He stands alone

Culturally Alone: He lives in Drew, Mississippi, which is a town within Sunflower County. The town has only 1,801 residents and needless to say, he stands out.

Since 1990, the population has been on the decrease in Drew. In 1991, the population rang in at 2,400 residents. By 2014, the number was down to 1,801 residents.

In Drew, 82.7% of the population is black while 16% are white. In other words, he represents 1.3% of the “Other” category. To make the math clear, only 23 people in Drew are either American Indian or directly from cultures outside the U.S.

If we were to further examine the numbers, 0.7% of the residents in Drew are Hispanic, 0.2% are American Indian, 0.2% are Asian and 0.2% are classified as being part of one or two more races.

Talk about being culturally alone, this would be a prime example of that. Sometimes being different is a good thing while other times it means you can't fully relate to your surroundings, others fail to relate to you and you stand alone.

In Drew, this man works hard for a living while owning his own gas station and grocery. He also operates a popular package store. However, people litter his property despite his significant request for them not to. He stands alone.

Artistic or Weird?

As you walked through his gate an air raid siren sounded. Some of the signs on the fence along the road read, “No Trespassing, No Loud Music, No Loitering.” Other signs were simply pictures or stickers of an assault rifle. With that being said, I wanted to meet the man behind the collection of oddities.

As I made my way to the front porch crawling over old refrigerators, tires, washing machines and more, I could hear a television was on inside the house. However, my knocks on the door were unanswered.

I then made my way back to the road, this time noticing some of the scrap metal had been turned into art. Sculptors of old motors were to the left and a sculpture of an airplane to the right. Plastic skulls adorned the fence post along with the heads of mannequins.

“I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird.”  - Frank Zappa, American musician, composer, guitarist, filmmaker and more (1940-1993)

Photo taken in the Mississippi Delta region.

Crop Dusting Planes in the Delta

On Monday, I found myself in the middle of nowhere in the Delta of Mississippi surrounded by cotton fields to my left and right. Out of nowhere, a crop dusting plane flew over my car. I followed the plane to where it landed and quickly made my way to the small country airport to speak to the pilot as he was refueling.

The first commercial crop-dusting plane was not a plane at all, it was instead a hot air balloon used to spread seed over a field of swampland in New Zealand. The balloon was tethered to the ground and moved from one side of the field to the other in 1906.

The idea of utilizing a plane in agriculture was born in 1921 by the U.S. Agriculture Department and the Army Signal Corps. A man by the name of John A. Macready piloted the first crop duster in 1921. I guess you could say the rest is history.

Working off fines in the Delta

Living in the Delta of Mississippi is tough due to a lack of jobs that are currently available. Things that many of us in most cities could avoid like paying a simple fine can quickly equal headaches and sometimes jail time in the Delta.

This man lives in Indianola, Mississippi and was jailed for a speeding ticket and driving without a license as opposed to simply paying the fines. Due to a lack of income, he is working off the fines through the workhouse.