Rollin' on the River

The last post mentioned that by the end of this weekend, I would have visited Oxford, Clarksdale, and a watermelon festival in Mize, Mississippi. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity to complete any of these adventures.

In lieu of Oxford and Clarksdale, I decided that after a long Friday night it would be best to minimize my Saturday travels and explore Vicksburg, Mississippi in more depth. The last time I visited Vicksburg, a few friends and I attended the lavish—in a southern sense, complete with all the heart-clogging fixings—opening of a traveling Smithsonian exhibition chronicling the history of the Blues. This time, however, I sought out to see this quaint town nestled one of myriad bends on the Mississippi River. Before stopping in Vicksburg, I felt an outstanding obligation to permit my car, even if for the most fleeting of moments, to experience the “West.” My 1998 Honda Accord, in other words, crossed the Mississippi River into Louisiana, exited the highway, re-entered the highway, and then returned to Vicksburg for some sightseeing.

While it’s known for its relentless Civil War siege and today for the riverboat casinos that dock there, Vicksburg takes phenomenal pride in being the first place that bottled Coca-Cola. Joseph Biedenharn first bottled this mediocre yet wildly lucrative elixir in his charming candy store and soda parlor on Washington Street in 1894; beforehand, it only existed “on tap,” I suppose. Today, the town has immortalized the store as the Biedenharn Coca-Cola Museum, adorned with an extraordinary array of antique bottling equipment and Coke memorabilia, including a collection of coke bottles that if brought up north could accrue a small fortune in 5-cent redeemables. After visiting this oh-so-touristy downtown destination, I stopped by the Attic Gallery, a regionally-renowned gallery of contemporary Southern art. Ascend ding four stories through a catacomb of hallways and rooms, beautiful art inhabits each nook and cranny of this rustic building, from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling.

Today, a few friends and I set out for the Smith County Watermelon Festival. There was only one small problem: no watermelon festival existed; it instead took place on Friday and Saturday. We showed up in Mize, Mississippi to a ghost town, similar to all one zillion of Mississippi's small towns on the Lord’s Day. After realizing we had traveled for well over an hour and played the blame game about who exactly flubbed the festival dates, we agreed that it was the Mississippi tourism website’s events calendar that had led us astray. The journey is nonetheless the best part of the trip. We stopped at a roadside watermelon stand and with the help of two of the farmers, learned how to property select, cut open, and properly eat a Smith County watermelon. Over the next several hours, we wandered through a corn field at the brink of harvest, visited the small town of Mendenhall, Mississippi, and stopped at Jerry’s Catfish House, where I ate one of Mississippi’s most famous filleted-and-lightly-battered catfish.

I’ve returned to Jackson not only more cultured, but well-fed and with enough watermelons in tow to supply Gallagher and his bizarrely comedic act for quite some time.

Northward Bound

Nothing all-that new is going on here in Jackson. That’s not to say that I’m bored. In fact, I’ve been in engaging in much of the same activities about which I’ve already written. Who wants to hear about that which is usual, familiar, or just not noteworthy for the second time?

This weekend will boast some awesome activities. On Saturday, a few of us will be heading upstate to Oxford, the home of Ole Miss, and Clarksdale, where I plan on visiting the Delta Blues Museum and Morgan Freeman's blues club Ground Zero. The next day I’ll hopefully gather a group of people to go down to Mize, Mississippi for the annual Smith County Watermelon Festival, which boasts such events as a watermelon seed-spitting contest, a greased watermelon race and a watermelon eating contest.

Have I mentioned that I love the South?

Deo Vindice

Greetings from the Mississippi State Republican Committee dinner, clad in blue seersucker and confederacy:

Down on the Bayou

"Hey,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “Happy Fourth of July!”
“You too. What’s up?”
“Want to go on a road trip?”
“Sure.”

In case you’ve been incarcerated for the past few months or just don’t read very carefully, I love going on road trips—and especially on the Fourth, when burning some fuel and traveling the country is what makes America great. I needed to ask one question though: “Where to?”
“This blues festival in Northern Mississippi.”

