Leland, MSFact-checking in Leland Every fact-check is a journey, especially at the Oxford American where articles are rich with southern history, gossip, and characters. My experience fact-checking Cree McCree’s rememberance of her time on Son Thomas’s porch was no exception. Last Spring, I found myself on the phone with curators and supporters of the Highway 61 Blues Museum, neighbors of the late musician, a retired postman, and even Thomas’s son, Pat. Pat spends nearly every day at the museum, greeting guests and entertaining. Clearly his father’s son, he plays guitar, sings, sculpts, and draws, making sure that no one leaves the place empty handed. By the second round of phone calls, I realized I had no option but to drive down to Leland and meet the voices on the other end of the line at Leland’s 23rd-annual crawfish festival, a fundraiser for the blues museum. So I found myself in Leland, a quintessential Blues Trail town that, though it couldn’t be called a diamond in the rough is a treasure all the same. Long ago bypassed by a bigger road, it is fueled only by the support of those who seek its history and the people who call it home, yet maintains a vibrancy rooted in song and celebration that only a southern town could.
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