Our first stop was Vicksburg, Mississippi. Vicksburg was the closest (small) city to my ancestral home in Tallulah, Louisiana, just across the mighty Mississippi and about twenty miles from where I grew up. We drove through Vicksburg's downtown, which consists of several beautifully developed blocks of streets with cobblestone pavers and attractive shops. Unfortunately, the economy hasn't been kind to Vicksburg, and half the stores are empty. There are multiple casinos in Vicksburg along the Mississippi River, so you'd think the tax revenue would bring prosperity, but Vicksburg has the look of a dying city.
We drove across the Mississippi River to Tallulah and had a look around. From a previous visit we were aware that the town had deteriorated badly, and the rot has continued. When I was a boy Tallulah had a fairly successful farm-based economy, and the stores along the main street were thriving. At present almost all those buildings are unoccupied, and some are gutted. Even more than Vicksburg, Tallulah is a town on life support.
I grew up in the days when segregation was the law of the South. There was a railroad track running through Tallulah, and the cliche was literal reality - black people lived on one side of the tracks and white people on the other. Restaurants, schools, and drinking fountains were color-specific. Hard to imagine that such a time existed, but of course it did. Integration of the races didn't happen until years after I left, and then gradually black people moved into the white areas. In fact, after my parents died, we sold their home to a black minister. White flight shifted most of the Caucasians to a neighborhood enclave on the west side of Tallulah or to other communities. The racial mix, which was 50:50 when I lived there, is now 75% black. Home values fell, the economic situation for black folks was and is awful, and many of the homes they've acquired are falling apart. It's depressing.
I made a phone call to a friend who had been one year behind me in high school. He is a physician still living and practicing family medicine in Tallulah. I hoped that we could get together and I would gain more insights into what life is like there nowadays. Because he was ill with a respiratory infection, we didn't meet for dinner, but he confirmed to me that the town has been going downhill for years. The great majority of his patients are on Medicaid, and his practice is far from lucrative. When I finished high school, I couldn't wait to get out of there, but he's lived and worked in Tallulah ever since he completed his medical training. Different strokes. We met his wife - a pretty city girl - many years ago, and even then, early in their marriage, she complained bitterly about Tallulah's shortcomings, and indeed that marriage ended in divorce. He recently remarried, and I wish him well. As a side note, for years Nancy has likewise threatened divorce if I ever entertained the notion of moving back to Tallulah. I think she's kidding but I'm not taking any chances. We could live like kings there, but Tallulah is out.
There is no interstate or other four-lane highway that goes from Vicksburg to Little Rock, Arkansas, our next stop, so the GPS put us for some hours on the two-lane roads of Hwy 65 (the Bienville Trace Scenic Byway in Louisiana and the Delta Rhythm and Bayous Highway in Arkansas), then on I-530 into Little Rock. We enjoyed the two-lane highways. They made us feel more connected to the farmlands and small towns we were passing through, and traffic was light. One negative about two-lanes, though, is that if you get behind a slow driver, passing him with a motorhome and tow vehicle over fifty feet in total length is a slow process, and you'd better be damn sure that the oncoming lane is clear. Northern Louisiana looked dirt poor, with lots of shacks and abandoned buildings. As soon as we passed into southern Arkansas, things appeared to be more prosperous. And our RV park in Little Rock is beautifully located on the shores of the Arkansas River across from the downtown skyline, and just over a bridge from the Bill Clinton Presidential Library.
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