Mississippi Roads; 2004; Ellisville

Let me show you the. Same. Thing. I Will Grayson your host welcoming you back to Mississippi roads. And we're coming to you from the former capital of the former Free State of Jones. The first settlers came to what was known as Old Alice Mellon 1795 located about 20 miles north of Harrisburg and seven miles south of Laurel Ellis will have the most colorful history.

The stuff legends are made from Honor Ellisville addition of Mississippi roads will also drive you to a legendary Jackson in we'll revisit one family's legendary bat and we'll explore a legendary Indian mountains. All about tell us fall in just a moment but first let's go to Benita and this is where 13 year old Charlie Ward. And Charlie is in the process of becoming a legend. But in his own time. The long night of the. Morning. When he was a baby I knew that. I knew he had perfect pitch I didn't immediately know that day he would scream and cry and pitch to voters like the dishwasher or the vacuum cleaner or the

blender and I've really thought something was wrong with him when I actually get trying to get him to doctors. Well there's nothing wrong with young tribal warfare that a few musical instruments couldn't cure at the age of five Charlie was perfecting the piano and at age 7 he was begging for a guitar. We took a short vacation to Nashville and he wanted a guitar and I thought I could just see long hair and I don't know I just think hip hip is a house with a guitar and I tell them No you couldn't have a guitar but I found a banjo. Luckily that is when and he saw Mike's not or really at the Opry

Land and he liked the banjo he was singin those crazy sounds you know when I first heard some silly songs and for a child it was quite human something that caught his attention and so he n wanted a banjo and I shall understand and that was second maybe second grade and how in the end if he was you know he ever got very good on an Alabama there and. Where you. Have three fender benders over the last few years and I also thought guitars were less expensive than vengeance but boy that's not true. Bluegrass Festival. You know. And here he's from Mississippi is. The US. Sleepy Hollow first. And I met him five years ago it was in June and he was there with his mother and father Gary and Jerry and he was just an 8 year old kid walking around with a banjo that was just almost as big as a wall.

And he could barely hold it or make it barely. Get his hand out there to reach where he was trying to put his finger. And I just. As they say I took a liking to him and and told him that that I would be willing to take him and show them everything that that I know. And he just really helped sales. Ever since. I met Larry Wallace he teaches me now and he is. The ultimate banjo player. I consider him an Earl Scruggs not the greatest banjo influences probably and. After that I picked up an instrument every chance I could. I. Think after banjo is pretty much mandolin and fiddle and then my newest little thing I like Dylan's guitar. That's really why you know you can do anything you are.

Whatever every. My favorite. Charlie's Crayford instrument may be the guitar but he's best known for his banjo playing. In 1998 Charlie was crowned the junior national bluegrass champion in banjo. In 1990 toured Ireland playing bluegrass music and released his first CD. But his most memorable experience today was his appearance on The Grand Ole Opry. Just so we're signed addressing with Mike Snyder and little Jimmy Dickens. Here comes little Jimmy Dickens who is the oldest son member of the Opry I'm in the Country Music Hall of Fame and other are huge Secord a record. Deal Anderson.

In. Just the history of the of the of the billing in the paper you would run into a name actual moment when he went out of stage. And I get to thinking about that he was 12 years of me when I was 12 years old you couldn't drag me in one of the hundred places he was in front of 50000 a day and I thought about it too we went out front to watch the former Marines and here here he hears over national radio and standing on the shore home that day. Hank Williams and many for anybody stood on any Indian when you're on this day even though you knew I mean all the pressure's only good everybody's listening to you Mark you when you get to performing to be Quakers so. I mean where was the day it received a spaniel bison. I mean every time I watched a video of it I still have a peace message of late. Exactly they are not toto no matter what you do in life. Rich realize. How. People in the world have dreamed of being on that stage

that will live with you the rest of your life and you could tell your children your grandchildren about this along with belief in you something NO ONE CAN EVER TAKE AWAY. Then some awareness Charlie may be a big star but in his Grenada neighborhood. He's just one of the kids and his parents have gone to great lengths can still strong moral fiber in this Mississippi good. We've always preached to Charlie even before you get involved in music we always tell him. Ali because when you grow up and how you treat other people I don't care what you pursue in life. You don't treat people well. Life's not going to be very good for you I don't think you'll be successful at anything you don't work hard. And treat people nicely and I said you're going to encounter situations where you're going to have people. Who are less fortunate than you more fortunate than you and you just need to treat everybody equally and if you wish to live I don't think I could take anything more important

and be nice to those people Rangi treat everybody as you would want to be treated and if he's progressed through. The series of musical advances his life we've always try to remind him of that and to be be nice to people and I think of all the things that we get told about Charlie. Invariably people would tell us he's a nice kid he's well mannered respectful not cocky or has managed to even care and I think that means more to us in anything he's done musically because we're they pursue this as a career and not having those kind of things in his life is going to be there. I would hate that Charlie had a box. They play the banjo but the rest of your life I think that would be cruel to hear. I am me and I don't know that I necessarily want to be a big star in the music field because of that. That is is a very tough life. So he's been exposed to a lot of that and he sais. Thankfully he is saying some of the

