Welcome back, everybody … today we’re starting with some quick DOGLAND updates before we get to the reason to celebrate this day on the calendar.
I took a bit of a break after a month of book touring, because I was starting to feel like the kid in that old Far Side cartoon:
The good news is, what my brain is full of is joy—from all the old friends we got to see, all the new friends we made, the great questions from my Q&A partners and the audiences from here to Asheville and Atlanta and Charleston and points in between. Thanks so much to everybody who came, everybody who bought a book (or books!), everybody who stuck around afterward to talk.
Now I’m rested and ready to start the next phase of things. I’ll still be doing DOGLAND-related events here and there throughout the summer … in fact, here are two new ones:
On June 20 I’ll be at the Charlotte Museum of History … this event is intended to be more about my thoughts on how Charlotte has changed since I moved here in 1989 (spoiler alert: a LOT). But I’m sure we’ll get into DOGLAND and lots of other topics. Register here.
On June 25, I’ll be doing a dual event sponsored by Goldberry Books in Concord with my old Observer colleague Scott Fowler. I’ll be talking about DOGLAND and Scott will be talking about his new book, SPORTS LEGENDS OF THE CAROLINAS (which is also an excellent podcast). The event will be at the theater at the Cabarrus Arts Council … tickets are $10 and the proceeds go to the Arts Council. Register here.
I’ll catch y’all up on some other stuff later on in the week … but for now, let’s move on to a few thoughts on today.
It was the third of June
Another sleepy, dusty Delta day…
If that doesn’t immediately ring a bell, listen to this first.
For some reason I’m drawn to songs that mention specific dates. It always anchors the song, makes it feel more real. Plus I like the idea of a musical calendar.
Do you remember, the 21st night of September?
Early morning, April 4 / Shot rings out in the Memphis sky…
It was the third of September, that day I’ll always remember / ‘Cause that was the day that my daddy died …
To me, no pop song ever recorded feels more real than “Ode To Billie Joe.” It’s brilliant and enduring and Southern as hell. The narrator is chopping cotton. Her brother is baling hay. They come inside for blackeyed peas and biscuits. And by the way, Mama has some news:
Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
Read that line out loud. The rhythm of it. What a piece of poetry.
The story happens to be set in Mississippi. But it sounds like it could be anywhere in the South. Every time I drive across a high bridge over a muddy river, I think about Billie Joe.
A couple of verses later, you learn another piece of news: Not long ago, the local preacher saw a young woman and Billie Joe throw something off the bridge together. And, it turns out, that young woman looked a lot like the narrator.
One of the things that makes the song great is that you never find out just what they threw off the bridge, or why Billie Joe jumped. There are many, many theories of what they threw off the bridge—a stillborn baby, a wedding ring, a bouquet of flowers. Bobbie Gentry left it unresolved, like a final chord she never played.
And then she made her own life an unresolved story. Her last public performance was in 1981. She showed up at an awards show a year later. But since then–for the last 42 years–she hasn’t been seen or heard from. Journalists have tried to track her down and failed. It’s not even clear if she’s alive. If she is, she’d be 81.
That is someone who knows the power of a mystery.
Every year on the third of June, I think about Bobbie Gentry. But not just about her: about secrets and scandals and all the mysteries we might never solve, swirling in our muddy waters. There’s a lot we don’t know, down there at the bottom of the river.
—TT
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Looking forward to seeing you in Concord!
Must be good to beTommy Tomlinson 'bout now...