I rarely become depressed but Greenville, Mississippi gave me the blues. I think this man is about to dump trash into an open field.
The kudzu vine has overtaken many a telephone pole, and much of the South.
You don't see much cotton anymore in the Mississippi Delta. The entire state is mostly about raising genetically modified corn. You can travel for hours and only see cornfields.
The scale of genetically-modified corn growing surpasses that of California agro-business. In the South (and Midwest), it is virtually a mono-culture agrobusiness.
Small planes dump pesticides on the fields. The pesticides kill everything except the genetically-modified corn.
As we traveled along the Blues Highway, Route 61, we probably got pesticide dumped on us too because the planes fly very low.
Corn is growing in importance because it is used not just for sugar (high fructose corn syrup in Coca Cola) but also as ethenol fuel in gasoline.
Here is a (relatively rare) soybean field.
Greenville water comes from under the Mississippi River. Although it first appears clear, it becomes a brownish muddy water the more it fills up a sink. In the toilet, the water is so brown that I though someone hadn't flushed!
On the other hand, one of the best musicians of the Delta bore the name Muddy Waters. Folks in Greenville told me their brownish water was harmless, even though they preferred bottle water. In any case, the water is "soft", not "hard". It has no chlorine, and so when you try to rinse off soap, your skin still feels a bit oily.
What does Mark Train say about the muddy water of the Mississippi in his Life on the Mississippi (1874)?: "... he said there was nutritiousness in the mud, and a man that drunk Mississippi water could grow corn in his stomach if he wanted to." (Nowadays, it is most corn that grows along the River.)
Later, Mark Twain says, "... a score of years had not affected this water's mulatto complexion in the least.... It comes out of the turbulent, bankcaving Missouri, and every tumbeerful of it holds nearly an acre of land in solution... If you will let your glass stand half an hour, you can separate the land from the water as easy as Genesis; and then you will find them both good: the one good to eat, the other good to drink... The one appeases hunger; the other, thirst. But the natives do not take them separately, but together, as nature mixed them. When they find an inch of mud in the bottom of a glass, they stir it up, and then take the draught as they would gruel."
Clarksdale, Mississippi. The crossroads where many blues musicians pass through, or, like Bessie Smith, passed away. Legend has it that this is where Robert Johnson (1911-38) sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his towering skills as a musician.
Demographically, the Delta is mostly African-American. Compared to California, the Blacks tend to be darker.
Even in the sweltering summer heat, the Christmas decorations remain.
The New Roxy movie theater in downtown Claksville. This is the saddest artifact I've ever encountered.
Some folks are trying to make money from all this depressing sadness.
The Delta Blues Museum has worthwhile exhibits about key blues musicians and their instruments.
So when did the Mississippi Blues begin? As a mood of boredom, at least 133 years ago. Back in 1874, Mark Twain refers to the Mississippi blues for the poverty-stricken families who live at Madrid Bend. The hairpin curve of the River almost makes an island of this section of Kentucky. Needless to say, it is prone to flooding. According to Twain, when the River overflows every few months or so, it offers some variety to their life, a chance to get away from dismal farm work for a few days, sit on fences, chew tobacco, and see Steamships passing close by. "Now what could these banished creatures find to do to keep from dying of the blues during the low-water season!"
