I’ve always loved this time of the year when it is about to get cooler and the crops are getting gathered up. The equipment humming along — just everything about the smells, even the defoliant, says home.
My home. Tutwiler, two miles from town out in the country, to be exact — in the same home I grew up in.
In late 1999, I returned home to be with my mama and my sisters. Mama wanted to spend her last years on her land in her home, so we gathered.
I had come from California, where I had held a variety of state jobs doing budget cuts, which worked to my advantage here because I was able to get a job at the private prison in Tutwiler in charge of classifying the prisoners. When it closed for a year, I was able to get a job at the employment office in Clarksdale, another job I held in CA.
Having been away from home for over 30-odd years, I was overjoyed to find most of my high school friends from WTHS Class of 1970 right where I left them.
I ended up marrying my high old sweetheart, Chester Dunavent, over 20 years ago and immediately inherited the best family in the county. In return, I gave him my two grown kids and six grandkids, plus three more from a new daughter-in-law.
We spend time out here in the country doing exactly what we want.
I’ll be writing the news from the Tutwiler, Sumner and Webb communities about every other week unless something big happens.
Let me hear from you. You can reach me by email at Lydia.dunavent@gmail.com
