Hands across the Decades

October 16, 2019
Bloomington, Illinois

I was working at the library today in a quiet area when a stealthy patron suddenly exclaimed, "Clarksdale! Doesn't get any more authentic than that!" It was a fellow traveler from the 60s and early 70s stopping to comment on my Ground Zero T-shirt. "Have you been there?" I asked the white-haired and -bearded geezer.

"No," he said, "but years ago I hitch-hiked through Mississippi and I know about the blues tradition around there."

"Through *Mississippi*?" I asked. "When was that?" "Oh, about 1974," says he. He was from Tulsa and he described hitching through Mississippi as a long-hair beardo, which was quite a surprise since at the same time I was hitching through Oklahoma and getting refused service at cafes and restaurants that forbid both long hair and beards.

He allowed that he'd had a few scares but no actual harm came to him, and I averred the same and threw in one touchy moment when several good old boys picked me up somewhere between Indiana and South Carolina. They assured me they would take me to my destination, but one feller, the loud-mouthed driver, said he had to go home first and pick up a "nigger whacker" - an axe handle. I became decidedly nervous after that, but I didn't see a way to back away from that particular peer group. I hoped to be rid of them soon enough, but for the time being I was stuck. We left the interstate and went to the guy's home, where he picked up the aforementioned axe handle. To show what a great weapon he had, the guy swung it and smacked it against a stout tree. Thereupon the handle broke and flew into a million pieces, which scattered everywhere and set off a round of raucous laughter from the guy's buddies. If only such a fate would befall the sons and grandsons of those same guys today.

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