nothing planted that my sister and I could see as we drove down Miss. Highway 14 past Red Gum. It's more profitable, you see, to sign papers with the government promising to not plant a crop than it is to battle the bugs and the elements and the markets and imports.

In fact, harvesting subsidies is pretty darn lucrative.

It should be noted that from 1995-2009, 59 percent of all farmers in Mississippi did not receive a subsidy. However, 10 percent of the farmers received 74 percent of the total paid out in the state.

Daddy worked for the Seward's ... however it was they structured their name. Best I remember, it was Seward & Son and from 1995-2009, they received subsidies (conservation, disaster and commodity) totaling $8,620,289 (Source: Environmental Working Group Farm Subsidy Database*).

That's a lot of cotton at $750 a bale ... a lot of cotton. Another associated company, Seward & Harris Planting Co., received $8, 077,955 for not planting.

Wouldn't that make it the Seward & Harris non-Planting Co.?

We lived out from Louise, Miss., which had a 1960 population of about 475 people. It's smaller now, but nine farming companies ranking in the Top 50 subsidy recipients in Humphreys County harvested $32.8 million between 1995-2009.

Think about that.

No seed. No fuel. No equipment. No insects. No employment liability. Heck, now that the government has done away with paper checks, you don't even need a pen or deposit slip ... just a tolerance for the cha-ching of the subsidy slot machine.

* - http://farm.ewg.org/top_recips.php?fips=28053&progcode=total&regionname=HumphreysCounty,Mississippi

"If the levees hold ..."

If we heard that phrase once, we heard it all day long as my sister, brother-in-law and I headed to the Mississippi Delta on Saturday to "see the flooding."

I know it sounds morbid, but we spent 20 years or so of our respective lives in the region where the flood forecast ranges from high and dry to up to four or five feet deep ... If the levees hold.



Good Hope Baptist Church



At Good Hope Baptist Church, in the Wolf Lake Community located between Yazoo City and Louise, former Louise schoolmates Roy Lee Cleveland and Randy Hill had just finished loading the central air units in the bed of a pickup to protect them from damage, but the outlook wasn't so good for the building, where water was expected to rise as much as halfway up the front doors.



"We're at 105 feet (above sea level) and the (Army) Corps (of Engineers) says we should expect it to go to 109, which would be about here," Randy said, making a slash type mark at his waist before adding the caveat, "if the levees hold."



Harold Horton

Power will be cut off in the area over the next few days and just up the road, familiy members, like Harold Horton and Hilma Horton Nibben were at the home where they grew up, gathering furniture and family mementoes and loading them to take them to safety.

"I'll take them home and keep 'em in the trailer, then bring it all back after the water goes down," Harold, who maintains an active email network of former Louise students, said. "How high do you think it will get?" my sister, who was a year behind Harold in school, asked.

"Well, we're at 105 feet," he said. "The Corps says it could go to between 107 and 109. At 107, the water's here ... holding a tape measure against a tree. We hope it's 107 because the house would safe ... but at 109, the water would be here and the house ruined because the floors are hardwood. We're hoping we'll be okay ... if the levees hold.

There it was again ... those four words on which the lives and hopes and dreams of so many now hang ... if the levees hold.

We followed the backroads into Louise, along the way passing many other families with trailers backed up to the doors and others heading toward the main highway.

It was, in a way, surreal. My sister and I grew up on Highway 14, west of Louise, and went to school with many of the folks now scrambling to save their belongings and the collections of a lifetime, such as Harold and Hilma of everything left behind when their father died at age 99 not too many months ago.

In Louise, we stopped and talked with Hoover Lee, former longtime mayor of the community and a lifetime resident.

"My daddy was here in '27," he said, referring to the great flood of 1927. "They walked over and stayed in a boxcar until they could get an engine to take them to Yazoo City. Mrs. Mecklin's house (Old Dr. Mecklin) still has the marks on it where they kept up with the water then, but they say we're safe ... that it won't flood here ... if the levees hold."

Between Louise and Greenville, my brother-in-law's hometown and where my sister and I claim, there was little to be seen other than barren fields or a beautiful, early stand of corn. Fields that once produced bale after bale of cotton now hold the promise of golden corn silks and ears full of kernels ... if the levees hold.

After an hour or two in Greenville, we headed south ... winding up in the Issaquena County seat of Mayersville. Driving past the community center, it looked as if most in the area had gathered for what had to be a meeting to discuss what was coming. We wound up on top of the levee, visiting with four other "gawkers" -- one from Little Rock, another from Florida and two from Jackson -- "My brother lives here," Little Rock said. "I brought them (referring to his three companions) to see it." He shared that locals had been advised to leave, but laughed and said his brother "would probably sleep through it."

Of all the places we went, only Mayersville was looking into the eye of a flooding certainty ... more even than the area around Wolf Lake. There's no "if" factor in play there ... because the levees south of town get a bit smaller and the water always rises ... and in this year when all the experts say record levels will be reached, there's but one thought that dominates ... what if the levees don't hold?