Day: June 3, 2019

Author Hank Burdine’s latest book is a collection of his stories about the people, places and things that make up the Delta.

And Burdine is the perfect person to share those stories with his Southern drawl and storytelling ease that leaves one craving a sip of whiskey as they sit along the banks of the Mississippi River.

Burdine was in Clarksdale on Thursday, reading passages from his new book, “Dust in the Road: Recollections of a Delta Boy.” The event, held at the Cutrer Mansion, was part of the Community Book Talks lecture series that is sponsored by the Carnegie Public Library in partnership with the Coahoma County Higher Education Center.

The book is a collection of stories Burdine has shared in the monthly Delta magazine. He has been writing for Delta magazine since its inception in 2003. His first column was titled “Why Mississippi Will Always Be My Home.”

“That was 67 issues ago,” Burdine said.

During Thursday’s event, Burdine read the introduction in his latest book, as well as the story “The Night I Lost My Pants at a Debutante Ball.”

He is proud of the work and thankful for contributions by “two dear, dear friends of mine”– authors Julia Reed, from Greenville, and Richard Grant, who wrote “Dispatches From Pluto.” Reed wrote the foreword, while Grant wrote the epilogue.

“I’m honored those two cats wanted to put something in the book,” Burdine said.

In an article, Grant wrote, “Hank Burdine is a writer, raconteur and bon vivant, a big-hearted, loud-drawling, whiskey-loving son of Greenville, Mississippi.”

Burdine said he hasn’t received many compliments in his life, but one of the greatest compliments he ever received was when he was described “as a Rule from Ruleville.”

The introduction to his book reflects on the Delta and memories of his mother.

“So, it is my belief, in agreement with my momma, that while the people of the Delta are what makes it so unique, it is the fact that in most cases, it was our grandparents and great-grandparents that were the true pioneers of this region.

“And it was that pioneering spirit and blood and guts and tears and sweat that beat the Mississippi River back, felled the trees and began to plow and mold the richest land imaginable in order to give us, today, the Mississippi Delta.”

Burdine said Clarksdale and its surrounding area “has got a real, deep part in my heart” and is a special place for him. He talked of Coahoma County’s Robert E. Bobo and his exploits as a bear hunter.

Burdine, who is also a commissioner on the Mississippi Levee Board, spoke of the twists and turns of the Sunflower River as it makes its way through the county and eventually heads to Ruleville and the rest of the lower Delta.

“We’re all so connected and it’s such an integral part of everything as this Delta is. It’s the uniqueness of this Delta, not only to us that live here and have been here, but to folks who want to know about it,” he said.

“The Delta is very special right now. It’s very hot right now,” said Burdine, who recently hosted the second annual Hank Burdine Blues and Greens Festival at the Shack Up Inn near Clarksdale. He pointed out that 80 percent of the inn’s clientele are visitors from Europe.

That’s an example, Burdine said, of the people learning about the Delta and wanting to know more about it.

“It’s not the high glitz and neon glory, but it’s the old stuff, the way we know it. It’s the Delta stuff,” Burdine said. “It’s the deep stuff. It’s the stuff in our guts. This is what we got. This is who we are.”

He said when people ask where he’s from, the answer is simple.

“I’m not from Clarksdale. I’m not from Greenville. I’m from the Delta.”

He said that simple statement covers a lot of people, a lot of races and a lot of creeds and nationalities.

“But, it’s us and it’s our Delta.”

Want a copy?

Hank Burdine’s book, “Dust in the Road: Recollections of a Delta Boy,” is sold exclusively through Delta magazine and authorized dealers. Call 662-843-2700 or go online to deltamagazine.com to order a copy.

(This article first appeared in the Dec. 12, 2018, issue of The Clarksdale Press Register.)

The role of family, specifically, that of the father, in the life of some of the greatest athletes in the world is at the heart of Wright Thompson’s newest book, “The Cost of These Dreams.”

And the Clarksdale, Miss., native didn’t have to go far in searching for inspiration in telling the stories, as he counted on the life lessons he learned from his parents, Mary and Walter Thompson, and the community he grew up in.

“You talk about the things you get from your parents. The thing I got most of all was, for better or for worse, a complete, abiding belief that if I wanted to do it, I could do it,” Thompson said. “I kept believing despite severe evidence that suggested I should quit.”

“The Cost of These Dreams” is a collection of stories that he has written over the years for ESPN The Magazine. The main character in a lot of the stories is “place,” Thompson said during an appearance Friday at the Carnegie Public Library in downtown Clarksdale as part of its Community Book Talks Lecture Series.

