04-16-11 - Goin’ down to Rosedale

04-16-11
Goin’ down to Rosedale
Take my Mischa by my side
123.4 miles
I get up, pack the car and do a mini-bath in the camp bathroom sink and head off to the last full day in Mississippi.
I stop for some McInternet in Batesville because I’m still tinkering with the idea of going south on the 55 past Lake Enid and on south the 8 at Grenada, going thru Indianola (Riley B.B.King’s hometown) and then back to Rosedale, set up camp and see if I can still get by to Clarksdale and maybe hear a little of the Juke Joint Festival from a distance.
I decide for the simpler Clarksdale to Rosedale path and will leave Indianola for when I exit the state as a slight side trip.
I get to Clarksdale and take some side streets to avoid going up DeSoto as I was warned about massive Traffic. I get to the center of the town and the traffic I was expecting is not to be found. Perhaps parking might be an Issue, but this is nothing like what I expect when someone says “Major traffic”. I expect going 5 mph to go 2 miles in an hour. Twenty block from my destination. THIS…was heaven.
Even more so when I walk around and realize that the Juke Joint Festival (8th year!) is an open street fair. Oh, sure. At night they have the closed fee based admittance to the clubs…$10 for an all club wristband pass! (If only I’d known and had a place for Mischa!) But this is way groovy for me! Musicians of every stripe and blues style are all over the place. Looking for slide Lydia Pense style blues? We got it! Looking for Dobro, bro? We got it! Looking for slide with trumpet and saxophone boogie style? We got that too!
It’s all over and every thing you could hope for. And food, and booths with enough chotchkies to clutter a hippy bizarre. (Well, you’ve probably end up with more bags of junk going to a home and garden show at the L.A. Convention Center…but you get the idea.)
I’m hoping to run into Billy Howell at one of the booths along Delta Street but haven’t had muck luck on the first pass.
I look at the Blues Museum; pass by a very adept bottleneck style guitarist in front of the Ground Zero Blues club. I find out the location of the plack for Son House. My luck, there is a musician playing right in front of the place and the tarp over his performance area is standing right on top of the marker. I snap what shots I can and move on.
I find where Billy’s booth is, but he’s off somewhere in the festival. I go to my car to get the cell phone and try to call him. It goes to voicemail. Another time. I’ll pass by the booth again before heading out.
I’m walking back up Delta from the Ground Zero Club, past Son House’s marker and someone call’s my name. My name?!
It’s George Miller, who helped me find my grandmother’s resting place! And his wife Debbie is with him. She was the one who corresponded with my sister’s attempts to find my dad and their connections to Clarksdale back in 2005. She is gracious and full of information. I learn again, more in a few minutes conversation than I could in house of online searching. And I was still reeling from the sensation of being hailed like a town local…the feeling I get when I walk around Santa Cruz…or if I was a regular at Cheers! A sensation of inclusion and belonging. (“Any world that I’m welcomed to, is better than the one I come from”) It goes to my head later…but we’ll get to that.
We talk for a time and then I head for the last try to find Billy.
Jackpot!
Not only do I find Billy, but his mother Martha Jean who put all of this into motion back at the mortuary. We talk on the couch of the booth for “The Delta Bohemian” Billy and his Wife, Madge’s website.
Billy is buzy as a bee, manning the booth, taking pictures, socializing and going off to another booth. He interviews me for his website and later I propose I be a correspondent for them “on the road”. If I’m going to a state where they would like me to visit a certain place, I do a report from there if it’s not too far astray from my path. I get a tee shirt to wear to promote them from state to state and I’ll wear if I’m doing any “reportage” for them. They like the idea and it will add some interesting pathways to my own adventure.
That site is: http://www.deltabohemian.com/category/delta-bohemian/
(Sneeky, ain’t I?!)
I say my goodbyes as it’s getting to be 4pm and I still have to secure a camping spot at Great River Road State Park in Rosedale.
We drive off and I get to Rosedale (after a brief McInternet stop) to the park. I find the campsite, but can’t find the visitor’s center to register for the night. I get directions from some fellow campers and drive there. I’m about to go to the center when a woman informs me that they closed at 5:30 (It’s 6:04...just like at Caruthersville!)
She said that there is a closed function going on at the center at the moment but that I could self register at the honor box near the park entry. I ask what the camping fee is “$13.00”
Groovy.
“Check or cash”
Not so groovy.
I walk Mischa as I promised her I would do. As I do I see a display giving the recipe for making moonshine next to a display saying “Moonshine Still”. Only there’s no still (I immediately think of the bear from the jimmy Buffet song “God’s Own Drunk”) I’m informed that it was removed for safety during the last storm. They have to do that each time a storm or river rising occurs.
Next to the (missing) Still display is one of those photo opp cut outs you put your head thru. I ask Dorsey, the park attendant, I she will take pictures of Mischa & I looking out of each of the openings. Shre kindly obliges and I then head off to get cash for the evenings camping fee.
Easy, right?
I go to the Piggly Wiggly, get a few items to qualify for a purchase on debit and get cash back. “We can’t give cash back. There’s an ATM machine…”
I ask if there’s another place in town that does give cash back on a debit purchase. “You could try Dollar General”
I do.
They don’t.
“You could use the ATM”
I decline.
My choices: pay the damn $2.00 atm fee or…drive 17+ miles to Cleveland and back and the time involved.
Damn!
I throw away $2.00 on the ATM!
I go back to the camp entrance, cash in hand.
No envelope in the honor box area.
I drive back to the visitors center.
Most everyone is gone.
But Dorsey is there.
I tell her there are no envelopes to fill out down there.
She says.
“It’s ok…I’ll take care of you”
I think she’s going to collect by the campsite later.
She never does.
She gave us a free night.
Thanks, Dorsey!
So Kind.