October means several things around here.  The weather gets cooler.  It also starts to rain again although its been unusually dry around here lately.  Then there is Octoberfest.  I’ve written about it before.  Every year around mid-October the town of Cleveland holds a big barbecue competition downtown.  Winners go on to participate in the World Barbecue Competition in Memphis.  There is also a street fair to go along with it.

Once again I volunteered to assist the judges.  The work mostly involved clearing tables and cleaning the rooms where the judging happened.  As a perk the officials give free food to those who help out.  Thus I had some of the best barbecue seafood, chicken, ribs, pulled pork and beans of my life.  Cooking really is an art form.  In the hands of a skilled chef, otherwise bland piles of dead animals can turn into pure gold.   The South is the home of American barbecue and it shows.  Down here, they take it seriously and the results are fantastic.  Its one of the major perks of living in this part of the country.

Most folks around here probably see things differently.  Octoberfest is one of the few times in the year when people gather and do something not related to Delta State or any of the other schools around here (with the Crosstie festival in April being the other).  Sure there’s Otherfest, the big music festival held every year on the edge of town.  However you have to be in to live music.  Plus most of the crowd is young, which means lots of students.  So its understandable why some people would not be enthusiastic about it.  The young and hip side of Cleveland, such that it is, is not for everyone.

In the past I’ve written about how cool Octoberfest is.  Within the context of Cleveland it certainly is a great event.  There is literally nothing else like it any other time of the year.  The Crosstie Festival is similar, but much smaller and there is no barbecue.  Its all about art and jazz.  Certainly there is plenty going on related to Delta State, especially in August and September.  However while the university is a big part of life around here, Cleveland is not entirely a college town.  So not everyone wants to attend the Pig Pickin’ or the football games (especially when Mississippi State and Ole Miss are playing – you can’t compete with the SEC around here).  But Octoberfest is a neutral event and held right in the center of town between the white and black parts of Cleveland.  There’s food vendors, beer, and live music.  Arts and crafts vendors line the walking trail.  Even though not everyone knows someone on a barbecue team it doesn’t really matter.  People who live around here can walk around with their friends and enjoy the festival.

In other words Octoberfest is a release.  Cleveland can be very dull at times.  Its not that there’s nothing to do, its that the things to do are limited and repetitive.  On any given Friday night I can go to Hey Joe’s and drink, go to Delta Meat market to eat and drink, maybe go to a restaurant for and hour or two and … well that’s it.  It gets old, especially when your not very sociable in the first place.  To be fair I have a strong preference to have pizza and go grocery shopping on Friday which predates my move to Mississippi.  All the same the variety of social activities around here is not great.  Partly for that reason people tend to stick together because the only other option is to sit quietly at home watching Netflix.  Not everyone wants to do so and in any case it gets old too.

Such is life in a small town.  Still I’ve managed to carve out an existence.  You have to in order to survive.  Being part of Delta State helps immensely.   So too does having a career in library information technology.  A lot of professors can’t easily find a job elsewhere.   But that’s how it goes in academia.  You go where the work is.  Life in Cleveland has its ups and its downs.  Soon the damp cold of Mississippi winters will take hold.  In the meantime us Clevelanders will bide our time waiting for the next festival.

First a little background.  Back in August I went to a contra dance in the town of Mentone, Alabama.  It is put on by a Birmingham based group known as FOOTMAD (Friends of Old-Time Music and Dance).  Every year they hold a dance at a camp on top of a mountain in the Northeast part of the state.  The location was beautiful, the weather was great, and the people were friendly.  The dance is attended by people from Atlanta, Birmingham, and Hunstville so some of the folks were familiar from Catapult 2014.  All in all it was a good time.

While there, I heard of an event in Jackson called Celtic Fest.  A friend of mine from Mississippi, who is also into contra dancing, told me there would be dancing.  It was Irish dancing, not contra, but hey dancing is dancing.  Jackson is only about two hours away and I had no other plans the weekend of the festival.  So on September 12th, off I went.