I’m well aware that every other post is about my adventures to some small-town blues festival and that I’m thoroughly addicted. Anyway, I needed my fix and I was ready to go within two shakes of a lamb’s tail.
“Let’s go!”

And we went…to Avalon, Mississippi for the annual Mississippi John Hurt Blues Festival. There was only one problem: we had no clue who Mississippi John Hurt even was, except for the fact that he adopted his home state as his prenom de guerre in an ever-competitive blues world. Thankfully, most of the friendly folks we talked to upon our arrival in Avalon tolerated our egregious ignorance and educated us on the man who some say to be the one of the most influential blues guitarists.

A Scottish Jew we met at the festival is writing a book on Hurt and emphasized that what’s especially interesting about Mississippi John Hurt is not his achievements, but the path he took to his achievements. Growing up on a farm in Avalon, he became a popular singer in the community and in the late 1920s recorded several albums in Memphis and New York. His record label, however, went belly-up during the Depression and he returned to Avalon to tend to the land once again. Thirty years later, a folk musicologist became enamored with Hurt’s music and came to Avalon to both find him and convince him to come out east to perform—at the age of seventy years old. Hurt agreed and made his debut performance at the famed Newport Folk Festival in 1963, a festival that also boasted Bob Dylan, Peter Paul & Mary, and Joan Baez on its lineup. Many believed that Hurt would fail to connect to his audience due to profound geographical and generational differences, yet that proved not to be the case. He came out on stage, slowly scanned the crowd, and asked with confidence, “In Mississippi fashion, how’s it going y’all?” Everyone went berserk and his set was an absolute success. After that show and up until his death three years later, he made several recordings and became an integral part of the 1960s “folk revival.” So, in a way, I suppose Hurt is the Terrence Mann (from Field of Dreams) of Blues Music…except without apparitions and a Moonlight Graham.

I spent Thursday and Friday in Lafayette, Louisiana and New Iberia, Louisiana doing research on their small yet vibrant Jewish communities. These two towns make up a large part of what is known as Acadiana, the area to which French Acadians fled and settled when leaving English-colonized Quebec. In other words, this was Cajun country! We heard some great Zydeco, the musical genre at the intersection of traditional Cajun music and Delta blues, at a small tin-roofed venue and the next morning I ate a hearty Cajun breakfast of an omelet, biscuits, and grits. Mmm… What was most striking about this area was the landscape. Somewhere between the palatial swamps, moss-and-ivy covered oak trees, and the 500% humidity, I realized that The Waterboy wasn’t very far off:

Go West, Young Man!

You know those Walgreens commercials that talk about a place called Perfect, where every front lawn is fresh-cut and verdant, where every picket fence is as pure white as a brand new MacBook, and where everyone is just so darn friendly it makes you question the whole human condition? “Of course, we don't live anywhere near Perfect,” these commercials attest, “so we have Walgreens.” Well, I’ve found a place that’s every bit as perfect as Walgreens—if not more so—but without the prophylactics and codine. This utopia is called Vicksburg, Mississippi, and it’s only a forty-five minute’s drive westward from Jackson. A few friends and I went there on Thursday for the grand opening of a traveling Smithsonian exhibit at the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation. The foundation isn’t as notable as their property: they own the auditorium where the banquet scene took place in O Brother, Where Art Thou?. In that very same auditorium there was a fun blues concert and just outside a free picnic (with delicious fried catfish, of course) accompanied by a bluegrass quartet. All the residents of this small town showed up dressed sharply for this cultural event and were all so friendly. We took a stroll around the town as well, which is best known for its bloody submission to General Grant in the early summer of 1863 and being the birthplace of Coca Cola. By the way, I didn’t get the opportunity to tour the battlefields, but I’m sure they look like the myriad other battlefields that have been transformed into state or national parks. Who needs the battlefield anyway? The town is beautiful, but I can not explain exactly why. Somewhere between its location—perched on a hill overlooking a small bend in the Mighty Mississippi—and the way in which everything is in its proper place and in its pristine condition, it’s just…let’s see, “Perfect”. Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to take pictures while in Vicksburg. Oh well.

