Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (January 20)
A Greenville native who strayed from his beloved Mississippi Delta to do a “walkabout” with his family in Colorado and Florida for a while, Hank Burdine has said since his return that he “really doesn’t care” if he “ever leaves the state lines of Mississippi again.”
The gentleman farmer, road builder, and author, who has gained a reputation as “the historian of the Delta,” has bestowed upon his fellow Deltans–and the rest of the world–a gift of memories and stories that may otherwise have been lost, with his newest book, Dust in the Road: Recollections of a Delta Boy (Coopwood Publishing Group).
The compilation of 60 essays about the people, places, foods, and culture of this enigmatic Mississippi region was gleaned from columns Burdine has contributed to issues of Delta Magazine since its beginning in 2003.
He has authored Mississippi Delta, The Flood of 2011 and was a contributor to The Delta: Landscapes, Legends, and Legacies of Mississippi’s Most Storied Region. He also co-authored, with Melody Golding, Panther Tract: Wild Boar Hunting in the Mississippi Delta.
Hank Burdine
Today Burdine lives on his farm in Chatham (near Greenville), where he hunts, writes, keeps an eye out for good stories, and, as author Richard Grant (Dispatches from Pluto) put it in his epilogue to Dust in the Road, is said to be “good at solving problems” for friends and neighbors.
And, as wild as some of his tales may seem, he emphasizes their authenticity.
“Many times,” Burdine said, “I have heard others say, ‘How do y’all make those stories up?’ Well, we don’t make them up, these things actually happened and are real!”
Below he discusses his book and his love for his home–the Mississippi Delta.
Tell me about your new book Dust in the Road: Recollections of a Delta Boy, and the stories you reveal in it.
I first started writing for Delta Magazine after I read the very first copy with Lee and Pup McCarty on the cover. While living in Florida, I contacted Delta Magazine and submitted a Final Word column titled ‘Mississippi will always be home.” Senior editor Melissa Townsend asked me to write an article and … it was published. The next month she contacted me and said, “Okay, what do you have for us this issue?” And, it has been like that ever since for over 68 articles.
Realizing that there was a book there of these articles, I decided to sort them out. The book just kind of fell into place. It has been such a great honor and pleasure to think of these stories, research and interview and “Dig up bones.” These stories are out there, and they just need to be pulled out and compiled and written down for posterity; if not, they will be lost forever.
The essays in your book recount much of the Delta’s past. Tell me about your research for information about those historical tales.
My research begins when an idea of a story or person comes to mind through conversation or just happenstance. Then I start calling friends and (checking out) newspapers, libraries and the internet, putting together a stack of papers from which to read and highlight until I sit down and start writing. It takes me most of a day to write an article and then another day to critique and edit what was written.
I have had some good editors at Delta Magazine to bounce off ideas. Of course, it’s a group effort, but I have been given the freedom to choose what I want to write about. It’s fun but it is damned hard work also.
The book is filled with stories of some of the region’s well-known artists, writers, musicians, and “indomitable characters.” Can you name a few among these whom you have personally known and who you believe have been particularly influential to the Delta’s culture?
The Elder Statesman of the Blues, Sam Chatmon, who “Gave Dignity to the Blues” was a dear friend of mine as was Son Thomas, Muriel Wilkins, the indomitable Duff Durrough, Eden Brent, and Jimmy Phillips. These bluesmen and blues women had a tremendous impact on the musical history and mystique of the Delta.
Literary greats Hodding Carter, Bern Keating, Julia Reed, Beverly Lowry, and Richard Grant were and are great and loving friends. Characters like Larry Pryor, Silky Sullivan, Joe Call, Hot Moore, John Ruskey and Bubba Tollison were all good friends and had an impact on my life and the stories I tell. Dinty Moore, the Doe Signa family, Anthony Herrera, Bill Beckwith and Leon Koury all were or are deep and dear friends.
What an honor it is to write for posterity the stories and lives of friends. And to be able to chronicle my son Matt’s personal odyssey on a solo canoe trip from the headwaters of the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico–wow!
Dust in the Road includes nine essays about the Delta’s unique cuisine in its section called “A Bite to Eat and Drink in the Delta.” Why was it important to include Delta food in this collection?
The deep influence of Delta inhabitants such as the Italians, Chinese, Lebanese and restaurants like Lillo’s, Lusco’s and Doe’s, How Joy, The Shady Nook, Abe’s, Josephine’s, and the Rest Haven are indelible in the Delta’s history. And now, newer places such as Dino’s, Vito’s, The Blue Biscuit, and The Onward Store have joined the charge. Stewart Robinson has started a pop-up fine dining experience in unusual places, bringing in award winning chefs from across the country. And Delta Supper Club is the place to be on given dates!
Ecotourism is now alive and well and pushing places like Clarksdale, Cleveland, Indianola and now Greenville to new and expanding plateaus. The Shackup Inn in Clarksdale and Tallahatchie Flats in Greenwood bulge at the seams with international travelers wanting to come to the Delta and experience the Blues.
With venues like the B. B. King Museum, The Grammy, Dockery Farms, Sky Lake, Blues museums and the Hot Tamale Festival, people are coming from far away to experience the Delta and to see first hand what the mystique is all about. The Delta is hot!
Tell me about how you became a storyteller.
If the Delta is anything, it is a place of stories. Those stories you heard as a child, to be embellished as you grow up and learn more about the people within them. And it is stories about the things you do that make an impact on families and friends.
If you don’t retell them, they are lost, and I have been honored to be able to write some of these stories down for future generations to enjoy and use as a reference later on. There was a lot of blood and sweat and tears and joy, triumphs and tragedies that brought this God-forsaken swamp into what it is today, and that does not need to be forgotten.
Signed copies of Dust in the Road are available at Lemuria’s online store.
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