Sunday, February 25, 2018

MISSISSIPPI

FARM BABY REFLECTIONS I don't remember much from my grandparents' farm as a small boy. I do remember sweet sugar cane, however, and the watermelon and cotton. I remember riding upon the back of a mule that was hitched to a cane mill-grinder, that ground the cane into a green liquid as the mule circled . Someone lifted me upon it. I do remember the sound of a long green watermelon splitting open, when it was sliced. It sounded like a log being split apart and the smell was was divine; its meat delicious! I also remember cotton, billowing fields of cotton and riding atop the wagon high atop the cotton regally. Such memories, remembrances endue, endear, endow me to land. My maternal Uncle Cyrus A. Moreland, told me that when he was growing up (pre-1963) in Canton, Mississippi, that he had picked cotton with Jimmy Reed, Elmo James, and Howling Wolf, all of whom are now blues greats! I was charmed to say the very least by this tidbit of information. I had called him to exclaim about this bad brother named C.O. Chinn who had boldly walked into a CORE civil rights worker's bond hearing with a holstered pistol in the Madison County court. The judge said, "Now, C.O., you know that you can't wear that gun in here." Chinn answered, "As long as that SOB has his gun --nodding at the sheriff--I 'm gonna have mine." THIS NONVIOLENT STUFF'LL GET YOU KILLED (2016) p. 188, by Charles E. Cobb, Jr. Eventually the judge coaxed both armed adversaries to lay their guns down on a table in front of the bench. Both men obeyed warily.