Just Another Mississippi Catfish Day!
April 6, 2003
By Ron Grant
(Belzoni, MS) - Well, I am pretty fortunate to be hunkered down here
in Greenville, Mississippi with fellow PC800 rider
Mark, a contact I made through the PC Internet club.
Fortunate because Mark is a superb ‘bon vivant’ cook,
musician, history buff and computer expert, as well as
being a great host! Also, today I had planned for a
bit of rest and recouperation from the much motorcycle
riding and event participation of the last week. Alas
it is also the first day since I left Los Angeles in
early March of full on rain! So much better to spend
it in an antebellum southern ‘manor home’, than in a
tent!
On Friday, Mark and I rode the 150 miles north to
Memphis, where we participated in the memorial of the
35th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther
King, held at the site of his shooting, the Lorraine
Motel. The Lorraine has been maintained exactly as it
was when King was shot, even his 1963 Cadillac sits
where it was parked, below the room balcony. Around
the motel they have constructed the National Civil
Rights Museum, which we spent a few hours touring. It
was a superb and emotional experience, but that is a
story for another day. Today’s story is about CATFISH!
Many months ago, when I was playing around on my
computer in Brisbane to look for events in the USA
worth seeking out for this trip, I came upon a notice
for the World Catfish Festival in Belzoni,
Mississippi. At first, I was mildly interested, but
then when I ‘clicked’ on the pictures of the 2002
festival ‘Queen’ competition, I took a double take,
and a triple take! The picture of the four finalists
lined up on the county courthouse steps, were an
absolute revelation! These four women were among the
most beautiful women I had ever seen! (try the website
yourself, www.catfishcapitolonline.com) I did some
checking.....the latest census shows Belzoni as a town
of 2,663 inhabitants, of which 70% are black, and 35%
live below the poverty line! These ladies were all
white, and I was certain that we could not find such a
group of lovely ladies if we had a Miss Brisbane
contest for our city of 1.5 million people! I HAD to
investigate! Well, yesterday I found all the answers
to my questions.
This Catfish Festival is a BIG deal. People of both
Black and White races descend on Belzoni from miles
around for the festival. I suspect the total crowd
numbered well over 5000 people. And....there are TWO
festivals. The one I found on the website, is
certainly the main one, and it appeared to be entirely
organized and staffed by white folk. Around the
corner, just outside the main street gated off area of
town, is the ‘rival festival’, which seemed to be
entirely organized and staffed by black folk. As to
visitor population, I saw almost NO white people
attending the ‘Black’ festival, and about 10% of those
walking around the main festival area were black. Ah
yes, and Mark found the website for the ‘black’
festival, I suspect they had to change the name of the
fish to deter lawsuits! www.buffalofishfestival.com
We spent time at both. We took Mark’s truck, so I was
able to ‘dress to the hilt.’ That means pink Thailand
sweat pants, my coat-of-many-colors purchased last
year from the Goodwill shop in Athabasca, Alberta,
over my Cambodian script T-shirt, topped by the crazy
twisted shape of my Aussie ‘Bushtuckerman’ hat. NO one
confused me for a local. This was a great advantage in
helping me to do what I wanted to do.
Soon after we arrived, the Catfish Queen contest
began. I moved to roam around the front of the stage
to secure the best possible pictures, and most
spectators soon realized that there was some sort of
interloper in their midst. Lots of curious stares were
directed my way. They brought out the ten finalists,
and I was able to get some of the pictures I had been
waiting for for months. I wanted more. As soon as last
year’s Queen, Rebecca Moulder, had sung her farewell
song, and passed the crown to the new 2003 Queen, I
jumped on stage. Rebecca was a bit taken aback, but
when I told her that the picture of her beauty I had
seen on the website had motivated me to travel from
Australia to see the festival, her demeanor melted. I
asked her if I could have my picture taken with her,
and as the Southern Belle she is, her quick reply was
a ‘Yes, SIR!’ I moved to the new Queen with the same
request, and received the same reply. Hey, this is
working out pretty good.
There was so much more to the festival. We walked
around the town to see all the tent and craft
displays. I hate this stuff because there is so much
to buy that I have never seen in Australia,
desperately want, and could not possibly transport
back to Brisbane on my motorcycle. The good part was
the overwhelming plethora of more stunning girls in
the crowd, several of which I convinced to pose for
photos. We had the Catfish dinners, and I coaxed a
‘Jerry W. Hawkins for Sheriff’ T-shirt out of the
candidate when I was loudly praising the design to one
of his campaign workers and he overheard me while in
we were both in the line for shaved ice cones. Of
course I had to buy the Catfish Festival T-shirt,
also. We were watching the fantastically attractive 16
year old girls in the Country Music Talent Contest,
when we remembered...the Black Festival!
Exiting the downtown area and walking down a few
streets we came to another world. Suddenly, everyone
was black. And were they DRESSED! The women of all
shapes and sizes had the most elaborate waved,
pressed, plaited and plastered hairstyles I had ever
seen. The young men wore exaggerated baggy shorts, and
outrageous printed shirts. The older men sported gold
gold gold, and suits and shirts of colors and styles
that would sit in a Brisbane store for 5 years without
a single taker. This was ‘Dandy City!’ A black blues
band was playing on a small makeshift stage on the
front lawn of the Rev. George Lee Avenue church. This
place was ROCKIN’! The singer was a younger version of
James Brown, quite obviously not having gained the
same level of monetary success, judging from the
1960’s era Silver Eagle tour bus parked behind the
stage. The audience was in FULL participation mode,
with the first row almost up on the stage constantly
engaged in trading jibes and sexual double entenders
with Bobby Rush, the singer. The rest of the crowd was
bopping, jiving and howling with laughter. One
well-endowed lady was up on stage with her rear
projecting to the audience, swinging and grinding to
tremendous applause. THIS was entertainment! Such a
contrast to the polite applause greeting the Country
and Western singers back at Catfish Central. To be
honest, when we arrived they had had a 15 piece ‘Blues
Brothers’ type band playing to great fanfare and
applause also, but nothing like this.
So I learned a lot at Belzoni, yesterday; about
Catfish, Southern Festivals, small town Mississippi,
and the way the residents like to enjoy themselves in
the short time they have between the end of the
coldish winters and the onslaught of the moist, humid
and mosquito laden summers. I am still learning about
how Black and White folk live together in this area of
the south that evidenced the degradation and even
murder of so many of its black citizens up to the mid
1960’s. It’s a fascinating education.
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