Tallahatchie Bridge - the untold story

nick allen · Post by **nick allen** » 5 Jun 2003 11:12 pm

It has been pointed out on another thread (by me, as it happens) that, while it is generally accepted that Billy Joe McAllister did jump off the Tallahatchie bridge, no evidence of a body being found has ever been made public.
At this stage, we will probably never know for sure what really happened on that fateful June 3, 196?… However, a tantalising clue has recently been discovered.
At a yard sale in New Jersey, a folded up piece of paper, obviously used as a bookmark, was found inside a well-thumbed copy of a Jerry Garcia biography. Written on it were the following words. Read them, and judge for yourselves… Is this "the rest of the story"?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>
It was the 3rd of June, another sleepy dusty Delta day,
I was tired of pickin' cotton, even more tired of baling hay,
And that darned Bobbie Gentry, always getting underneath my feet,
She just can't understand, there's other women I want to meet.
So I headed out running, got to get away from Choctaw Ridge,
My name is Billy Joe McAllister, I jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

I slept in hobo jungles, roamed a thousand miles of railroad track
Till I found myself in Alabama, at a club they all called Big Jacks.
There was a man playing steel guitar, and I asked him maybe I could sit in,
The way those women loved my playing, Oh Lord it really was a sin.
Guess you could say I'd come a long, long way from Choctaw Ridge,
And I knew I'd done the right thing jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

Women, wine and music, that was my life for many years,
I had a lot of laughs, and yes maybe there were a few tears,
But my steel guitar and me both seemed like we was putting on some weight,
I knew I had to settle down, before it got to be too late.
I headed north to Pennsylvania, took a wide loop round Choctaw Ridge,
Changed my name to Dave Van Allen and forgot the Tallahatchie Bridge.

(With all due apologies and recognition to Bobbie Gentry and Jerry Reed) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
[This message was edited by nick allen on 06 June 2003 at 12:14 AM.]

Pat Burns · Post by **Pat Burns** » 6 Jun 2003 4:40 am

..that would explain why it took him a thousand miles of railroad track to get from Mississippi to Alabama...[This message was edited by Pat Burns on 06 June 2003 at 05:42 AM.]

Dave Van Allen · Post by **Dave Van Allen** » 6 Jun 2003 5:18 am

so, I'm directionally challenged..is it a crime?

well, I guess the "truth will out..."

bjm, er, I mean dva

Pat Jenkins · Post by **Pat Jenkins** » 6 Jun 2003 5:26 am

Dave, I always knew that had to end something like that.......I love it...LOL...Pat

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 6 Jun 2003 11:50 am

If they dragged the river and didn't find a body it may be a first. Usually when they dragged the Tallahatchie River they found at least one body they didn't even know was missing.

My first memories are of Tallahatchie County, MS. Out the back of our house there was a gravel road and a bayou. In front of our house were railroad tracks. I remember we had some unpainted wooden back steps that oozed sap. In the hot summertime if you stepped on that barefooted (and who wore shoes?) it would stick to your foot and burn like hell. Then we moved to a better part of town (if you could call Webb, MS as big enough to have different parts. There we had cotton fields on two sides of the house and a sewerage ditch on another. Well, we considered it progress, because the cotton mouths and skeeters didn't care for the sewerage ditch. Ah...sweet memories.

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 6 Jun 2003 11:54 am

I thought the Tallahatchie Bridge was a new kind of roller bridge..

Well what did you expect from someone who was born in NY..
tp

Stephen Winters · Post by **Stephen Winters** » 7 Jun 2003 5:21 am

David Doggett, Hello from a fellow Tallahatchian. Problem is..I still live there...ha.

ps - not as many bodies found in the river as there used to be, but it still happens.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 8 Jun 2003 7:24 am

Hi, Stephen. It's been 52 years since I lived in Tallahatchie County. I hope I'm right in assuming there has been some progress since then. However, I'll bet there are still a lot of cotton mouths and skeeters. Aside from Bobby Gentry, I know Mose Allison the blues and jazz piano player came from Tippo in Tallahatchie County. Probably there are some other blues musicians from around there, I know a lot came from next door in Sunflower County, where I lived after Tallahatchie County.

CrowBear Schmitt · Post by **CrowBear Schmitt** » 8 Jun 2003 8:36 am

Mose Allison, now there's a hip cat !

------------------
Steel what?

Stephen Winters · Post by **Stephen Winters** » 8 Jun 2003 6:22 pm

David,
Yes there has been some progress, maybe..??.
And there are lots of big skeeters...

I can't think of any other musicians right now from here, but the actor Morgan Freeman lives in Tallahatchie county near Charleston. His buddy Clint Eastwood visits him every once in a while.

Stephen Winters · Post by **Stephen Winters** » 8 Jun 2003 6:25 pm

By the way.....this is kind of morbid to tell but the last person found in the Tallahatchie river had the last name of Gentry....