Clarksdale, MS is about fifteen miles away from Tutwiler. It is the location of the Delta Blues Museum and a bunch of blues clubs. One of the locals once told me that what Clarksdale needs is a place to eat and drink WITHOUT live music. Every year we wind up at Ground Zero Blues Club.
Thursday is often Open Stage night, so predictably the level of talent varies. The first couple of performers we saw were not ready for prime time, but then some of the local regulars took the stage.
Stan Street has been part of the Clarksdale scene for who knows how many years. He operates Hambone Art Gallery and performance space a couple blocks away.
He brought up a guitarist from up by Sheboygan, Wisconsin dare, who made his own guitar and knew how to play it.
And this guy showed up on the stage as well.
I tried to embed this, but the program will not let me, probably because I signed up for the cheap WordPress plan. Oh, well. If you want to see what we saw, here it is.
Morgan Freeman lives in Clarksdale and is a part-owner of the club.
Just in case you did not know that, here are some gentle reminders.
There are flags from all over the world hanging from the ceiling. I shot pictures of some of them, but apparently deleted them, so you will just have to take my word for it. The one that I did not delete is the recently adopted flag of the state of Mississippi.
After years of controversy and a great deal of public pressure, Mississippi finally decided to get rid of its former flag that had the Confederate battle flag in the canton. The flag was designed in 1896 and the designer claimed that the thirteen stars stood for the original thirteen states, but nobody believed that. I remember being taken aback during my early trips down here seeing it flying above public buildings. There was a referendum in 2001 that would have removed the Confederate battle flag from the canton and replace it with a circle of stars on a blue field. It failed with about two thirds of the vote being in favor of keeping the old flag.
By the turn of the century, the Confederate battle flag was being seen more and more as a symbol of racism, and public pressure mounted to change the flag. Neighboring Georgia dropped the Confederate symbol from its flag and after the racially motivated massacre at Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, pressure began to mount to change the flag.
In 2020 following the death of George Floyd in Minnesota at the hands of white police officers, the controversy flared up again. Demonstrations took place outside the state capitol. But perhaps more significantly, the Southeast Conference and later the NCAA determined that no post-season athletic events would be held in Mississippi until the flag was changed. In June of that year, the legislature passed a law removing the old flag and establishing a referendum to adopt an new on in November. In that short time, hundreds of designs were submitted, the list was narrowed to 147, then five, then two before the current flag was submitted to the referendum. It passed with about 75% of the vote.
Being someone who likes flags, I am impressed with what they came up with. I think it is one of the more attractive state flags and better than many of the proposed options over the years. And they did it in about six months. So change is possible, if often difficult and seemingly unlikely.
It started raining last night after we had all returned to the dorm and did not let up until this morning, then it started again.
The water table here in the delta is high, so it does not take a lot of rain to turn everything into Mississippi mud. Two years ago we put a picture of Noah’s Ark on our end of the week plaque.
So just about any work we do today is going to be inside. We typically take a half day some day during the week and go exploring the local cultural attractions, so the plan is to do some of that this afternoon. Tonight we will likely head into Clarksdale and catch some music.
But we have gotten stuff done this morning. JD examined my rotating sanders and declared that they have gone to sander heaven, so I have left them to him to canabalize and then told Ariel that it is all her fault. I will have to rely on the flat one for the remainder of the week. That has worked OK so far, and here is what I accomplished this morning.
OK, it does not look like much, but until someone comes up with a VR method of letting you feel stuff in a blog, you will just have to take my word for it. The walls are nice and smooth.
Ariel brought her daughter along again today. She is having fun and brightening the environment around here. I wish I could show you pictures because she is pretty cute, but you will have to settle for Dino pretending he is a scary monster. The rest of us do not find Dino all that scary, but perhaps kids do.
On House 49, they are finishing up the siding, but only in the area of the front porch. It is pouring outside right now.