However, I did take some pictures recently of the State Capitol in Jackson:

Scorching Hot

In my never-ending quest to experience as much blues music as possible during my time in Mississippi, a few friends and I went to a blues club in Jackson on Thursday night. The 930 Blues Café, unlike other blues clubs, occupies an early twentieth-century residence featuring a quintessentially southern wrap-around porch. Once inside, it’s hard not to soak in the non-musical atmosphere: low lighting, the smell of smoke and an assortment of deep fried foods, and Budweiser bottles sweating in the heat of the night. The music starts and it all just works. One of the singers on the lineup for the night performed an amazing cover of Marvin Gaye’s "Let’s Get it On", the best I’ve heard since Jack Black delivered that ridiculously unexpected and oddly humorous rendition in High Fidelity. It was a fantastic time; the only downside is that the watered-down urinesque beverage most Americans consider to be beer has grown on me.

Last night, I witnessed something I had never thought I would: the burning of a piece of furniture in someone’s backyard. Burning doesn’t even do the situation justice, since what I really witnessed was the engulfing of an old recliner in a ravenous sea of flames. It’s important to recognize, however, that this primitive yet somewhat postmodern act was not a capricious one, but rather the planned climax of a co-worker’s party. After some of Jackson’s finest enjoyed some cold drinks, good music, and a silent showing of Jane Fonda’s Barbarella in the corner of the backyard, the pyrotechnics began. The host first proceeded to blow up a stuffed animal with a bottle rocket, which is fun for all ages! After piquing the interest of the crowd, he brought out the couch and placed it onto the fire (see pictures on right and left). What made it even more exciting is that the chair was stuffed full of fireworks, many of which went soaring out in assorted directions and landed in his oh-so-friendly (sarcasm) neighbors’ lawns. The chair didn’t last more than a few minutes in the blaze.

You may have two questions. First, who in their right mind wants to burn a chair? Well, I really enjoyed it and others did as well, so it was exciting and not to mention (somewhat) safe. Second, who in their right builds a huge fire in their backyard (with a pit) when its eighty degrees at night? The same guy who owns a potbelly pig for a pet. What an awesome night.

One by One

“Here’s the thing:” my boss said during my interview in February, “Jackson has one of almost everything.” He was absolutely right. Jackson has one Thai restaurant (although it doesn’t compare to Thai Cuisine in Ithaca), one Chinese restaurant (I won’t go anywhere near it for fear of getting a tapeworm), one idiot driving around in token Jersey plates (um…), one sports team (the Mississippi Braves), and only one mall—a real shock to those people who hail from the Garden State. There are some exceptions. Jackson has two or three sushi places, depending on which one is being renovated on any given week. And Barbeque. Oh Barbeque! At every turn there are little shacks claiming to have the best ribs in town, but I’m convinced that the best barbeque joints must have great proximity to the medical centers in order to give emergency angioplasties. Anyway, I’m really appreciating the one-of-everything situation. If I need something, I know exactly where to go and get it. I love it.

Is Mississippi Still Burning?

On June 21, 1964, James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner arrived in Philadelphia, Mississippi at Mt. Zion Methodist Church, a building that had been fire-bombed by the Ku Klux Klan because it was planned to be used as a CORE “Freedom School”. Freedom Schools sprung up throughout Mississippi during the summer of 1964 as part of CORE’s (Congress of Racial Equality) “Freedom Summer” project, which aimed to register as many African Americans to vote as possible. Each of these three workers came from different backgrounds. Chaney, a native of Meridian, Mississippi, had been involved in the struggle for civil rights from a young age and had been suspended from school for wearing an NCAAP badge. Goodman, a student at Queens College, had only been in Mississippi for one full day when he made the trip out to Mt. Zion. Schwerner, a recent graduate of Cornell, came to Mississippi with his wife hoping to “spend the rest of his life working for an integrated society.” After briefly investigating the fire bombing, the three CORE workers headed back to the project office in Meridian. On the way, the three men were arrested by Neshoba County police for an alleged traffic violation. Later that evening they were released from the county jail just only to be stopped again on a rural road by a small convoy of Ku Klux Klan members who shot them dead and buried them in an earthen dam. Chaney was twenty-one years old, Goodman was twenty years old, and Schwerner was twenty-four years old.

