April 23

So let's go back to Natchez and check it out.

Natchez is proud of its rich and checkered history and they do an excellent job preserving it and profiling it and posting signs to apprise the tourists of what the features are and where they are found. The Spanish had it first in the early 1700’s. The British wrestled it away from them but didn’t work to hard to keep it, and then of course the Americans secured the territory in the War of Independence.

The first sign I encountered was at an intersection called “Fork in the Road”, a place where slave auctions were conducted.

The Mighty Mississippe at Natchez

At the overlook to the Great River (the best vantage point anywhere) a number of commemorative plaques were posted. The one you see below is a memorial to the hundreds of people who died in a terrible nightclub fire, trapped inside as the doors were locked in the interests of security.

Note that date, April 23, 1940 was 72 years ago to this day.

On the waterfront where the steamboats used to dock, the Blue Cat nightclub (now gone) where was Jerry Lee Lewis first performed. There is history here of every flavour!

It is a treat to drive around and gawk at these handsome southern homes, always with a front veranda and columns to support the overhanging roof. It just makes one hanker for a mint julep and a porch swing.

McDonald’s has public wifi and it is almost a daily routine for me to stop in one to check my mail and post my blog. In spite of the unique regional setting in which I find myself, the inside of this place is always exactly the same and it mutes the character of even the most unique of towns. However, the characters on this milquetoast stage are an ever changing cast of players that define each place. In Mississippi they are mostly black and cheerful and gregarious and everyone here greets me with a smile and a hello. It is hard to get out of a parking lot without a lengthy chat with someone.  Today there was a group of hearty souls on small scooters who are on a cross country rally. I spoke with one fellow who is riding a little 50 cc Honda (I think) with less than 5 horsepower, 1965 vintage, and they are all on their way to San Diego!

How is that for ambitious! (notice all the motor oil he is carrying! He burns more oil than gas!)

After all of this I finally got on the road north and followed the famous Natchez Trace. Originally a series of Indian trails, President Jefferson in 1801 had the military clear and enlarge the path from Nashville to Natchez so that the otherwise isolated District of Natchez could be secure from the bloody British. It was so well used that the track has eroded into a deep trench, and this can be seen in places near where the modern highway passes near.

The Natchez Trace. And some grizzled goober in the foreground for scale.

Hundreds of years of travel has entrenched the trail.

Other stops along this road included a roadhouse built in 1740 that supported the travelers of The Trace over the years. Elsewhere one could visit an enormous mound of earth that Indians of a thousand years ago built, one basket of soil at a time, atop of which they built temples. For me this is a bit reminiscent of the Mayans.

For a time I was “Goin’ to Jackson” as Johnny Cash would say, but I changed my mind about that and angled west for Vicksberg. In 1863 this was the site of a well known battle in the Civil War. The battlefield has been very nicely cleared and restored, the trenches where the Union soldiers holed up and the earthen mounds where the Confederate cannons were perched are still there—complete with cannons.

My old Dad was an amateur historian and a well studied and avid Civil War buff with a considerable library that he had assembled over the years and of which he was proud. In fact soon after he retired he and Mom drove across the continent on an epic journey and I remember him telling me how he rose early one morning to walk the battlefield at Gettysberg. I was certain that he could see and reconstruct in his mind’s eye the way the battle was acted out on those fields.  He would have loved seeing this scene in Vicksberg, and I dearly wished he was there to share this with me.

Dad passed away on this day, April 23, 1980.

Silent now.

The wind stole my favourite hat from my saddlebag as I crossed the Mississippi back to Louisiana. Arkansas was on my agenda, but as I thought more deeply about it, I really couldn’t think of a good reason to go there. Yes, I know—it is the birthplace of Bill Clinton, and that alone should be reason enough.

But no.