The Mississippi Celtic Festival is an annual event held every year on the ground of the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum.  The museum itself leads patrons

through the history of agriculture and forestry in Mississippi.  It does a good job of showing the importance of both of those areas in the state’s history.  Beyond the main building, there is a small mock village on the surrounding land.  In someways it reminds me of Olde Mystic Village in Connecticut except there are no shops other than a blacksmith’s forge.  There is also a trail through the forest which offered a peaceful diversion from the festivities.

The actual festival itself is mostly focused on music.  There were four or five stages featuring musicians from all over the South as well as some from overseas.   One of the stage featured Irish dancing we well.  CelticFest also had the usual assortment of food as well as vendors selling artwork, medieval weapons, clothing, and jewelry.  There was a children’s area and even a blacksmith making palm sized gerbil swords out of nails.

However the part I was looking forward to the most was the Ceili Mor on Saturday night.  Basically a large social dance, the Ceili was led by a caller from Ireland and featured several shifts of live music.  The dancing began at around 8:15 PM and lasted nonstop until almost midnight.  Much to my surprise there were no breaks.  People came and went as they pleased sometimes changing partners or sticking with their friends.  Everything was taught and the dances varied from simple partner dances to set dances of up to ten people.  It took a while to get the hang of things and I didn’t feel I knew what I was doing until taking a brief lesson on Sunday.   Fortunately no one else seemed to know what they were doing either so I fit right in.  It was a good time, although the dance floor bit crowded.

Yet in many ways CelticFest proved how dour Mississippi really is.  First of all the average age of people at the Ceili seemed to be about 22.  Most of the folks on the floor were kids and teens.  Almost everyone older sat off to the side.  The dance floor was also such a chaotic mass of people it was downright dangerous.  Clearly no one had ever danced before.  In fact the caller asked how many of us had ever done so and maybe a dozen participants raised their hands.  My suspicion is dancing is seen as something done only by children at best.  The God fearing residents of Mississippi probably wouldn’t be caught dead moving their feet.

All the same I did have a good time.  CelticFest is smaller than I thought it would be.  There weren’t many vendors.  But the ice cream truck mixed flavor syrup into plain vanilla thus offering about fifty different flavors.  It made my day.  However the music was good and I enjoyed being exposed to something other than contra dancing.  I got a nice Tree of Gondor pendant and spent some time visiting the Agriculture and Forestry museum itself.   The day and a half I was there was time well spent.

Ultimately there are probably bigger Celtic Festivals elsewhere.  Folk music and dancing don’t seem to be high priorities around here.  Mississippians like country music, football, and barbecue.  Those first two aren’t really my thing.  It makes life a bit duller than would otherwise be the case, but oh well.  I have my whole life to surround myself with interesting people and activities.

It’s that time of year again.  It’s mid-October and so festival season is winding down.  Around here that means Octoberfest.  You might recall that I wrote about the event last year.   Basically, Octoberfest is an annual barbecue competition and street fair spanning two days in the second weekend of October.  There’s the usual assortment of fried food (see below) plus live music.  On Saturday the crafts vendors show up. It’s a good time where basically the whole town shows up.

Food wise there are a number of categories.  Friday night was sauce, beans, chicken, and seafood. This was the more laid back day.  Saturday was when the real action was.  I was assigned to help check in barbecue samples from Patio teams.  Here we had pulled pork, ribs, and loin.  The Challenger and Pro Divisions had slightly different categories such as whole hog and pork shoulder. There is also a decoration division for those teams who wish to decorate their setups.  Teams have a choice of which category to submit to although most seemed to put entries into all of them.  The Grand Champion gets to take home this massive trophy.

 

You see once again it is Pig Pickin’ time.   As I wrote last year, the Pig Pickin’ is a barbecue competition and tailgating party held on the weekend of the first home football game of the season. This year the library did not have a tent set up, although I went anyway and volunteered on the food serving lines.  The weather was beautiful and the food was good.   Football and tailgating are not really my thing, but that doesn’t bother me.  I saw a few familiar faces and got a free meal in exchange for doing work.

