Greenville, Mississippi

Clarksdale, MS - Cleveland, MS - Greenville, MS

Miles: 72.3

Leaving the Blues Museum we went on to Cleveland, Mississippi, where Dad's boyhood friend Paul Kossman is an attorney for the Department of Human Services. The plan was to find him, old-school style without a cellphone number, office number, or address, and see if he wanted to have lunch with us. We drove around downtown Cleveland for a few minutes (believe me, that's all it took) and after a stop in to ask the librarian, found what we thought were his law offices. His partner informed us his office was elsewhere so we drove there. After 15 minutes of sitting in his office, I completely understand why he and my father are friends. He harassed me and Dad, Dad harassed him, and I just laughed at the whole thing. At the end of all this, I was being set up with a Russian tennis player, we had directions for lunch, and Paul's promise to meet us at Doe's for dinner.

The drive to Greenville was next. Another 35 miles down Highway 61 is Leland, Mississippi, a town 12 miles east of Greenville where my Aunt Susan lives on Black Bayou Road. We found the place because she was standing halfway down the driveway waving her arms for us. And yes, should you be wondering, we are out in the middle of nowhere.

We sat around at Susan's place with my cousin Paul, his wife Jamie, and Susan's boyfriend Buddy, before we piled into cars headed for Doe's Eat Place. Doe's is a family-run place that has been in Greenville since 1941. My grandfather, Dr. Collins Williams was one of three obstetricians in town for quite sometime so pretty much everyone knows someone who was delivered by him. Doe's is no exception and the story was that he delivered most of the family. We had hot tamales, steaks, and their famous salad. The lemon and oil dressing is apparently quite difficult to recreate but it's certainly worth trying. When you first walk into Doe's, you're standing in the kitchen. An old gas oven is full of steaks three inches thick and people are shaking hands with all the people they know. Our group was quite large, and each person there knew someone else who also happened to be eating at Doe's. All Dad had to say was, "my father was Dr. Collins Williams", and people threw their heads back and said "oh yea, he delivered my [insert family member here]". Sitting in the tiny dining room of this place, there was almost too much to take in. Paul Kossman, Benjy, and Dad sat at one end bullshitting each other about something. I sat with Jamie and Paul and Susan and Buddy while Paul devised a plan to get me to eat dove and catfish the next day. After dinner we drove to the Italian-American club in Greenville which was a smoke-filled bar full of people who were definitely not Italian. We met more people who knew Susan or Buddy or Papa and left for home with plans for an 8:30 breakfast with Benji the next morning.