Jerry Holt gazed at the old cotton gin at historic Dockery Farms with a bit of wonder. The massive red, rusty Murray 90 machine looked hauntingly familiar. Suddenly, memories came flooding back on this sun-dappled afternoon along the Mississippi Blues Trail.
Holt grew up here in the Mississippi Delta, chopping cotton in the mid-1970s for $7 for a 12-hour day. He recalled his older neighbor losing some fingers in an accident with a gin like the one at this plantation-turned-museum.
"We called him Six Fingers," Holt said, his recollection more harrowing than heartwarming.
