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.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
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.
Help Hardee's help our troops
Funds raised during the campaign will assist troops and their families through two programs: Homes for Our Troops and USA Cares.
As the stepdad of a soldier who has done two tours in Iraq and a third in Afghanistan while his wife and two little boys were stateside, I'd ask you to help ... besides, their biscuits and gravy's pretty good.
Remember, this program benefits those who've got our backs.
God bless.
Monday, May 9, 2011
"How high's the water, Mama?"
In 1974, Johnny Cash sang the song, "Five Feet High and Rising" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91OIaPRrDts) about flooding on the family farm.
"How high's the water, Mama?" he belted out. "Two feet high and risin," was the reply, going on up the tape until it got to five feet.
And that's kind of the case out around the Wolf Lake Community thses days, where current and former residents have been advised by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that Wolf is rising at a rate of a foot-and-a-half a day. If it stays at two-feet and doesn't get any higher, a lot of folks will breathe easier ... but five feet? That's gonna be too deep.
The irony of everything is that some folks were loaded their belongings in trailers while others on the next place down the road were putting seed in the ground. I guess they were doing that "in case" the flood doesn't come although friend Harold Horton wonders if "they're watching the news on TV?"
Last Saturday (May 7), we got a shot of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad depot in Vicksburg, which sits outside the protection of the now-closed flood wall, and is in the process of being rennovated. As I took the picture, you could see water bubbled under a large, sqaure utility cover of some sort in the drive. On Sunday, a photo was posted on a railfan website I visit and the water was lapping at the steps of the depot.
As we drove into Vicksburg on U.S. Highway 61, we laughed about having seen this rather youngish looking ninny on WAPT-TV out of Jackson, who actually asked a park ranger at the National Military Park about the danger of the graves nearest the highway being flooded ... but we wondered about the truck after truck after truck of dirt heading north that we passed.
As it turns out, there were boils showing up along the levees in the Eagle Lake area and the dirt was being rushed out there to help secure the area. The Corps, you see, will cover the boils -- places where water seeps under the levee and starts to break through on the inside of the levee -- with the dirt, then allow water to cover the area in an effort to stop it by pressure.
Oh, back to the flooded graves question ... if that happens, nobody's going to be around to ask about the water's depth!
"How high's the water, Mama?" he belted out. "Two feet high and risin," was the reply, going on up the tape until it got to five feet.
And that's kind of the case out around the Wolf Lake Community thses days, where current and former residents have been advised by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that Wolf is rising at a rate of a foot-and-a-half a day. If it stays at two-feet and doesn't get any higher, a lot of folks will breathe easier ... but five feet? That's gonna be too deep.
The irony of everything is that some folks were loaded their belongings in trailers while others on the next place down the road were putting seed in the ground. I guess they were doing that "in case" the flood doesn't come although friend Harold Horton wonders if "they're watching the news on TV?"
Last Saturday (May 7), we got a shot of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad depot in Vicksburg, which sits outside the protection of the now-closed flood wall, and is in the process of being rennovated. As I took the picture, you could see water bubbled under a large, sqaure utility cover of some sort in the drive. On Sunday, a photo was posted on a railfan website I visit and the water was lapping at the steps of the depot.
As we drove into Vicksburg on U.S. Highway 61, we laughed about having seen this rather youngish looking ninny on WAPT-TV out of Jackson, who actually asked a park ranger at the National Military Park about the danger of the graves nearest the highway being flooded ... but we wondered about the truck after truck after truck of dirt heading north that we passed.
As it turns out, there were boils showing up along the levees in the Eagle Lake area and the dirt was being rushed out there to help secure the area. The Corps, you see, will cover the boils -- places where water seeps under the levee and starts to break through on the inside of the levee -- with the dirt, then allow water to cover the area in an effort to stop it by pressure.
Oh, back to the flooded graves question ... if that happens, nobody's going to be around to ask about the water's depth!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)