Tutwiler, Mississippi

I cringed as I approached the entrance to the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford and noticed a guard house and a stop sign.  All was quiet and I feared the campus might be closed or off limits to outsiders and I’d be denied it’s Carnegie Library.  A burly older man stepped out when I stopped.  Before he could say anything I asked, “I’m looking for Bryant Hall,” which the Carnegie had been renamed.  

He gave me directions without any qualifications.  I was so relieved not to be turned away, I jestingly asked, “Is it named for the football coach,” expecting a good laugh, since there was no way arch rival Alabama’s legendary coach would have had his name attached to a building here, but I got no reaction whatsoever, just a straightforward, “I don’t know.”  Football is a religion in these parts, evidenced by the nearby “Manning Way,” named for the great Ole Miss quarterback Archie Manning.

Bryant Hall was just ahead, one of ten or so stately buildings in a circle facing a small park and cluster of trees.  The Carnegie was the stateliest of the lot, with its columns and dome and large windows.  “Library” on its facade had been replaced by “Fine Arts Center,” though it was now the Department of Philosophy and Religion.  Nothing in the building acknowledged Carnegie.  

Nor was the young secretary aware he was the benefactor of this magnificent building in 1910.  She knew the building had been named for a long-time English professor in 1984 and told me about some of the older nearby buildings dating to 1848, happy that they were intact, saying, “When the Union occupied, they didn’t burn the campus.”  

I wanted to ask, “What union was that? Was it a student demonstration?”   But we’d already had some missteps in our conversation, as we were muffled by masks and blocked by a plexiglass barrier, so she wouldn't have known how to respond to my incongruous comment.  The Civil War is a century-and-a-half behind us, but my experience whenever I’ve been in the South is encountering Southerners who speak of it as if it happened just last week.  There are plaques everywhere recounting the War, most disparaging the Union Army.  A plaque in downtown Oxford told of the burning of the city and also of Grant having spent time there.

With hardly a student to be seen, Oxford was very quiet.  I had to search to find the statue of William Faulkner I knew faced the Courthouse, as he was seated on a bench somewhat blocked by shrubbery.  The town doesn’t grant him too much prominence, as it isn’t sure whether to embrace this alcoholic Nobel laureate for his less than flattering portrayals of the environs.  The library has a mere photo of him in the corner of its Mississippi History room and an amateurish painting of him over a door smoking a pipe with the smoke spelling out Oxford.  On a previous visit Janina and I had visited his grave on the outskirts of town, so I didn’t seek it out this time.

The most direct route to the next Carnegie in Clarksdale sixty-five miles to the west was on a busy highway with rumple strips taking up the narrow shoulder, forcing me on to the road, which not everyone appreciated.  I received more horn toots than I ordinarily get in a month.  I had a bit of a tailwind, so was otherwise enjoying the ride.  Rather than responding with the middle finger salute, I gave every toot a friendly wave, making them think I thought they were fellow cyclists endorsing my endeavor and wishing they were on their bikes too and not confined to a metal box hurtling along at ungodly speeds.

Unfortunately, rumble strips have predominated on the 274 miles of my first three days.  It wouldn’t be easy to have a companion on such roads.  Hopefully by the time I get to Alabama and the possible companionship of Don Jaime I’ll be done with them.

All the traffic on busy 278 couldn’t have been headed to Clarksdale, as this sprawling town is quite rundown with many empty buildings.  It’s small, quaint Carnegie had a nondescript addition to its side that I at first thought was senior housing before I realized it was attached to the library.  I arrived half an hour after its closing time of 5:30 so couldn’t take comfort inside.  A sign on the door identified it as a WiFi zone, but it was turned off, so there was no lingering, which was just as well as I had to bike until nearly dark to get past some extensive wetlands before I found a place to camp after 98 miles for the day.

I stopped at the McDonald’s to take advantage of its self-service ice dispenser to fill my two insulated water bottles with ice, but was thwarted, as the dining area was closed.  I sat outside leaning up against the building facing the long line of vehicles to the drive-up window to take advantage of its WiFi and to eat some crackers and cheese.  Several minutes later a young black man came out of the store and asked, “Are you hangry?”  He had to repeat it three or four times, and approach me a little closer each time, before I understood he was asking me if I wanted something to eat.  “Oh no.  I’m fine,” I said. 

“I can give you something for free,” he replied.  

“I was going to get a McChicken,” I said, “and wanted to fill my water bottle.”  

“I’ll bring you out a cup of water,” he said.

Before I knew it he was back with two McChickens and a bottle of cold water.  It’s not the first time I’ve been the beneficiary of generosity from a McDonald’s employee during the pandemic when the only service was at the drive-up window. 

Fifteen miles south of Clarksdale the tiny town of Tutweiller was another town laying claim to a place in music history.  It’s water tower advertised itself as the birthplace of the Blues, one of quite a few towns in Mississippi making that boast.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Like many other towns in the Mississippi Delta, Tutwiler stakes a claim to being the "birthplace of the blues". This is the site where W. C. Handy reportedly "discovered" the blues in 1903, on a train platform in the town. Handy had heard something akin to the blues as early as 1892, but it was while waiting for an overdue train to Memphis that he heard an itinerant bluesman (legend says it was a local field hand named Henry Sloan). The man was playing slide guitar and singing about "goin' where the Southern cross the Dog", referring to the junction of the Southern Railway and Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad farther south. (The Y&D railroad was locally called the "Yellow Dog"). Handy called it "the weirdest music I had ever heard".