I pulled into the parking lot of the Malouf Furniture Showroom near the banks of the Yazoo River and didn’t know what to expect. I looked over at the big SuperTalk RV. My first radio remote. I was too tired to be nervous.
The best thing about working at SuperTalk is that the people behind the scenes are top notch. Gary and Houston were in charge of getting the show up and running technically. The station manager up in Greenwood, Jim, lined me up a great line-up of guests. All I had to do was ask good questions.
Good luck there. But the questions came easy. The guests all had a great story to tell.
After three hours of talking about the town of Greenwood, I had a better idea about the small Delta town. And myself.
To sum the show up in one word, it would be “Reinvention.”
Greenwood was born as a trading post and developed on the back of king cotton. Civil rights tempered it. The Blues became its theme music. The cotton trade waxed and waned. People left and leaders emerged. Today thanks to businesses like Viking Range Corporation, the town is on the rise. It’s bucking a trend that has many Delta towns starting to wither. Greenwood is surviving. You can go to a world class resort (the Alluvian), listen to world class music (the Blues), eat world-class food (and learn to cook it at the Viking Cooking School) and buy world class furniture (John-Richard Furniture.) Leaders like Fred Carl, Jr. and Alex Malouf are propelling it forward. Recently the movie “The Help” was filmed there. There is a level of cooperation between the leaders there that many towns would die for. And will die without.
The closing theme music played in my ears and I took off my headphones. I said thank you to my hosts and grabbed a few snacks. I cranked my car and drove east away from the setting Delta sunset. As I looked at the freshly plowed fields (that stretched on to the horizon), I began to to think:
Reinvention. Greenwood is figuring it out. It isn’t trying to stay the same. It’s changing — yet it’s honoring its past. It’s playing off its strengths. Greenwood isn’t trying to become something its not. It’s trying to improve on what it is. It’s not perfect. But its not sitting around feeling sorry for itself either. It has taken change and used it like the heat that turns iron to steel. It will be stronger for it.
I’m a radio host now. I hope for a long time. But I’m also a cartoonist. That’s what I am and what I do. As I drove up the bluff out of the Delta, I thought about my career. My reinvention. I’ll continue to use my talents. I’ll work hard and accept change not as a threat but as the catalyst to make me a better person. I’ll honor my past but look forward to a new, better future.
I’m going to set some goals today. One of my rewards will be to spend a nice weekend at a world class resort with my wife. Think I’ll go to the Alluvian. I hear Greenwood is nice this time of year.