Peter Jenkins is searching for the right word to describe the quality of the Mississippi Delta that he finds so compelling.
The New York Times bestselling travel writer is driving his 1957 Chevrolet named “Mary Elizabeth” on U.S. 49 south of Greenwood. The windows are down, and the sun is shining outside on the corn and cotton fields.
For more than two years, Jenkins has been steering the station wagon across the United States in search of the real lives Americans lead.
He had allotted only one day in the Mississippi Delta. Even then, it was grudgingly scheduled as a favor to a friend whose father is from Indianola. But now he’s been here for more than four months and has fallen in love with the region’s people and geography.
After several attempts, Jenkins hits upon an apt description for the Delta’s attraction.
“It’s like you’re in a dome with a constant flow of nitrous oxide,” he says.
Mostly bald with a goatee, he’s wearing jeans, a casual dress shirt and an old pair of black boots. A tattoo on his left forearm reads, “Faith.”
When asked his age, Jenkins responds, “I went to Woodstock. Let’s put it that way. I feel really young.”
(For the record, he’s celebrating his 61st birthday today, according to online sources.)
Jenkins has been staying with Greenwood lawyer Hiram Eastland Jr. at Eastland’s Poplar Street home since arriving in late February.
“We’ve been like family, and I’ve met a lot of wonderful people here,” Jenkins said.
He believes that the land is the essence of the Delta — that its flat richness is what made people come here and what sustains it.
So he gets out in the rural areas — Booger Den, Doddsville, Tchula — to collect stories. Jenkins has developed a passion for photographing the Delta’s bayous and cypress brakes and shares many of his images on his Facebook page.
He also loves black gospel music and has visited churches listening to it and meeting parishioners. He enjoys Greenwood’s WGRM 93.9 radio station, where he’s heard advertisements for a bail bondsman right after a gospel song and learned of the existence of extra-deep graves for the plus-sized. A favorite eatery is Grandma’s Country Kitchen on Martin Luther King Drive.
“I think it’s some of the most beautiful stuff I’ve seen in the United States, and I’ve seen it all,” he says of the Delta.
Jenkins walked the length and breadth of this country 35 years ago. The Connecticut native, who studied sculpture in college, had no plans of writing when he set out from upstate New York. Initially carrying cynicism about the nation, he learned of its heart as he traveled down to New Orleans and then to Oregon.
The trip landed him on the cover of National Geographic, and he wrote a bestselling book, “A Walk Across America.” It has become required reading in thousands of U.S. schools.
At the end of the trip, Jenkins decided he liked the South best, especially Middle Tennessee, and settled there. Since then he’s written numerous books about his travels, most of them within America. With pride, he said he’s never worked in a cubicle.
His current journey takes him back to many of the people and places he first encountered on his famed walk.
It started from Jenkins’ Spring Hill, Tenn., farm on Oct. 15, 2009. He had purchased the ’57 Chevy on eBay; the previous owner lived in Idaho, and Jenkins flew there with his youngest daughter to pick it up.
The first leg took him east into Appalachia and then to New York City. From there’s he driven more than 30,000 miles across New England, the South, Midwest and West. Nearly the whole trip has been made on back roads; for one thing, his car doesn’t go much over 55 mph.
He’s spent months at a time at a Navajo Indian reservation and a South Dakota ranch. He does whatever the people he is staying with do.
The way he sees it, anybody can tell you anything in an interview, but living with them you find out who they really are. Jenkins certainly has a knack for making people relax and trust him.
“For some reason, people tell me anything and everything,” he said.
All four of his children — two boys and two girls ranging in age from 21 to 32 — have joined him on legs.
Jenkins plans to say goodbye to Greenwood this week and head to New Orleans before ending the journey soon back home in Tennessee.
He’s not disclosing much about what his book will be about but said it will include a diverse cast of characters and the last major story will be set in Mississippi.
It will certainly be another chapter in his lifelong quest to understand this country.
“I feel really blessed that I’ve been able to live a life of adventure and do what I love doing,” Jenkins said.
