Good Mornin’! Good Mornin’!
“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
I very much understand what Mr. Pratchett was saying in his story. His quote summed up nicely my trip this past summer where I reconnected with all things Sunflower County.
It had been 14 years since I last was physically stomping around my homeland. I had heard plenty about the losses and how things were “not what they were.”
They were right but they were oh, so wrong.
Peasoup’s is still there, Delta State is winning baseball games and Delta dirt is still being sifted for treasure by hundreds of farmers.
The Delta is doing just fine, thank you.
The Delta Spirit – some may call it Southern Hospitality but it seems to reach deeper in our neck of the woods.
It’s in our DNA.
Maybe I’m a bit partial but there was an offer of a bed and food in each and every hamlet, vehicles to drive or just whatever I needed – from folks who haven’t seen me in ages and many who hadn’t heard from me or know much about me.
It’s just what Delta folks do.
The Delta is doing just fine. Some parts may be a bit run down and dented from plenty of use but most of it is running like a “Deere” and ready to conquer the next generation of opportunities that come along.
My hometown of Inverness has morphed from a ginning community and one that swelled with Asian grocers and Lebanese traders to one of every day and fine dining with food worth driving any distance for.
Shorty’s Mobile is no bigger than a shotgun shack but delivers the best breakfast for under five dollars that you can find on God’s green earth. Come back for lunch and you can thank me later.
Central Delta Academy/Inverness High School may be gone but the playground equipment, football and baseball field are there to relive memories and create some new ones – but dodge the fire ant mounds that abound.
The Lions, Rotary and Masons still meet, eat and swap stories at their appointed times at the Lodge Hall. Bell Incorporated is still solving problems for farmers on a daily basis. Oh, and there’s still a barber shop and a bank though the old pool hall was shuttered.
It may have changed, but Inverness is doing alright. The church pews still get filled and the bayou still stretches throughout my little hamlet.
Moorhead has a Double Quick, Dollar General, famous memorials – Where the Southern Crosses the Yellow Dog and bricks that pay homage to the fallen military heroes from this past summer – but the crown jewel is still Mississippi Delta Community College.
Educating Delta folks and giving them a hand up to a better life, career and into four-year colleges. One Sunday afternoon,
I felt the same buzz from my childhood – the female students were back and filling up the girls’ dorm. Everything was alright in Moorhead.
Indianola’s Pizza Hut moved from its moorings where I remembered it to be. But the John Deere Wade Incorporated was in the right spot.
The music, vibe and flavor of The Blue Biscuit is something that isn’t describable in words. Proprietor Trish Berry brought renewed life to another tired Delta structure keeping Indianola as a place that brings a smile.
The Delta has aged, matured and looks a little tired in spots.
But there’s life that continues and morphs much like the caterpillars and butterflies that are frequently seen across the thousands of acres of Delta flatlands. My home is alive.
Sunflower County and the Delta is doing just fine, thank you.