bad side and the good side of this industry. And I think. We're just trying to get him ready to make a decision. When he's old enough to do it. We don't want to do it now. He's only 13 now and he's got a lot lot of potential. Did you know that soldiers from Ellisville in Jones County declared war in 1863 against the Confederacy. History has it that the freestate of Jones held out against the Civil War until the wars in bands of anti rebel rebels actually participated in what became known as a confederacy within a confederacy. Our next stop is a restaurant in Jackson that also enjoys a fascinating history. The redwood inn.

For nearly 75 years. Weary travelers and hungry patrons made the redwood in the courts their home away from home. Near the crossroads of Cary road and Highway 80 in South Jackson. The restaurant motel once hosted curious from every stretch of the United States. Time has brought many changes to the humble end. But a few things remain the same. Including the concrete statue collection out front. And the presence of the family name Pridgen. My grandfather worked for the. Jackson Police Department. 1914 1917 and my grandfather came and am about to read properly for the Ridgewood and found out about the lumber they had it. Didn't my mum come in and they love. So he bought all the red wood and. He was very fond of the redwood trees in California never die and Petrified Forest things like at so he come and built this place out of

petrified wood. Redwood concrete all places been here a while. A lot a lot of history. Before long Redwood was bustling with visitors but stayed in the rustic rooms of what was then called the tourist camp. And these buildings were. Just. Wood framed buildings. With unfinished walls on an SAT and people brought their own. Sleeping gear to sleep on the floor. And we had fed people wagons come here and spend the night. The bare walls of the tourist camp became a gas log of sorts for travelers to leave their mark. But like these old messages they can't begin to fade and was replaced by a more modern motor lodge. We had switchboard airconditioning back we started out you put a sign if you put American nation known it has very few people had it and we had no Rimington

airconditioning window units. And believe it or not several of them lasted from the 50s till just in the last five or six years. And they were good ones. We ran it as apartments and there we don't we're not a motel you know we just you know yell play so well we try to keep putting it back together. He's been known in retire as hard today. Things are not what they used to be on Jackson's Cherry Road. This once thriving area is now overrun by pawn shops and adult bookstores. But my Pridgen has noticed some positive changes in the last few years. Play of calling battlefield park up even. Though I have a picnic on the ground where I narrate So calling. And they have rarely seen is really done a good job on it. We've got new houses being built right up the story. So we're coming back around I

do believe I really do believe. Mark also hopes that along with the neighborhood the redwood and restaurant receive a much needed shot in the arm. Health problems forced him to shut down the eatery a couple years back. So Pridgen has put the future of the redwood in the hands of a caterer named Steve Johnston. So my plans for the future are to use the kitchen to deliver home cooked meals to some local businesses in the area. It's basically what we're going to be doing. And then sometime in May in the near future open it back up to the public. With the rise in food not just of the redwood and. Menu. But history tells Steve a few things can't be messed with especially the redwood signature dish. The foot long hotdog. We get people come in all the time every week asking about footlong and some of the sliced roast beef sandwiches.

And we will do a breakfast and serve coffee. And have a place for people to come sit down. Enjoy fellowship in the morning. And that's one of the things that really special but this place will. You know if. It kept people in here they may not been eating they were drinking coffee or maybe drinking a cold beer. And have a lot of fun. So we will probably bring some that back. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. This. Old switchboard come out of the Redwood. Some might ask why buck doesn't sell the property and retire to a simpler life. It was a hook at one time. Here is with the software. Well the thing is the redwood end is much more than the jobs here from the bridge and it's his entire life. His goal is to put the restaurant in Steve's care so Buck can

come down every day for a cup of coffee and women is on a life well spent and I want somebody that knows something. The rest of. Us. Take care of it. And somebody where I come in and sit and talk to people. Without come down here to talk it over now. To get oh you caught war than. You used to. Like to sit around emotional leaning. With the farter there. We're talking mayor Ernest tot of Ellisville and Mayor Todd thank you for being with us and you were born here in Jones County don't know about growing up here. Yet but people still hate you every way they can. Neighbor helping neighbor. Clean up on. A bus get sick a thing not able way no help on the way they case. Everybody knows each other. It's a place to live.

What do people think about living here now all of a villain. Nothing like Jonestown Flambeau the fifth calmly of the phrase dated. And now it's time for a classic Mississippi road story and I hope you like dogs because here's one you won't forget. This is a story about a very special dog in Indianola who's like one of the family. My name is Joe they would bore you. I've got eighty acres of fish pond with food and watch the day yet and watch that water real close. Frankton live a breeder of Labrador.

