Once A Delta Boy, Always A Delta Boy

We are born. We have family and friends. We grow. We start new lives. Many of us get married, and have children of our own. We often move away to new challenges and opportunities and careers. Parents pass away. Friends drift away. Our visions of life expectations glimmer or sparkle, but whatever, the they ultimately change. Life goes on. But one constant remains in our lives: the memories of our childhood, a blending of happy and sad experiences, our learning scrapbooks. The town where we spent our formative years. Though our original "hometown" has most certainly changed, for most of us it still remains cemented as our home town. Such was Greenville, Mississippi for the author of Once A Delta Boy, Always A Delta Boy. Whether you staked your roots in his stomping grounds, in neighboring Leland, Greenwood, Cleveland, Hollandale, Belzoni, Clarksdale, or one of the many other smaller communities dotting the cotton fields, you were - are - a Delta Boy or Girl. In an idyllic era just after World War II, the Mississippi Delta witnessed explosive agricultural and industrial growth, and provided a perfect small town atmosphere for raising families. The storybook Fifties. Baby Boomers were nourished and grew into adulthood. As the 1960's evolved, however, segregation began to give way to integration. Wealth shifted among families and races. Racially separated schools were consolidated. Some businesses prospered, many others shuttered their doors. Opportunities finally opened for some citizens just as they slammed shut for others. Greenville's - and much of the Delta's - growth peaked and then began to spiral downward. In this book the author recalls memories of many families about the lives and times in the mid-Twentieth Century Delta as he experienced them. Hopefully, these recollections can help readers recognize events and places that were integral to their own upbringing during these formative years. The fun quiz included in the book about local establishments and Delta facts may trigger others' own images of Delta life they remember. Read. Reflect. Laugh. Cry. Relive growing up in the Mississippi Delta from your own perspective. Smile. No matter where you live today, it still rings true. If you were born or raised as a child of the Delta, you will always be a proud child of the Delta.... a Delta Boy (or Girl). What do you remember?