And Clarksdale, he believes, is a “crash course in how to really dig into a place.”

Thompson grew up in Clarksdale on Court Street, where his mother, who is a retired teacher from Lee Academy, still lives. His father passed away in September 2004.

Wright believes the experience of growing up here plays a large part in how he writes and his interview process in his work as a senior writer for ESPN and as an executive producer of the television series “True South” on the SEC Network and “Backstory” on ESPN.

“When you’re confronted with so much hypocrisy, it makes you either want to cut through myths… which is basically what these things are, really,” Thompson said, holding up his book. “There is a through-line for all of these stories. Every one of them is trying to tell a story that someone doesn’t want told.

“That’s certainly formed here (in Clarksdale). At an early age, I think you decide if you’re going to tear it down or become part of it. And that’s very little middle ground. I understand how people come to both decisions.

“I don’t think any of this happens if I’m from a suburb of Atlanta with the exact same parents and the exact same situation. The exact same neighbors and the exact same schools. Same teachers and same people in the classes.

“I got to think there’s something from being from this place that gets into you and, if you can get out of the place, you can carry that like a sword and a shield everywhere you go for the rest of your life. If you crawl your way out of this, there’s not a single thing in the world… I mean everything after that is easy. It’s almost like the greatest possible training you could ever have.”

The 1996 Lee graduate attended the University of Missouri, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He would work for various newspapers, including The Clarksdale Press Register, Times-Picayune in New Orleans and the Kansas City Star, before he landed a job as a senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine in 2006.

He has written hundreds of articles for numerous publications, including a recent article in Garden and Gun magazine about Moon Lake and Katherine’s restaurant. He’s won a number of sports journalism awards and also an Emmy for his E:60 on noodling, the sport of fishing for catfish with bare hands. He is a member of the Clarksdale/Coahoma County Sports Hall of Fame.

And as much appreciation as Thompson has for this community, Clarksdale residents are as equally supportive as more than 100 people turned out for the author’s appearance Friday.

Thompson jokingly said he thought about titling his latest book “Back For More Cash,” which got large laughs from the audience, but he admitted it was a bit of a chore narrowing down the 14 stories that eventually made it into the publication.

“When I read it, it sort of took my breath away,” Thompson said of the book’s preface, which he wrote over 90 minutes spent at a booth in the Yazoo Pass restaurant downtown. “They (the varied stories) really do fit together in an interesting way and speak to each other in an interesting way that was completely unintended. That was a total accident.”

During Friday’s appearance, Thompson read portions of his story titled “Michael Jordan’s Not Left the Building,” which detailed the 50th birthday of Jordan and how the former basketball superstar and one of the most famous people in the world was learning to live a life where “now you’re just a guy whose knees hurt.”

Reflecting upon Jordan and his voracious appetite for competition, Thompson told the audience, “He very much seeks out that part of his life that’s gone.”

And that adjustment of fading from the limelight is at the heart of his newest collection of stories.

“I feel like you spend 48 percent of your life wanting to be something, four percent of your life being it and 48 percent of your life having been it. And that’s certainly true for every person in this book.”

He believes there is a bit of a “mourning period” for athletes once they retire and try to decide how the next part of their life is played out.

“It’s interesting because people want to be famous because it sounds fun. But when they get famous, they want to give it back. And you can’t give it back because you’ve already made too many deals with the devil that you can’t unmake.”

As for Wright Thompson, the author said life is good. The 42-year-old now makes his home in Oxford where he lives with his wife, Sonia, and daughter, Wallace, and often makes trips home to Clarksdale to see his mother and friends.

“Everybody has a story they tell themselves about themselves.  And everybody has a story that other people tell about them,” Thompson said. “What I really want to do when you break it down… the essence of it…  is to figure out what those two stories are… and the most important is figure out what is the space in between, why does that space exist.”

As an example, he said he’ll often tell people that he grew up “working on a farm” from his days spent working in the cotton fields for local farmer Cliff Heaton. But what he’ll not say is that his father “was a pretty successful trial lawyer.”

Thompson said, “It’s because I have a self-image of myself as someone who got here by working really hard and one thing confirms the way I feel about it and the other thing doesn’t. Am I lying? I don’t know. But it feels true to me.

“When I look at and see my own journey here, and all the people who started wanting the same thing… and watching the winnowing happen and seeing who gets stripped away and who is left standing when we get to the top of the mountain… it feels to me, the single most important thing was not talent, but hard work and the ability to believe ‘someone’s got to do this, why not me?’”

(This story originally appeared in the April 10, 2019, edition of The Clarksdale Press Register.)