“They Got To Sew, Sew, Sew”: Mardi Gras Indians Uptown and Downtown
The traditional Mardi Gras parades can be fun, but my favorite part of carnival is in the ‘hoods and backstreets, where the gangs of Mardi …
History
To New Orleans Across The Mississippi Delta
Originally, I was to have headed out to New Orleans on Saturday, which would have enabled me to go to Houma for a parade with …
Celebrating Women in the Blues at Rust College
Amy Verdon, the New York-based owner of the online magazine Fancy! and its record-label offshoot Go Ape Records has been quite a contributor to the …
A Fife-and-Drum Workshop in Brownsville, Tennessee
Fife and drum music once flourished in West Tennessee, but similar to what happened in Georgia, disappeared rapidly in the 1970’s. The last evidence we …
Remembering the Legacy of Bartlett’s Shadowlawn High School
Back in 1979, I had attended Shadowlawn Middle School in a rural area along Shadowlawn Road north of Ellendale. I was in the sixth grade …
Great Breakfasts and a Taste of History at The Brunswick Kitchen
I had been hearing about a new restaurant that had opened in the old Brunswick community along Brunswick Road, and I had even ventured out …
Celebrating the Hill Country Tradition at Como’s Annual Day
Each October, the City of Como, Mississippi sponsors a large, daylong festival and picnic called Como Day, featuring vendors, food trucks, custom cars and excellent …
The King Biscuit Blues Festival and the Decline of Helena
Like all of Eastern Arkansas, Helena had seen better days by the late 1970’s, but the worst was yet to come. When the Mohawk Tire …
Some Ice Cream, A Snowball, Seafood and Blues
After the second-line, we were so hot when we got back to the car that I immediately started searching in my phone for ice cream …
An Afternoon in Biloxi and Ocean Springs, Dinner in Gulfport
My friend and I had visited my cousin in the Handsboro neighborhood of Gulfport, and then we had headed on east into Biloxi. We noticed …