The Mississippi River

This is about as close as we could get -- and it was taken from the top of an observation tower.

"The Fatal Flood of 1927"

is another great documentary we saw on the bus that first day. The 27 flood has parallels to the Katrina disaster and was also a big turning point in the history of the Delta.

There's also a recent book about it that it very good, Rising Tide. The short version of the story is that the blacks could have been evacuated, but the planters didn't want to risk that they would never come back to grow cotton, so they forced them to stay and shot them if they refused to work on the levee.

Half Commanche Indian and half Dane

That's the guy on the right. The woman on the left is his wife, who showed up every day in the blistering heat with a different pretty sundress, sweet as a morning glory.

Everything I've described from the geography, through LaLee's Kin and Reggie Barnes, happened on the first day. In the late afternoon, we took a bus to a state park on the levee. You can't really SEE the river most places, because of the levees. In fact, some of the kids here have lived five miles or less from the river and have never seen it. Even at the park, we could only see it from a distance. A fried catfish dinner was served at the park. The river began to become almost a mythic entity to me, then, something like the Oracle at Delphi. Although we were never far from the river, that was the closest we ever actually got to it.

It's the third biggest river in the world, and is incredibly dangerous. Sometimes currents flow in both directions at one time, with whirlpools besides. I began to understand Mark Twain and Huck Finn a lot better at about that point.

Oh yeah,

Reggie Barnes is the man on the left. The one on the right is the incredible Luther Brown. I met so many people on this trip, and heard about so many more, that used their lives to accomplish amazing things, that I feel rightfully humbled.

Reggie Barnes, past superintended of West Tallahatchie Schools

Mr. Barnes is featured in the documentary "LaLee's Kin." He had been hired to bring up the district schools from probationary status: they were in danger of being taken over by the state because of the low test scores.

He did bring up the scores. They've gone down again now that he's left. At the time the documentary was being made, while he knew his students lived in poverty, he didn't realize that some of them had no running water and had to bathe in 5 gallon buckets.

He's accomplished amazing things. He ended his talk by telling us, in different words, that teaching, that helping these kids, is a task put on us by God, and that one day we'll have to account for our actions if we don't care enough and act like we care enough.

When you see the documentary, you'll see how much he's aged. That was some job he had, and damn, he put everything into it.

Luther Brown's briefcase

I haven't said enough about Luther Brown yet. He is the head of the Delta Center for Culture and Education and was the leader of the workshop. Despite the fact that he is a geologist, (or something scientific like that), and he was born in Bermuda, he has become the saint of the Delta. He knows everyone and everything and works and works to bring people to the Delta, partly because he loves history and the blues, I think, but mostly because he want to help the people of the Delta. The blues are blue for a reason -- the Delta is a tragic place.

Laylee's Kin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4xVyYjD34o

Please look at this except from this great documentary about the connection between illiteracy and poverty. I haven't figured out yet how to actually embed the video in my post. Anyone who can help me with that, please let me know.

This documentary was filmed in West Tallahatchie County -- one of the poorest counties in the US. (And yes, it contains the bridge from the song "The Day That Billie Joe McAlaster jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge" and yes, I saw all the bridges that it could possibly refer to)

If you care about poverty or educating the poor, you really need to see this. It is just now available to buy from HBO.