Yesterday, I and two staff members from the ISJL traveled down the same rural roads these three workers had forty three years earlier to Mt. Zion in Philadelphia, Mississippi for the annual memorial celebration. Social conditions probably haven’t changed much in those parts: dirt roads with ruddy ditches, simple shacks with decomposing siding and tin roofs, and rusted Buicks mired in the front yard’s mud. As we approached the church and entered the sanctuary, we noticed that we were some of the only white people there (we would learn of and meet the other white people after the ceremony, along with a film crew making a documentary and the local state senator). Most of the ceremony was fine (e.g. the music and the emcee); however, the message conveyed by most of the speakers was largely negative. For example: several speakers argued that while the number of African Americans who vote has plummeted in recent decades, more blame is to be placed on the establishment for the lack of black candidates and, in particular, black judges on the federal bench. Furthermore, there was no mention to the fact that Goodman and Schwerner were Jewish. Reference upon reference referred to these three martyr’s belief in Jesus and so forth. This is not to convey any sort of anti-Christian sentiment, but I think it’s important to recognize two of these three workers’ Jewish heritage, especially in lieu of the Goodman or Schwerner family’s attendance at the ceremony. Overall, I wish the message at the service had been more positive, one which encourages and facilitates better community relation (namely between blacks and whites) and also which assumes responsibility where and when needed.

In other news, I had the esteemed opportunity this weekend to go to the Bass Pro Shop. A sort of combination between Disney World and ESPN on early Saturday mornings, this store sells ATVs, boats, handguns, shotguns, bows, crossbows, fishing rods, camping gear, etc. The L.L. Bean store in Freeport, Maine pales in comparison; EMS isn’t even worthy of one. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that this place was GIGANTIC! What’s particularly strange is that among all of these weapons and hallmarks of the rural sporting experience is a Starbucks. Who’s going to purchase a .44 Magnum and then want to enjoy a chai latte? Anyway, in the parking lot I also saw my first Mississippi license plate from Jefferson Davis County. Did the county really need both his first and last name in the name? Isn’t it obvious enough exactly which Davis everyone’s referring to when you live in a state with the confederate flag as part of the state flag? Oh well.

Highway 61 Revisited

Perhaps the Mississippi Delta, which apparently isn’t really a delta at all, is best known for its diet of crawfish. And perhaps it’s best known for its dilapidated social condition amongst the most rich and fertile farmland in the country. Most of all, however, is the Delta recognized for its role in the development of what is considered “American” music. It was on the Delta, at the intersection of highways 49 and 61 where blues legend Robert Johnson famously sold his soul to the devil in a formidable trade for musical talent and the ability to play the blues. It’s quite appropriate then that last Saturday, a few friends and I ventured to Indianola, Mississippi out on the Delta for the B.B. King Homecoming Festival. We traveled hardly two hours from Jackson, but yet it felt like I had entered an area of the country which is to me just so foreign—and nevertheless quintessentially American. This picture says it all:


The concert turned out great! It was one of these very relaxed festivals, with families and blues fans coming from miles away. And despite the plague of bloodthirsty mosquitoes swarming in air so thick and humid that I thought I was at a fraternity party, there’s nothing like sitting back with a few friends in lawn chairs, listening to some great music, enjoying a couple cheap beers, and munching on some fried catfish. Yet another little sliver of Southern life!

