My very first visit to Clarksdale, Mississippi was Juke Joint Saturday four years ago.
If you remember it was during a driving spring rain storm, but the streets of Clarksdale were packed and people just put on raincoats, opened an umbrella, smiled and had a great time.
I was being recruited to be your Editor and Publisher and Sara and I were spying on you.
Needless to say, we were impressed.
It’s a story people have told me repeatedly over the past four years.
They come to Clarksdale and something clicks in their heart.
I think we made the right move.
Festivals
I love festivals and firmly believe they are one of the best public relation tools for any community.
Think about it: People come to Clarksdale and have a good time and then go back home and tell their friends about this neat little town in the Mississippi Delta. Then they come back and bring their friends with them.
I’ve learned Juke Joint is a one-day festival that lasts two weeks!
I was wowed by the number of festivals Clarksdale had in the summer of 2019. You had them scheduled just about every weekend.
I was also impressed by the number of international tourist I saw walking past my window that first summer.
They love the warm Mississippi Spring weather, they love our fried food and they love our blues.
I have even been told the Juke Joint website has a following from Nepal. I ponder why people from the most mountainous place on Earth are drawn to one of the flattest places on Earth.
Festivals mean fun. And that is what people from all over this globe will find in Clarksdale this weekend.
A place called home
Sara and I have been here four years.
We live here, we work here, we shop here and have gotten to know you over the past four years.
Yes, there are those trying to run me off, but there is something about this corner of the world that intrigues me and the thousands who will come to town this weekend.
I hope hometown folks realize the precious gift that is called Clarksdale.
Sure, we have our problems, but it looks like we’ve turned the corner with our hospital. There is an obvious desire to “Clean up Clarksdale.” There is work and commerce in this town. There is an arts and culture scene here that very few towns our size have.
Maybe this is the year you fall back in love with Juke Joint.
I hope you will come downtown Saturday and visit with friends you haven’t seen in a while.
Maybe this is the weekend we realize once again that Clarksdale is a great place to live and we should be very proud of our hometown.
Guests in our house
I was proud to see city crews downtown this week weed-eating the sidewalks (you have to do that in a place where the dirt will grow anything), picking up trash and even slopping paint on our curbs.
As I said earlier, Southerners are trained to be polite and I hope you will smile at our visitors and help Clarksdale put it best foot forward this weekend.
They are guests in our house and just like we have been taught, they have special privileges and they do things we don’t always understand and are glad to overlook.
I once had an economic development guy from Mississippi tell me if he could just get industrialist and major corporations to come to Mississippi, their view of the state changed.
I have always been proud to tell folks I am from Mississippi.
A famous bluesman once said you can’t sing the blues until you been there. I will change that a little: You can’t understand the South until you’ve been to Clarksdale.
Let’s welcome the world to Juke Joint this weekend.
Floyd Ingram is Editor of your Clarksdale Press Register. Call him on the phone at 662-627-2201 if you want to hear him talk that Southern thang!
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