The Pig Pickin’ is one of those things that brings out the whole town.  While the barbecue teams and tailgating parties are for friends only people tend to know people around here.  Cleveland is a small town after all.  For that reason, Delta State has a number of events which coincide with the Pig Pickin’.   It’s the sort of thing which gives this town character although other towns have their own festivals as well.

But there is a catch.  If one has no connection to Delta State and no love of football then there is less reason to be excited about the Pig Pickin’.   As I said that doesn’t bother me.  My life has enough going on that I don’t get bored now as often as last year.  But it’s easy to see how people can say there is nothing to do around here.  Without the right connections, Cleveland can be an very boring place indeed.

When it comes down to it there are three big pillars of life in the Delta.  These are church, football, and barbecue.  So if your an atheist, a vegetarian or not a sports fan … sad day for you.  Cleveland itself has a few more things to offer due in part to Delta State’s presence here.  But many events around town are promoted by word of mouth only.  You really got to know the right people.  It’s sort of like being in high school again.    At least that’s been my experience.  All the same Cleveland is a small town with a big life.

Some of you may have heard of it and you can feel free to skip the next few paragraphs. For those who haven’t it goes as follows.  Contra dancing is sort of like Square dancing.  Some of the moves are the same, but you dance in a line not a square and it is far simpler and more beginner friendly.  Contra is a lot like (and probably came from) English Country dancing, but is typically faster and more energetic.

It begins by finding a partner. One of the things which I love about Contra dancing is that you don’t need to show up with someone.  People typically switch partners after every dance.  Traditionally men and women would dance with the former leading although that is not really a hard and fast rule these days.  The dominant person is the “gentleman” or “gent” and the other is the “lady” regardless of gender.  In most cases the gentleman is on the left and the lady is on the right.   Once you have a partner everyone lines up on the dance floor. Partners stand across from each other forming two lines facing each other.  This is called a set.  There may be only one or more than one depending on the number of people.

After that groups of four people take hands starting at the head of the line and going down (known as “taking hands four”).  The couple closest to the band is the number 1 couple in their group and the other is the number 2 couple.  Usually the number 1 couple trades places (“crosses over”) so that the gentleman is on the right and lady on the left and each line alternates lady gent lady gent etc.  The technical term for that is improper formation.  Sometimes you instead move one spot so that your partner is in the same line as you, which is known as Becket formation.

At that point the music starts.  Contra dancing music is diverse, but generally sounds like Irish or Celtic music.  There is rarely any singing.  Instead a person known as the Caller tells the dancers what moves to execute while the music plays.  Usually they tell you what those will be at the start of each dance although I’ve done some improvised ones in the past.  All the moves together form a pattern and when it is complete the number 1 couple moves down the set (in other words away from the band) and meets new people.  Then the pattern begins again.  Think of it like doing a one minute dance for twenty minutes, but each time you do it you move a little and dance with different people.

All of the above may sound horribly boring and complicated.  However with a room full of experienced dancers everyone feels like they’re flying.  Time seems to melt away and you forget that you’re repeating the same dance over and over again.  Even the caller stops speaking and merely waits on stage for the music to end.  I’ve done other types of dancing, but none have the same feel or energy of Contra dancing.

This is the point where my trip to Atlanta comes into play.   I’d picked up Contra dancing while in graduate school.  There is a thriving dance community centered around Albany, New York and for a few years I was a part of it.  Then came the big move down South.  The organizer of one of the local dances mentioned there was this thing called Catapult down in Atlanta every year.  I was immediately interested.  The whole point of the Catapult Showcase is to give up and coming Contra dancing bands and Callers a chance to play at a festival and gain exposure to talent scouts who may then hire them to play elsewhere, hence the name.

