My time in Clarksdale has
come to an end but not before I got to experience my first Thanksgiving.
Taken to a friend’s family
hunting cabin on the banks of a tranquil oxbow behind the mighty Mississippi,
we feasted on deliciousness and drank happily in the crisp Autumn
afternoon. Deer nibbled placidly from
the feeders scattered around, prancing gracefully out of sight when approached
too closely. The walls of the cabin were
lined with the stuffed heads and polished skulls of those deer who did not
prance away – one deer can feed the family for almost a year and they use it in
everything.
I was given a ride on a quad
bike, zooming through the forest as the platinum locks of my hosts flew in the
wind and my ears burned with the cold.
I was taken to the Country Club for one final
lunch – a grand building surrounded by tennis courts, icy green swimming pool
closed up for the Winter and the gently undulating pale white hills of an
Autumn golf course; speckled with the bright plaids of slowly moving golfers
and the brighter reds and oranges of all the fallen leaves.
Inside the clubhouse, an
immense and elegantly decorated Christmas tree looms over the warmly lit
bain-maries and their various treasures of salty foodstuffs. So much food.
Course upon course upon course awaits consumption by the crowds of
sober-blazered men and pearl-adorned women who mingle amongst the linen
tablecloths.
After the feast I am taken
to the theatre. It once was the heart of
vaudeville in downtown Clarksdale but is now a derelict and half-collapsed
carcass – it’s awesome! Half the ceiling
has fallen-in and the soft white light of an Autumn sky pours down on us as we
walk slowly about the dusty stage. An
ornate chaise lounge sits amongst the wreckage, its brocade faded but
intact. A pigeon has died in the boiler
– a delicate little skeleton nestled in a corner of the massive iron tube,
surrounded by broken and unmoving dials and vents.
The glittering luncheon at
the Country Club seems very far away.
First thing the next morning
I am on the train, clack-clacking South, towards Louisiana and the smoke of the
Big Easy. Gradually the spreading fields
of the Delta give way to trees covered in drooping Spanish moss and the bright
greens of tropical fronds. We’re
clacking through the bayou; the glass walls of the observation car show a
magical and dangerous world of fetid water and oddball trees flitting past.
And then we’re pulling into
New Orleans! The swamp replaced by
grimey overpasses and shining towers and traffic and a maze of street signs and
a city! The hostel is quite a ways out
of the downtown, under the thick canopy of the tree-lined end of Canal
Street. The pavements are all cracked
and heaved around by the massive roots of the massive trees; Spanish moss hangs
low from every branch, turning the wide, busy boulevard into something more
mysterious than an arterial transit corridor.
Gas lamps flicker from some of the grand weatherboard porches.
I walk for hours in the
bright and muggy heat and do not even navigate a fraction of the city. March up to the cemeteries, the huge,
sun-bleached cities of the dead – the tombs built on stilts above the swampy,
treacherous mud. A few other tourists
amble amongst the crumbling marble, glaring sunlight glinting off our camera
lenses.
March on to the city park –
third largest park in the nation.
Magnificent trees and mirror-like waters of bayou play host to so many
birds come to winter here. The park,
once on the outskirts of town, was used as a place for affronted French
noblemen to duel and for feverish lovers to steal a kiss away from the eyes of
chaperones – and there is something about the immense, fur-covered trees and
their quietly swaying clouds of moss that suggest they remember all these
illicit rendezvous.
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