Two days ago, a few of us went to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to do some research. For those of you who remember your state capitals, it’s up there with Pierre and Columbia as the most forgettable state capitals. Who names a city “Red Stick”? Anyway, the state archives turned out to be somewhat weak in content concerning Jews in Louisiana, so after a few hours in front of the microfilm reader we headed back to Jackson. Au revoir to Baton Rouge!

I just got back from a Mississippi Braves game. They’re the AA minor league team for the Atlanta Braves (duh!) and displayed some of the worst fielding I have ever seen. Still, the $1 beers (16 oz. Coors) were well worth the trip out to the park.

Shalom, Y'all

One week has come and gone since I arrived in Jackson and, to my surprise and perhaps yours, there’s actually quite a lot going on around here. Between work and after-work diversions, I’ve yet to be awake in my apartment for more than two hours at a time. And that’s a good thing, mainly because my apartment is nothing to write home about. While technically it’s a guest house, it bears an uncanny resemblance to a garden shack, except with the little things in life such as beds and chairs and a bathroom. Air conditioning has also been a plus, given that the temperature in Jackson has been crawling towards the one hundred degree mark. Internet is fairly weak out here, but that is not to imply that this place is void of all technology. In fact, I have at my disposal not one, not two, but three televisions along with tons of game consoles. Oh well. Space hasn’t been an issue thus far, but it’ll certain become one when my roommate moves in tomorrow.

The internship itself has been much better experience than I could have ever anticipated. Non-profit work has revealed to me a whole new side of the professional world: one (somewhat) void of intense competition and nightmarish bureaucracy and instead guided by a common desire to make a difference. I’m well aware how hackneyed that sounds, but it’s absolutely true. As a history intern, it’s my job to do research on Jewish communities in the South—both past and present—in order to preserve their legacy. The project I’m working on is called the Digital Archive Project and is essentially a gigantic compendium of short histories on significant individuals, communities, and congregations in the Institute’s target region. Mississippi and Arkansas have already been completed and just like easing a finger onto a spinning globe, the next state will be…Louisiana! Hey, it’s far more exciting than, say, Oklahoma or Kentucky. Starting with New Orleans would have been a little overambitious, so instead I chose a smaller town: St. Francisville. Lying halfway between Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Woodville, Mississippi, that means it’s truly in the middle of nowhere. Jews—mostly German immigrants—nevertheless settled there via New Orleans and came in droves. Today, no Jews live in St. Francisville and the only remnants of a once-vibrant Jewish community is a small and dilapidated cemetery on the edge of town.

But why should anyone care about these communities? Because right now these communities exist merely in the form of records: censuses, tax rolls, probate records, congregation minutes, membership lists, etc. The objective, however, is to construct a narrative that carefully weaves together the people, places, and events that make up what we call “history.” I should then strike a delicate balance between two conflicting elements. On one hand, there is certainly pertinent and revealing historical information and statistical data that elucidate broader social, economic, political, and even cultural features. On the other hand, however, I must be careful not to extrapolate too far from the original sources and avoid far-fetched conclusions and false generalizations. Keeping a slavish fidelity to what “really” happened and what is actually “on the page” fails to produce a narrative with retrospective cohesiveness. Instead reality needs to be modestly embroidered in order to fill in gaps in the historical record and help what really happened approach larger truths than that attested by mere facts. Thus my job is really about “informed storytelling”: the records at hand could not provide the level of detail I aim to narrate; however, the plausibility of the stories told and motives explicated offsets a certain lack of historicity.

So that's what I do. More to come on life in Jackson.

We're Halfway There...

"Your thoughts will soon be wandering, the way they always do
When your riding sixteen hours and there's nothing much to do
And you don't feel much like riding, you just wish the trip was through"

Since I’m too exhausted to write anything coherent, intelligent, or philosophical about my trip thus far, I’ve decided to pass off Bob Seger’s ruminations from "Turn the Page" as my own. Ten hours of driving and six states later, I’ve arrived here in Kingsport, Tennessee just to eat an inexpensive carry-out dinner from a local Italian family restaurant, get a few hours of sleep, and wake up early just to embark on yet another ten-hour voyage.

