If there’s a chef in town who can cook crow to taste like chicken — preferably fried — please help me find her, him or it.
I’m due to eat one ever since this whole Mound Trail/Batesville Mounds/Panola County Museum idea started gaining traction.
Back before 2013, Conner Vick was chairman of a Pan Gens committee that looked for a grant to help fund the building of a museum on a suitable site. At one time, purchase of the V.F.W. building was considered along with other possible locations, but Conner kept going back to the Mounds site on Highway 35 North as a possibility.
At one time I told Conner right in front of several witnesses that the railroad would never, ever open a new crossing there and folks had to be able to drive across those tracks to make the other side — the Mounds property — worth fooling with.
“At one time, we thought the only way we’d get a crossing is when the railroad is gone, and nobody wanted to lose the railroad,” Johnny Nelson said at the Pan Gens meeting Thursday night, referring to the 2009-2015 ownership of the railroad by a rail salvage company.
Never, ever say never ever.
Fast forward to 2015, the North Central Mississippi Railroad Authority bought the rail line from the former salvage company owner and leased it to Iowa Pacific Railroad which is allowing the city to build the crossing.
What a great way to run a railroad!
Our previous experience had been with Illinois Central, then Canadian National, neither of which had much regard for requests from backwater bergs along routes between mighty places. Then along comes Iowa Pacific with its personable owner Ed Ellis who specializes in operating short line railroads.
All at once it seemed that Ellis was everywhere at once, up and down the line from Canton to Southaven, and especially in Batesville during last year’s Polar Express Train Ride. It appears that Ellis and Iowa Pacific actually care something about the backwater bergs along his rails’ routes, because that’s where their customers are. We hope that he finds plenty of them.
Meanwhile, does crow go better with catsup, mustard, hot sauce, Merlot …?