[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 114 (Thursday, August 5, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1784]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO WILLIE MORRIS

                                 ______
                                 

                   HON. CHARLES W ``CHIP'' PICKERING

                             of mississippi

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, August 5, 1999

  Mr. PICKERING. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Willie Morris--
the great Mississippi writer who dedicated a lifetime to exploring what 
it means to be a Southerner, and showing what it means to be a friend. 
And today many friends and admirers are grieving over his death earlier 
this week.
  Everyone who loved Willie and cared for his work understands what a 
terrible loss this is. In his own unique way, he touched countless 
souls with his emotional honesty and boyish sense of humor. His 
perspective was a refreshing retreat from the culture of cynicism that 
poisons our society, and corrodes our democracy.
  William Morris was an American original, and a Mississippi legend. 
And, the truth is, it's hard to imagine Mississippi without Willie 
Morris.
  Willie grew up in Yazoo City, Mississippi, a small town on the edge 
of the Delta, and went on to study at the University of Texas, where he 
was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship.
  At 32, he became the youngest editor-in-chief of Harper's magazine in 
New York City. In the 1980s he came back to his native Mississippi to 
teach writing at Ole Miss and to write books.
  Willie Morris wrote about the little things that make small-town life 
special--like football games, dogs, and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. 
He also wrote about the big things--like faith, family and friendship.
  But Willie never shied away from putting these heart-warming 
descriptions in the context of the South's racial history, or revealing 
the challenges of laying down its burden.
  He did this magnificently, I felt, in ``The Courting of Marcus 
Dupree''--a story about how the outstanding high school football star 
helped breakdown long-held hostilities between whites and blacks in 
Philadelphia, Mississippi.
  In this book and others, Willie acknowledged the progress made toward 
racial harmony in Mississippi and across America.
  As someone who lived through the transition from the Old South to the 
New South, he had seen dramatic change in his homeland. But one way or 
another, he always found a way to say: ``We must do better.''
  Another favorite theme of Willie's was dogs. ``Every little boy ought 
to have a dog,'' he once said. In My Dog Skip and North Toward Home, he 
told some of the best dog stories I've ever heard, stories that inspire 
the warmest memories of the dogs of our own childhood. Many are so good 
they make you wish you had lived them yourself--like the time at age 12 
when he taught his English Fox Terrier, Skip, how to drive a car:
  ``I would get the dog to prop himself against the steering wheel,'' 
he writes, ``his black head peering out the windshield, while I 
crouched out of sight under the dashboard. Slowing the care to ten or 
fifteen, I would guide the steering wheel with my right hand while 
Skip, with his paws, kept it steady. As we drove by the Blue-Front 
Cafe, I could hear one of the (old) men shout: `Look at that ol' dog 
drivin' a car!' ''
  Willie Morris loved life and all things in it. And most of all, he 
loved making friends and encouraging others.
  Several years ago, a young writer friend of mine from Texas met 
Willie and after their meeting sent Willie an essay he had been working 
on. Days later my friend received his essay, with excellent edits, and 
a hand-written note from Willie that said: ``You're a damn fine writer. 
Keep the faith, my friend!''
  That letter now hangs framed, on my friend's wall, as a medal of 
encouragement.
  Mark Twain once said: ``the great people in life are the ones that 
tell others that they, too, can be great.'' Willie Morris was one of 
those great people. He was the kind of guy that once he made friends 
with you, he was a friend for life. Our good friend Willie Morris has 
gone away, but his beautiful words and sweet spirit will live on 
forever and ever.
  Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Joanne Prichard, and his 
son, David Rae, in this difficult time.

                          ____________________