In the fall of 1984 my wife, Danny, and I moved to Clarksdale, Mississippi where I had taken my first job out of college with the Clarksdale Press Register newspaper.
Clarksdale was a quaint little town about as far away from here as one could move and still be in Mississippi. As a Delta town it was just about as different from my hometown of Newton as it was far away. Delta people, it seems, are different. Were different back then anyway but in a good way!
Times change, casinos in nearby Tunica and Helena quickly destroyed small home-owned businesses and the once thriving downtown area of what was know as the Golden Buckle of the Mississippi Delta, and also as the Crossroads of the Blues where legend holds that Bluesman Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil, dwindled.
A co-worker at the paper, Laura Cauthen, and her husband Phil became fast friends with us, along with several other “paper people” and folks we came to know through popular events like the Delta Jubilee.
Delta Jubilee was an annual festival with all night parties and Memphis in May style barbecue cooking contests.
We formed a team at the paper and were famous for flipping our whole hog in one smooth motion on our homemade pit. Friends from home, and college, would join us in Clarksdale for that event and our old friends and new friends all became just friends. Friends for life.
Laura once commented that she had never known anyone with such a dedicated group of friends that drive hundreds of miles just for a party — not just Delta Jubilee, trips to Memphis and Graceland, Christmas parties at our house, and New Year’s Eve celebrations at one of the local night clubs.
Several years, and many gatherings in the Delta later, Danny and I moved to the north central Mississippi town of Carrollton. After settling into that tiny town we began hosting summer yard parties we dubbed The Kudzu Klassic in honor of the abundant crop of that invasive vine on the bluff behind our house that led down to Big Sand Creek. Big Sand Creek turned into Big Sand River every time it came a big rain.
Laura and Phil, the same folks that questioned why people would drive all the way to Clarksdale to socialize with their friends, began driving all the way from Clarksdale to Carrollton to socialize with what had become their friends too.
Laura was the calm, reserved one, and Phil was the exact opposite. I remember one time he called me on the spur of the moment to come hike down the Mississippi River bank and haul back a piece of driftwood he swore resembled a naked woman’s torso. I obliged. She was heavy, but we finally got her back to his patio where she remained for the remainder of her years. The resemblance he saw and that which I saw were not the same but I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Laura died on December 20, 2001 at the University of Alabama Birmingham following what was supposed to be a simple heart valve replacement. Being one to make sure everything was in order for the holiday, she had written her Christmas cards and dropped them in the mail before heading to UAB. We got their card a day after she died. It was kind of haunting.
By that time we lived at the Ross Barnett Reservoir, and after Laura died, it was not uncommon for the doorbell to ring, or the phone to ring, and Phil pop in for a visit.
Phil died New Year’s Day after a battle with cancer. A whole lot of spirit died New Year’s Day I can assure you.
As I was letting our friends — his friends — just friends — know of his death one replied that she couldn’t remember what Laura looked like anymore. We took lots of pictures at those Kudzu Klassics and we kept every single one of them. I pulled out an album from probably 1989 or 1990 Sunday afternoon. It was a very rainy wet Labor Day weekend that year and Phil was the torch bearer for the Olympic fashioned yard games. The torch, mind you, was a mop soaked in kerosene and the Laurel wreath on his head was made of, you guessed it, kudzu. I still have the torch.
Sure enough there was a great picture of Laura in the album waving to someone, who knows who, the Klassics were very well attended. I sent a photo of her photo by phone to our friend. Oddly enough we didn’t even have cell phones back then but we sure got a lot of photos anyway.
As we glanced through the album, laughing out loud at times, Danny commented on the number of people in those photos that are no longer with us. There are quite a few, and at least one more that will be leaving this earth in a matter of days.
It was a sad yet happy life review all at the same time. It was also a reminder that life is short and we just never know when our number might be called.
For probably 20 years, maybe more, we have threatened to have a Kudzu Klassic reunion. I kind of regret that we have not done so yet, because Phil Cauthen would have been one of the first ones to make the long drive to hang out with his old friends once again.
Perhaps we’ll make that reunion one of our goals in this new year. Time, it seems, might be running out on us.
Rest in peace Phil. Rest in peace my friend.
