Into the Magnolia State

This morning I left my motel in Greenville and resumed my eastward journey on US 82. After about 15 minutes I came to a familiar town: Leland, MS (pop: 3,900). I had come through Leland just last Spring, when I made my storied road trip along the Blues Highway (i.e., US Route 61). You’ll recall that The Blues Highway is a north-south route that roughly parallels the Mississippi River, and it intersects Route 82 in Leland. And as we learned in last year’s blog post, Leland is the birthplace of Muppets creator Jim Henson. Which seems pretty random.

Less random is the fact that the Mississippi Legislature named this stretch of US 82 after native son B.B. King.

About a third of the way across Mississippi I came to the town of Greenwood (not to be confused with Greenville, where I started today’s journey). Greenwood was established at the confluence of the Yalobusha River and the Tallahatchie River. Yes, that Tallahatchie River. The one into which Billie Joe MacAllister jumped, as described in Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe.” That song references a “Tallahatchie Bridge,” but the bridge Gentry was supposedly thinking about was destroyed by vandals in 1972. A few years later, in 1976, Max Baer Jr (who you know as Jethro from The Beverly Hillbillies) made a movie version of Gentry’s song. The movie used another bridge in the Greenwood area, but this too was demolished in 1987.

We are left, therefore, with Greenwood’s Ashwood Bridge as a decent stand-in for the place where Billie Joe ended his life. This bridge was constructed while Gentry was living in Greenwood age 12, and it stands just a block from the school she attended. So it’s certainly plausible that it was in her mind when she wrote the lyrics.

Indeed, the good people of the Mississippi Country Music Trail have placed a marker at the Ashwood Bridge to commemorate Bobbie Gentry and her song. Appropriately, however, they stopped short of saying that this bridge and the one in the song are one and the same.

If you like, you can watch Bobbie Gentry perform the song here:

So, we got the blues, we got frog puppets, we got the Ode to Billie Joe…what else is this part of Mississippi known for? That’s right, it’s in the middle of the Bible Belt. Exhibit A can be seen on US 82 just outside of Greenwood. It’s a 120-foot-tall, 20-ton cross, complete with spotlights and surrounded by a set of speakers that perpetually play religious piano music. The cross was erected in 2021 by The Rev. Dr. Jim Phillips of North Greenwood Baptist Church.

Now, while that might look to you to be a one-of-a-kind project, take a look at what I encountered just 30 minutes further down US 82:

This one, however, dispenses with the piano music and instead displays a dozen tablets with scripture engraved on them.

I was unable to dig up anything about this second cross, other than it was erected in 2014 and it is 120 feet tall (just like the one in Greenwood). I also learned that evidently there are a number of other, identical crosses scattered around the state.

This second cross is on the outskirts of Winona (pop: 4,500). Like so many other towns from the 19th century, Winona sprung up around a railroad station (and not the other way around). In this case, the railroad was the Mississippi Central. The station and the town were established in 1860 and 1861, respectively. Winona’s rail service was discontinued by Amtrak in 1995, but the station still stands.

I had a particular reason for wanting to visit the depot: I had read a newspaper article touting a worthy restaurant named “The Tracks” that had opened in the depot in 2019. I found the depot easy enough, but the restaurant had evidently gone out of business.

A passerby saw me looking in the windows and said “You’re scopin’ the place out because you want to open a restaurant here, huh?” I told him I was actually just looking to eat at a restaurant, not open one. He responded that the owner moved his restaurant to another location when the city started construction on a big clock tower across the street. I get the sense that the city was trying to improve the commercial attractiveness of the area, but it backfired when one of their few businesses got angry about the construction noise and dust. I grimly observed that a whole block of historic buildings across the street from the depot were all closed, and none seemed to be about to open any time soon.

I asked my new friend if he had any suggestions for getting lunch. He directed me to a mobile barbecue rig that comes to the area on the first and third Saturday of each month. I thanked him. Then he asked me if the recommendation was worth a few bucks, “so as I could get a cup of hot coffee.” It was.

The mobile barbecue joint was a family affair set up in the parking lot of a State Farm office. The wife (or maybe the daughter) took my order from a trailer.

Meanwhile, the husband (who calls himself “Grill Master Shawn”) and his friend (?) were working the barbecue.

While the cole slaw was forgettable, I have to admit that the pulled pork sandwich was one of the best I’ve eaten. So if you ever find yourself in Winona on the first or third Saturday of the month, check out the Grill Master!

On the way out of town I passed an old Ford dealership, which is in remarkably good shape. According to my research, it was built around 1920, making it one of the earliest buildings dedicated specifically to Ford. (Recall that the Model T had first come out just a dozen years earlier, in 1908.)

This dealership, owned by one E. K. Myrick., was Mississippi’s first Ford dealer.

At the end of today’s travels I came to the town of Starkville, Mississippi (pop: 25,000). Starkville is known for several things, not the least of which is Mississippi State University. In fact, you see the college mascot (a bulldog) everywhere.

But I have known about Starkville for a different reason, since I was a mere lad of 8 years old. That was the year my Dad let me buy a record album for the family stereo, and for reasons now unclear to me I selected the Johnny Cash at San Quentin live album. One of the songs on that album is “Starkville City Jail,” whose lyrics describe how Johnny Cash was arrested for picking flowers in the town in 1965. Or so he says. The full story is here. Anyway, the only thing I knew about Starkville until today was that it was where Johnny Cash got arrested for picking flowers.

Oh, and here’s the song:

Tomorrow I plan to take US 82 through the rest of Mississippi and into Alabama. But first, I need to leave you with the:

Brew of the Day

I got today’s BOTD at a restaurant called Georgia Blue in Starkville, MS. It’s an imperial IPA made by Southern Prohibition Brewing in Hattiesburg, MS. They call it “Crowd Control,” for reasons that I’m unable to divine.

As you can see, this beer is slightly cloudy and has a thick head. The mouthfeel is smooth and pleasing. This beer lacks the strong, bitter hoppiness of the California IPAs that I’m familiar with. As a result of all this, the beer is quite quaffable. In terms of taste, pineapple and citrus notes predominate. But the taste is somewhat one-dimensional. It lacks the complexity you’d want from an imperial IPA. The ABV clocks in at 8 percent. Overall, it’s a serviceable beer, but not worth driving to Mississippi for. I give it 3.5 stars out of five.