Woody & My IBF

I woke up in the nicest Holiday Inn Express ever. They have Smart Coffee in a little atrium thing. I was late, and the lady didn’t take the breakfast away. Lourdes was the one who carefully took care of my room. It said so on the card on the lap desk (!) on my bed. She also made pretty fans out of the washcloths and tissues. I left her $5. The guy at the desk showed me how to get to Route 61. I plan to go on it pretty much until the Gulf of Mexico. He told me I can just take I-whatever for 30 minutes. People have a hard time understanding that I am not trying to get anywhere fast. Or anywhere it particular. Period. I went out to the canopy (thank you very much night girl), and there were two girl addicts with big gold hoops in their ears laughing and taking pictures and generally carrying on. I usually talk with anyone about my car. I took off. They were scary.

If I had taken the I-whatever to Rte. 61, I would have missed these things:

I am now in Mississippi, on the Blues highway. The state sign had lots of nice curlicue esses. Well done, Mississippi graphic designer.

The traffic eased off and I could really see the flat, rich delta fields that made slavery possible. Until right before Tunica when the casino billboards started. You can get a free slot if you join Sam Town’s club. 25 cent Epic Buffet at Hollywood. Paula Deen buffet at Harrah’s. And right in the middle, you can Be A Leader For Life if you join the Marines. I guess after you lose all your money, you need a job somewhere. I saw the Tunica Visitors Center and decided to find out what else you could do here besides gamble. 

This is Aimee and Louise. They were very helpful, understanding what I was looking for. It turns out that Louise’s son-in-law was the Police Chief of Tunica. He has Car 54 there, as in Car 54, are you there, car 54? He loves old cars, especially Studebakers. Aimee drew me a map with the good things on it, including how to get to the Police Department. First I had to go to River Park, though. It is a museum and aquarium and trail all mixed up. They really wanted me to go to the Tunica Museum but it is closed on Mondays. Also, Kermit the frog was born there (not at the museum, in the town). Going on Route 1 along the Mississippi is a waste of time what with the levees being as high as they are now. You can't see the river.

So, I went to River Park. The entrance from 61 is shared by some big casino with turrets and flags as the gateway. Sort of odd. The entrance to the park, though, is magnificent. I have never seen such beautiful gates.

I decided to stop at every opportunity because killing time in Tunica would probably be tough, but I really wanted to go to the Shack Up Inn. I saw a propeller and a drag bucket. The drag bucket was donated by The St. Francis County Levee Department. The sign next to the propeller noted that most boats have propellers. My imaginary boyfriend looked at them too.



This is Stanley Love. He came to say hi. He likes his job because he works outside. He's been there four years. The museum has been open eight. Miss Peggy drove by wanting to know what he was doing so he went back to work.

The museum is lovely, with a lot of real stuff on loan from other museums, and some fake ones for descriptive purposes. Lots and lots and lots of riverboat models. There are also early scissors:

I told you, you can never have too many scissors. There were nice fish tanks. One of them had a red-eared slider in it. It is a turtle. I wonder if that's where the little burgers come from. There is also a small mouthed buffalo. Pretty small for a buffalo, I'd say. Another room has a lot of taxidermy animals and birds that some guy shot to help promote his environmental message. I sure wouldn't want to be hanging around that environment when he came to visit. In the Native American exhibit, there were references to Chucalissa and Pink Palace museums. I think I saw the signs on the way, but I didn't stop. There was a cotton scale that looked just like the one African porters use to prove to the authorities that they are not carrying too much tourist stuff on their heads. Did you know that armadillos dig holes that undermine levees? Better keep them out of New Orleans. And Hernando De Soto started his discovery of the Mississippi in 1592. There was a plaque in a thicket a few houses down from us when we lived in Florida. I guess I didn't really get that this guy actually did start there. 


It was a beautiful day, and our first look at the Mississippi. I can feel the heat requiring my immediate attention in the clothing department. I'm looking forward to sweating like a pig. I do that.

Next was lunch. I ate at the Blue and White. It is indeed blue and white inside and out. Fortunately the blue was a nice clear cobalt and not the nasty ashy one Elvis liked. This is Lily, my waitress. 

She is much prettier in person and looks like Greta in Saving Grace. This is the amazing buffet. The fried green tomatoes perfect. Okra and tomatoes perfect. Cabbage perfect. Greens perfectly salty, so that you can taste all the other stuff. Beans perfect. I don’t remember the meat. I had apple cobbler for dessert. She didn’t ask me what I wanted, and she didn’t charge me, so I suppose it was included. Too bad, they had banana cream and coconut meringue pies in the case above the sink.

Off to see Chief Veazy. Louise took me on lefts at each four way stop sign, so I could see their little town. I probably could have seen it all by sitting at one of the stop signs for 30 seconds. Nevertheless, I easily found the police building across the street from the post office. There is was, Car 54. Louise told me that I should tell them I was there and if the Chief wasn’t there, they’d get him. I walked in and pressed the buzzer than you’re supposed to press if no one is there. Bingo! Chief Veazy answered it himself.