Food once again is great. Wednesday is usually the day that Andy whips up one of his feasts, so last night he made green curry with all sorts of stuff that goes in it with brown or vermicelli rice. It might be a not quite up to Andy’s usual standards, as he forgot to bring coconut milk, and oddly enough, the local Dollar General did not have any. But it tasted good. This morning, Kristin made avacado toast and we still had lots of fruit left. Yum!
So much of our experience down here over the years has been two steps forward, one step back. Needs are great and progress can be painfully slow. Several of us, primarily the rookies, made a visit to the Tutwiler Community Education Center.
Sister Maureen Delaney was the first director of the center and started a lot of the programs. The Tutwiler Quilters attracted awards and attention and provided a source of income for local women while helping to preserve an African American heritage. Right now there is only one person making quilts as part of the program.
There have been many great programs run at the community center, but since Sr. Maureen left, it has been difficult to find stable leadership and many of those programs are suffering right now. There have been some significant accomplishments in the past year or two, but the most recent director left after a dispute with the board and currently there is no permanant director.
One of the things Tutwiler was known for is being the place where Emmett Till’s body was embalmed. Emmett Till’s tragic death and the effect it had on touching off the Civil Rights Movement is of great historical significance and there is an historical marker planted in front of the funeral home. Unfortunately, until recently there was also a sign warning people not to walk on the sidewalk because the funeral home was gradually falling down.
This is how the building appeared when I first came down in 2012.
This is how it appeared a few years later when the facade had collapsed.
Here is what the lot looks like today. Any plans to restore the building have obviously been abandoned.
About 2013 I shot some pictures around town and took these of the back of the funeral home building. I found it curious to see that there was street gang graffiti in a town that barely had any streets. But a further examination revealed that somebody left a herse behind.
The building is gone, but the herse holds a place of honor in the parking lot in front of City Hall.
Jay and Stephanie operate the High Cotton Cafe. It used to be the scary bar across the street from the community center. None of us were ever courageous, or foolhardy enough to look inside. Jay and Stephanie bought it after the previous owners failed to pay taxes and turned it into this lovely cafe. Stephanie is a talented artist and they run an arts program for kids in the area. They also sell merchandise like this beautiful t-shirt.
When they started the cafe, they also wanted to take over the site of an abandoned gas station and open a fruit stand. Instead, the site went to somebody who opened what the community desperately needed, another liquor store!
But the liquor store met its end in a fire.
Fortuitously, the building was located next door to the police department and across the street from the fire department. Unfortunately, the only person who had a key to the volunteer fire department lived in Greenwood, MS, which is about an hour away. When he arrived, the building was far beyond saving, but he thought the police might want to know that the building next door was on fire. They replied that they thought it had been put out already. When informed that it had not, they said they would look into it. The town can survive without another liquor store, and fortunately the fire did not claim any other buildings.
There are all sorts of interesting things one can find around Tutwiler.
I am not sure when this place burned down, or how long this car has been sitting there. Perhaps it will eventually degrade into its consituent molecules and improve the iron content of the local soil.
More siding, sanding, and the like. Sanding still kicks up a lot of dust. I brought two rotary sanders down here and both of them are not working now. I brought a flat one as well. Not quite as efficient, but it gets the job done. However, the only sandpaper I have that fit it is thin, high-grade stuff which does not cut through wall mud very well, so progress was a bit limited today on that front.
It is taking time, but progress is being made. Here is the front bedroom on Monday and Wednesday.
Next door, Dino and Dave are cutting siding and Kristin and Lorenzo are making sure it fits.
Ariel’s four-year-old daughter Alayah has been a constant presence, carrying stuff, retreiving dropped nails, and otherwise added a joyful presence to the worksite, but we cannot show you pictures of that.
A good amount of siding got cut and put up. Nicole and Kristin are cutting it and Dino and Dave putting it up.
Here the siding crew inspect their work at the end of a productive day.
You can tell work is being done by the amount of garbage being left behind.
As of Tuesday morning, we had nine of ten windows installed in House #49. The exception being the one above, where Kristin and Lorenzo got so enthusiastic about cutting window openings in the plywood that they sawed right into the window. Oh, well. Actually, despite the fact that we have made just about every imaginable error over the years, our success rate is actually pretty good.
