ELEVENTH WEEK

My feet ache wonderfully.  I’ve worn the soles of my boots down to wafers and the only thing that gets me back to the hostel is a cool beer in a dark bar, the cigarette smoke dragged languorously through the air by lazy fan blades.

Of course, it’s usually the streetcars that actually get me back to mid-town – brightly painted wooden carriages clacking and swaying along their rails.  They run until deep into the night and they’ve been doing so since the Victorian era (with a few interruptions).

TENTH WEEK

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.