We went to see the cars, both his and mine. He wanted the judge to see Woody too. The judge was just going to be a few minutes in a preliminary hearing. They were bringing the prisoner over. Up by me we call them suspects. Prisoner is much more straightforward don’t you think? The Chief and I were interrupted in our car talk by the occasional cell phone. Just tell him to check on the flat roof over there and see if he threw the gun up there. Later, okay don’t touch it. This was of much less importance than our mutual love of metal, petroleum products and things that ignite.

The Chief told me about Car 54. Someone in some other police department had one. He wanted one, and found a real 1959 beauty in turquoise. He told the alderman that he’d like to get some money up to buy it. The guy said the town would buy it as long as he called it Car 54. He paid $7,500 for it after bargaining. Then he paid $2,500 for a black and white paint job that became orange-peeled. The painter said it was from the heat of the engine. Chief said he’d buy that but not on the rear passenger door. It keeps on appearing in different spots. If I were the Chief of Police, I wouldn’t be so nice to those painters. Also, the re-chroming of the back bumper is getting rusty. He found the light and siren on the top from some paraplegic guy in Arizona who didn’t ask for a credit card or a purchase order (we can tell that Chief Veazy is a public servant). He put the bill in the box. It was supposed to be installed lined up with the middle of the driver and passenger windows. It came back about a foot too far back. As we continued talking, the Judge pulled up.

Judge Selden is a large man with a gentile manner. He pronounces his h's very clearly, like a whisper in the middle of his words. His cadence is slow, and the storytelling mesmerizing. We talked about cars, we talked about people and we talked about Mississippi. The Judge sat in his car, behind his steering wheel the whole time. For about twenty minutes I stood at his window while Chief Veazy stood around. The Judge must have a lot of juice. He knows everybody everywhere. He his friends in Yemen, said Chief Veazy. He and his wife travel a lot, but he is tight as a tick. She vacations in (cough) Vietnam. The Judge helped me with all matter of flathead issues, and extolled the virtues of Marvel Mystery Oil. That's what they call it. He pulled out a map of Mississippi and began to draw on it while I took copious notes. He made lots of recommendations, and I am planning to follow all of them. The Judge knows his stuff. I was sorry to go, but we all needed a julep or something as it was so engaging.

I went down Main Street to the auto parts place and bought the Marvel Mystery Oil and a funnel. The Judge told me that oil of wintergreen is the natural ingredient that is the most powerful solvent of all. I wouldn’t want to get my pretty hands all cracked. I need only 4 ounces in a tank of gas.

Headed down the road to Clarksdale. Kind of remember the Judge showing me a line going southeast from Clarksdale to get there. I stopped at the Visitors Center which is in the Chamber of Commerce. It turns out that I am ¼ mile from the Shack Up Inn. Cool. Woody won’t again. No prob, just wait and use the old alligator clips. Friggin’ nothing. I thought we had that fixed. Ron, the Chamber guy (I think director) called some people. We talked about some Austrians (they have all the technology, he said) about biomass energy generation. The cotton stuff wasn’t any good, but Coahoma has lots of other things to process for energy. It also has only four or five cotton gins left, because they are very large. I think he told me that I was going somewhere that I can learn more about this. I asked. I want to. I love machines, but then you knew that.

This is Paul.  He is on the Board of Supervisors, but we shouldn’t worry just because he’s a politician. Dan is with him. They both like machines, too. Unbelievable. Paul said I should put the pedal to the metal and hit the starter. Cleared everything out and Woody went with a bang. Another thing I've learned about Woody.

I found the Shack Up Inn. It is even better than I expected. No sign, no obvious way in. A couple of guys, one in a lime green tie-dyed t-shirt who looked like Jerry Garcia with cool glasses (who I think is James Butler, friend of The Judge), a sort of regular golf club kind of guy, and two skinny, greasy haired wanderers, emphatically flagged me in. They said I had a cool sled. I was worried the skinny guys would steal my computer. After dinner, I smelled pot, and it was the first time in a long time, and it was good.

I am in the Cadillac Shack. You can tell because it has a Cadillac floor mat as its doormat. It also has all kinds of car-related stuff on the walls, but you have to look sort of hard to find them. Here are at least some of the walls. You can spend all day and all night looking at them. There is graffiti all over the place and some of it is really interesting.

The wifi didn’t work because the IP address was being used by another machine. I went to the office (if you could call it that) and sat with my Macbook. Yeah, someone else had that problem. She called someone who talked with me. They unplugged the router and it seemed to work itself out. I only say this because it has been a major time sink to upload photos and I am behind.

Had dinner at Abe's BBQ. It was a meal.  The place is famous. Abe was Lebanese.

Got email. College boyfriend apologizes for behavior on Saturday. Said his wife freaked out. Everything is fine between them now. Good. Forgot that today is Valentine's Day. So did all my imaginary boyfriends.