So now it is on to siding House #48 and mudding and sanding the walls in House #49. Here our brave warriors start to get set up for siding.
Meanwhile next door, we are working on sanding down the walls. First you mud the rough and uneven spots or the seams between pieces of drywall, then when the mud dries, you sand it down to create a smooth surface. Simple, right?
These are sanding tools. On the right is a sanding block which gets the job done and is useful for fine detail. On the left is a rotary sander. I started bringing these along the year after we had to redo somebody’s door and cabinets because of the poor job the group ahead of us had done. Doing it by hand can be tedious.
Using the sander is much more efficient, but it has the disadvantage of creating a cloud thick enough to make you feel like you are navigating a sandstorm. The water bottle in the picture above is helpful for rinsing the plaster dust out of your mouth and nostrils. These sanders do come with a bag to collect all the dust. I usually do not bother with them because they always fall off. But perhaps I should have considered that while working inside. Oh, well. Maybe tomorrow I will remember to bring a mask.
It also has the disadvantage of making you look like Caspar the Friendly Ghost when you are done.
Here JD points out to Charlotte the spots that have to be mudded in the bathroom. We will be sanding those down tomorrow.
And JD explains the fine points of installing those birdboxes to Dave and Dino.
Despite the hard work often in considerable heat, this is not a place to lose weight. We eat really well down here. Andy is an accomplished chef, and several of the rest of the crew are not bad either. Andy usually fills up his smoker the week before we leave and brings down enough for at least a couple meals. Here is dinner Monday night consisting of smoked ribs, chicken, and shrimp, Southern greens, and cowboy beans.
Today for lunch we had deli sandwiches with couscous and a bottomless fruit bowl. I am not sure what couscous is exactly, but it tasted good
The crew returning for lunch after a busy morning.
We got a fair amount done today. Actually, after all these years, we are pretty good at this. It helps to have a bunch of engineers on the team as well.
Today we started putting windows in House 49 and siding on House 48.
Shooting pictures of installing windows is always tricky because you go from complete darkness on the inside to bright sunlight on the outside. So here Kristin saws away while Lorenzo clears the sheeting from the outside, until Kristin emerges like a cicada.
Meanwhile next door, Nicole and Jon cut the siding that is going to go into the soffets.
Bird boxes, those corners under the roof are always tricky. Jon and Dino measure them out with care.
Next door, the crew works installing the windows.
Emma came out to watch us work and make sure we are doing a good job on what will soon be her granddaughter’s house. Another daughter lives across the street and another around the corner. Lots of family connections in this neighborhood. Habitat homeowners have to put in a certain amount of work on their houses or another, so Pierre and Ariel came down to help. It is always good to meet the people who are going to move in.
Tomorrow we are going to start mudding and sanding the walls in one of the houses Stay tuned!
The West Tallahatchie Habitat for Humanity Chapter got started some time after Sr. Anne Brooks came down to run the Tutwiler Clinic. After recovering from a longterm physical condition that left her unable to walk, Sr. Anne was encouraged by her doctor to go to medical school. To pay back the government funding for her tuition, she had to work for several years in an underserved community. She wound up in Tutwiler, where she remained for the next thirty-five years or so.
Shortly thereafter, Sr. Maureen Delaney joined her and started the Tutwiler Community Education Center.
And from there the West Tallahatchie Habitat Chapter was born. We are currently working on House #49. Sister Anne has since retired and Sister Maureen became the head of her order, but the work they started goes on. Among the things the community center does is provide space for the Tutwiler Quilters.
We are back for our 20th year here back in Tutwiler. After all this time, our routine is pretty well developed, though in recent years we have come down on Sunday rather than Saturday.
We always meet at Niemerg’s restaurant in Effingham, IL (named after the British nobleman who refused to take up arms against American revolutionariers.) Niemerg’s has pretty good food and a great salad bar. And it is about halfway down.
Last year I purchased one of these beautiful t-shirts on the way down.