The concept is brilliant.  There were six bands and six Callers all of whom were fantastic.  Moreover the venue, while sizable, was still small enough to have an intimate feel to it.  Hailing from as far away as Alaska, the bands and Callers were truly some of the best I’ve heard.  And they mixed it up with different Callers calling for different bands throughout the weekend.   Catapult also had a few workshops off to the side allowing for a fun diversion from Contra dancing,  My personal favorite was one about different forms of dance with similar styles to Contra.   It culminated in a dance called the “New Parliament House Jig”, originally from Australia, which can not be explained and only demonstrated.

Catapult also has an incredibly friendly and generous community surrounding it.  That is probably what surprised me the most.  Being new I expected to dance but make few friends.  However that wasn’t how it went down.  The people are very hospitable and even willingly host dancers from out of town, myself included.  Moreover they are welcoming and approachable.  Before the dance I fell playing softball and had to put ice on my knee three times a day.  The organizers easily accommodated that need and several total strangers came up to me to ask if I was alright.  Someone even gave me a few tips on how to be a better dancer, something which never happened in New York.  So not only did I meet a lot of really cool and interesting folks, but I made quite a few new friends.  A number of people even suggested I start my own dance in Mississippi! All in all it was a wonderful experience.  There is another dance weekend in Atlanta in November and I am hoping to go to it.

The only disappointment is that I won’t be able to dance much before then.  Contra dancing is totally unknown in the state of Mississippi.  There is some in Memphis, but I haven’t had the chance to travel there yet.  It’s not that no one dances around here.  I’ve been to Po Monkey’s and saw plenty of dancing.  But for some reason it is not really part of the local culture which is ironic given Mississippi’s musical heritage.  The closest thing is the annual “street dance” during Octoberfest, which is really just a concert.

Finally, I can’t end this blog without saying a few words about the Atlanta area.  They must indeed be a few since I did not set foot in metro Atlanta, but remained in the suburbs.  Even there it felt as if I’d entered a totally different region.  Mississippi, and the Delta in particular, hearkens back to the old South in ways both good and bad.  Around here it feels as if one has stepped back in time although things are changing somewhat.  But Atlanta is clearly the New South in every sense of the word.  It’s diverse and multicultural, but also crowded and congested.  In many ways it feels like travelling back up North.  The dichotomy is fascinating, but that is a post for another time.  Meanwhile here are some pictures and videos from the trip.

Ru San’s Sushi Buffet.  Amazing!

In downtown Decatur.

Another image of downtown Decatur.

Further Reading

Along with Octoberfest, Crossties is one of two big festivals in Cleveland.  They basically bookend the festival season around here.  Unlike Octoberfest there was no barbecue competition.  Instead the main feature was a Jazz concert featuring various artists, some local others not.  I recognized a few of the names. The event was closed out by the Delta State Steel Drum band.  They are very good and it’s always a treat to see them play.

Additionally there were also arts and crafts vendors with several departments and student groups from the University also having booths.  The local arts scene in Mississippi is one of the thing I like about living here. Most people don’t really think of art when they think of Mississippi or the Delta.  But Crossties had a lot of unique stuff. For example a friend of mine who teaches at DSU, was selling various types of woodwork such as stools and cutting boards.  But there are also people who travel around between festivals in the summertime and make their wares in the winter.  While walking about I saw people selling pottery, picture frames, paintings, clothing, and jewelry.  My personal favorite was a fellow named Dell Clark who was selling rings made from Victorian Era cuff links.  You can see some of his stuff in the pictures below. Unfortunately the website on his flyer, www.cufflinkrings.com does not work at the moment, however you can find more information at the website for his antique shop.  Art truly knows no boundaries.

Of course there was food.  This being the South there was a barbecue stand front and center.  It was very good and this time I took a picture.  Another truck was selling crawfish.  There was also your standard festival fare.  Sadly I did not have any funnel cake.  Perhaps next time.

All in all it was a fun afternoon.  The only downside was that it ended at 4 although there are only so many arts and crafts one can sell, especially when you have to talk over a band.  But there will be more festivals and with them, more blog posts.

This pulled pork was excellent.

A crawfish boiler

Cufflink Rings

More Cufflink Rings