And he gave me the doll. I mean he gave me. If I would trade him to hot dogs then and do well his particular breed of A is a Labrador retriever but he's the you what they call a yellow here. Trey just biting the thing he doesn't like that training dummy he didn't like dad but he had just about anything a worldly view give you the money label here were they had some wrong. We had a disease in a fish and they were losing a lot of feed and i would happen to you know pick up a dead fish out of the pond and I just thought of that here might it does get that fish need just by a dolphin then caught a fish. So he just got it not to lag and I don't know what he just started. It is easy for us to use good sun and save legacy a job in the way you get to the last 20 years that when we start feeding the world it

concentrates oafish and when a big ball and he gets out in the concentration of fish right or the. Fish of the sea will be. Good to. Get if you don't. Get. Anything. Done. You know what I mean you know. I mean look at me. Oh you've done a damn good job on come on rainy and rainy where there's not much there there. He's a good one though. Oh good retrieve a duck in a coffee he got and I

know you want a family bad of I'd say so. Dusty has since left his family. He died shortly after the story was filmed. The boy years Miss him to be sure but Mrs. Boyer says that Charles is already teaching another dog to get those fish. One hundred thirty five years ago where we're standing right now was the Free State of Jones in the civil war.

You know a lot of folks feel like Mississippi history sort of started with the civil war. But actually we've had things going on here for thousands and thousands of years. It's the story of people in Mississippi goes back thousands of years most of it on written. But the proof of it is in places like this we call them Indian Wells but they were constructed waves. For the people who made them wherever know these Indians. My first experience with mounds came it wearable just a few miles north of Greenville. When I was growing up here these mounds were our playground while they were the only hills we had here in the middle of the delta. Except the lady. And when the state took them over and fence them in and made a park here and banned sliding on them we thought it ruined the place. Your priorities are a little different when you're 12 years old. But in the midst of sliding on them you begin to absorb somethings like although at age 12 the world has always been fixed and unchanging. Remember at that time

your aunts and uncles are perpetually in the fifties and probably the same guys been president all of your aware life. But the mounds make you sense that eventually drastic transformation is possible or they would still be Indians on them and then they come along invent them in and ban sliding in that start realizing that perhaps change comes quickly sometimes. But meantime if your curiosity is aroused enough you do a little digging. Not in the mountains but in books and things to find out what happened before. And for that matter when before was. Well as far as the first Mississippians before was perhaps eight to ten thousand years ago they migrated here from the west. As best we know nomadic at first followed the buffalo here and then Way later they settled down and grew crops and gathered food from the wild and sometime after that they started building the mountains. The Mississippi Valley is covered in them and there are perhaps thousands of them in our state

alone and they range in size from just homes to the huge caramel mound just off the trace North Naches. It rises like a jewel out of the forest around the second largest mound of its kind in the nation. No telling what types of ceremonies took place here. Anything from coronations to well the equivalent of football games. No one knows for sure it was built for something grand and out. Others of my favorite nouns include those at Lake George near Holly bluff. They remind me of the wonderful miles when I was a boy before the state fenced them off and save them a lake george mountains are different and that they have a moat around the whole complex. You can't tell it now hardly except trees growing in the mostly filled in remains and near Lake George on the other side of holly bluff is an anomaly called Spanish fort a fifteen hundred foot long Simmy circularize about 10 feet above the Delta floor actually had nothing to do with the Spanish and was probably never afford it was built by

ancient Native Americans. No archaeological works ever been done on it to determine its state or its builders or its purpose. My guess is it was connected in some way with the Lake George mountains. But one could have predated the other by several hundreds of years either way. Indeed rounds have been put to subsequent uses by later dwellers. They're voting for the old home. Helena sits atop about the great flood protection before the levee system and during later levee breaks mounds have been pressed into use as modern cemeteries particularly in the delta. Again I assume as a proof against floods. And the only association of a contemporary Native American culture with any of the ancient mounds in Mississippi is Nana why you my own and the Choctaw Nation. The mythological tradition of the origin of the Choctaws says the tribe founded for grown out of a cave in a nearby hill and immediately afterwards laid on the sides of this mound to sun themselves dry.

To me these heaps of earth or both the revelation of a past that we wouldn't have a clue even existed otherwise and or at the same time shrouded in mystery. I wonder what's in them. Most of them contain nothing at all but dirt as some are burial bones. Others hold the ashes of buildings that once sat atop and all are sacred and that somebody thought enough of the need for them to build them here. The hand gathered a basketful of Earth at a time. Day in day out. Piled up over decades some of them perhaps centuries others until they stood mighty and proud and deserving of our respect. Although they sure were fun to slide down when I was 12 years old. The Freestate of Jones wasn't just people who banded together to fight folks who were trying to make and do things they didn't want to do. If that's the case they may have been the most righteous rebels of all. I walk I said. And I'll

be seeing you on Mississippi roads.