We then wind up at the Mexican restaurant in Clarksdale, MS, about fifteen miles outside of Tutwiler. I am told they make great margaritas. This is the crew for this year, including an impressive THREE rookies!
My sister Kathleen died the week after Easter this year. She never made the trip down here, but paid for a few of mine. In my early years as part of the team, I was dropping in to assist with her first-grade class at St. Paul of the Cross in Park Ridge.
Later, some of those classes were about my trip to Tutwiler and the students were given an assignment to write letters to Dr. Anne Brooks at the Tutwiler Clinic.
Dr. Brooks was a sister who attended medical school later in life and had to serve in an underseved community to pay for her government loans. She stayed for thirty years providing medical care to the very underserved residents of Tallahatchie County. The clinic staff told me they always looked forward to those letters. They would take them to the conference room and spread them around so that everyone could look at them. Sr. Anne graciously replied to each one.
The first-graders were always excited to hear about our trip and never failed to remember us in their moring prayers. Last Friday, I had the pleasure of teaching first grade at St. Sylvester School in Logan Square, and asked them to take up that responsibility. So we look forward to their prayerful support this week.
This is our twentieth year making the trip down, and my twelfth. We have seen lots of houses built, lots of progress made, and some of it lost right back. Things tend to move in a positive direction, but slowly and sporadically, and not often in that direction. But as Father Kevin Feeney pointed out a few years back, we have become part of the Tutwiler community and they in turn have become part of ours.
JD Smith has been the contractor for the West Tallahatchie Habitat program from the beginning. (Now if we can just get him to do something about the leaking roof in the volunteer dorm…)
Lorenzo is one of his relatives who has been showing up to help out whenever we come down for years, at least since I joined the team. When I first met Lorenzo, he was a skinny little kid. He is not any more. Lorenzo helps out on some of the Habitat jobs throughout the year but always shows up when we are here. At the end of the week, we put up a plaque with all our names on it, (more about that later) and Lorenzo’s name is on every one since I started. I gave him grief because he started texting other members of our team on our way down and forgot me.
Customarily the Sheil community has given us its blessing before he headed down each year. One year I was not present at the Mass where that happened and I asked Fr. Kevin when I went to one of the later masses. He was happy to oblige and said to the visiting priest who had just said Mass, “This is one of our missionaries.” I had not thought of it in those terms, but that is what we are. On another occasion, Fr. Kevin observed that we had been heading down for years and had become part of the Tutwiler community, and that they in turn had become part of the Sheil community. Or as J.D. put it as we were about to head home, “Y’all are family.”
We look forward to coming down every year, we keep in touch with the people who live here, and we share their joys and sorrows. This is Shannon. We worked on his house a few years back and got to meet him and his family at the potluck that year. He was excited to be moving into his home and to be able to provide a home for his grandmother and daughter as well. About two months after the family moved in, Shannon’s grandmother was killed when someone shot into the home, right through the recently installed windows. No one has been apprehended.
We (mostly me) have sent thousands of books and DVDs to the library. The Tallahatchie County Library had two branches, and one of them was in Tutwiler since it had a sturdy building. Along with my cousin, we discussed trying to set up some programs for the library to encourage parents and young people to read to kids. But the library closed. It has closed in the past, so perhaps it will reopen again.
After three years, Dana should be able to move into her house some time this summer. Construction started before the Covid outbreak, then stopped for a year. We were the first group to head down after the pandemic, and one of only a few that year. We put up siding but had to stop just around the windows because several of them had been damaged and new ones had not arrived yet. About a week after we left, the whole area flooded.
All of these are houses we have worked on at one time or another. Dana’s house is the one in the background with siding halfway up the wall. Fortunately, the water did not reach that far. The water came right up to the front step of Sarah’s house, but no further. Other homeowners were not so fortunate.
But there are good things happening as well.
High Cotton ART Studio
This is High Cotton ART Gallery and Café run by Jay and Stephanie Kasem.
But there are good things happening as well. This is High Cotton ART Gallery and Café run by Jay and Stephanie Kassem. They recently opened the High Cotton ART Studio and Cafe.