Two observations and a question:

• Arby’s. There are a lot of them and especially in Tennessee. In fact, my hotel room has an excellent view of an Arby’s pick up window.
  
• Trade-in shows: The best thing to pass the time is to surf the AM stations in Appalachia. If you're really lucky, you'll come across these fantastic radio shows where someone calls in with a dense southern accent looking to “trade my old Maytag washing machine for a pair of Michelin XE-9348A tires” or something like that. Hey, it’s far more entertaining than listening to Christian radio.
  
• Do people actually visit those ridiculous tourist traps advertised on billboards? I saw one today that informed me of “Magical Caverns” that lied only twenty miles off interstate. What does that even mean?

And I'm off to Jackson...

The Summer is Coming

When I first noticed the opening on CornellTrak—Cornell’s online program for job and internship listings—for a summer internship in Jackson, Mississippi doing historical research on Southern Jews, I was completely dumbfounded. There were Jews in the South? There are Jews in the South? And in Jackson? And they had survived recurrent swells of white supremacist violence? It turns out that the answer to all these questions is yes. Given the intense competition for almost all internships nowadays, I applied for the internship with great ambivalence and checked out some books on what I had thought to be an esoteric, if not fictional, subject: Jews in the American South.

It turns out that “Jewish” and “Southern” have been identities that have inextricably intertwined for centuries. Southern Jews have a longstanding presence in the Southern United States, first coming ashore in the late seventeenth century as part of exploratory voyages and trade expeditions from Europe to the “New World”. In fact, some of the nation's earliest Jewish communities were founded before 1750 in Savannah and Charleston. I was surprised to learn that far more Jews lived in Charleston than in New York City at the dawn of the nineteenth century. Jews now make up merely one-half of one percent of the total southern population yet provide critical sustenance and support for their communities. How, then, are Southern Jews any different than the Jews—namely, the metropolitan New York Jews—with whom I have interacted and co-existed my whole life? Firstly, Southern Jews eat pork. That’s no great surprise, especially considering that the base of the southern food pyramid is pork barbeque and they need to get basic sustenance. Jews in an area that is predominately Protestant are likely to some degree assimilate, even if it spells the egregious violation of one of the chief rules of keeping kosher. Secondly, and more importantly, Southern Jews are much more important to their community. I’ve never attended synagogue on a weekly or even a monthly basis but I’m certain that services still occur in my absence thanks to the incredible local abundance of Jews. In an area more sparsely populated with Jews, however, the individual commitment to religious and cultural activities is far more important. If a Southern Jew doesn’t pull his weight to sustain his or her small community, its structure weakens and may in time collapse like a house of cards. Today’s southern landscape is scattered with these piles of cards and the internship to which I applied is with an organization which more-or-less plays fifty-two card pick up. Working throughout a twelve-state region, the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life provides educational and rabbinic services to isolated Jewish communities, documents and preserves the rich history of the Southern Jewish experience, and promotes a Jewish cultural presence. Due partly to the valuable research experience and the fact that a summer in Mississippi is a rare opportunity that I will likely never have again, I accepted the internship.

So where does that leave me now? Next Friday, I will be embarking on a two-day, twelve-hundred mile journey down the Appalachian Trail to Jackson. From then until mid-August I will be a resident of the state with the second-lowest cost of living and the sixth-highest amount of pork per capita. Hence the blog: I will ruminate on life in the South to a mainly Northern audience with an insatiable appetite for Tocquevillian commentary on geographic differences. I sincerely hope that this is more interesting than the average blog by college students in which their semesters hopping around Europe are highlighted with tales of sangria and sex clubs and footnoted with the rare trip to a cultural or historical landmark. There probably aren’t any sex clubs in Jackson anyway. Nonetheless, feel free to leave comments and I wish you all a safe and relaxing summer.