The Tallahatchie Bridge
MY MIND DRIFTS between two worlds as I survey the muddy water flowing slowly between creosote piers supporting this abandoned railroad bridge. One world is tangible, here and now: the Tallahatchie River coiling through North Mississippi and, within it, the white bass that will hopefully come to my flies as they cruise these sluggish waters in search of spawning beds.
The other is intangible, almost mythical; William Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County, which bisected this river and was immortalized by singer Bobbie Gentry’s ballad, “Ode to Billy Joe,” about a disconsolate young man who takes his life by jumping from a bridge into this water. Nondescript among Southern rivers in appearance and behavior, the Tallahatchie assumes an outsized role in literature and music and, consequently, supercharges my imagination when I should be focused on chasing its fish.
Richard, Scott, and I drive each year from Tupelo to the Tallahatchie,