Before they purchased the building in a tax sale, it was the scary bar on the corner across the street from the community center that none of us ever had the courage to enter. Despite the dangerous wiring and the fact that it was prone to flooding, the place was rocking at night. But they still couldn’t pay their taxes.
Today it serves lunch and Stephanie teaches art classes to kids from the area, some of whom travel some distance to get there. And they all get fed lunch. All of this is free, paid for by the proceeds of the café and donations. Here is a video of the studio in action.
Recently they have started a community garden to teach kids and adults gardening skills and provide fresh produce for the café.
So feel free to purchase stuff or send a donation if you are so inclined.
Lorenzo and Dino
I first met Lorenzo the first year I came down. He is a relative of J.D.’s and had worked on one of the earlier and got to know some of the team. Since then, he has worked on every house we have and sometimes brought his friends. His name is on many of those plaques we put up on the wall. Lorenzo looks forward to our arrival and when we leave on Saturday morning, he tells us to call when we get home so he doesn’t worry.
Lorenzo gets to know all of us, but he has always had a special relationship with Dino. When Dino does not make the trip, Lorenzo finds someone else to focus his attention on. When Casey first started this blog years ago, she interviewed Lorenzo. He was thrilled. But Dino is his special friend.
Sarah’s House
We worked on Sarah’s house a few years back. As a matter of fact, we worked on it two years in a row. The first year, things were pretty bare. Homeowners have to put in a certain number of hours on either their house or someone else’s, so Sarah dropped by to work on her house. We were putting up drywall, so she could not afford to get plaster in her hair before going to work.
The following year, we returned with a big crew. We spent most of our time early in the week framing one house, but owing to the fact that we had such a big crew (and the fact that Bob the Builder would not let anyone else play,) some of us started drifting to the houses still being finished, including Sarah’s.
The group that preceded us did a less than admirable job. In fact, they were terrible. They left a pile of unwashed paint brushes behind, which made them useless by the time we arrived. But worse, they had done a terrible job on Sarah’s house. The front door was a mass of drip marks. Some of us (primarily Natalie) spent hours sanding down the front door (and convincing me to never come down again without a sander or two.)
Meanwhile, the kitchen cabinets were terrible. I took them all down, sanded them down, and refinished them.
The following year, Sarah met me in front of the next house an gave me a hug, saying, “You’re the one who fixed my door!” I did not bother to clarify that is was Natalie who did the door. I did the cabinets. But they both looked pretty good.
Sarah gave us a tour of her house today. It is immaculate, and tastefully decorated. (And the kitchen cabinets look great. Sarah loves them.
When we first met Sarah, she was quiet and shy around us. I can safely say that Sarah is not quiet and shy. Having a home is a great confidence booster. At the end of the dinner, she was networking with Charlotte. I do not know what that was about, but it was important to Charlotte. Perhaps she will provide us with the details.
Sherri
Sherri took over as the program manger when her daughter left to take another job. She took over “temporarily.” She is still here years later and does not seem to be in a hurry to leave. When we first met Sherri, she had just had a leg amputated as a result of diabetes. She was getting around on a walker. Now she gets around just fine. She says that the Habitat program and people like us is what keeps her going.
The Marquette Connection
As it happens, three of us are proud alumni of Marquette University. This includes Mike, who with his wife Nicole started this trip, Kristin who has made every one, and me, the relative newcomer who has been on the last eleven. Of course, many of us have reason to be proud of our alma mater, but it is no coincidence that those of us trained in the Jesuit tradition of cura personalis are dedicated to our careers, families, and service of others. AMDG.
There is a lovely prayer on the subject.
In any moment, may I choose to care as I have been cared for. What I have received abundantly, I can only honor by sharing. With You as my God who holds me dearly, who forms me affectionately, who loves me fully, I myself can take part in the healing and strengthening of others. Amen.
Earlier in the week, Mike in his morning devotion spoke about building the Kingdom of God. Things go up and down n Tutwiler, but we keep coming back and making what changes we can, and in the meantime have built so many meaningful relationships. Of such things are the kingdom made.
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