Mentors and Milestones

For this fortieth anniversary issue, our editorial team turned to the Country Roads’ archive of around four hundred published issues—searching for milestone stories that revealed something interesting about the region, about ourselves, or sometimes, simply about a moment in time. (Click here to explore our 40 Stories from 40 Years project.) Of course, to do this we had to go right back to the beginning, digging out a copy of the Autumn, 1983 issue to see what it had to say. There on page 4, above a house ad offering mailed subscriptions ($3 a year), was the first-ever “Reflections” column. It was written by—who else—Dorcas Brown: Country Roads’ founder and publisher, mother of my wife; and our mentor, neighbor, and companion during the twenty-eight years since Ashley and I became involved with this esoteric enterprise. Being thirteen-year-olds, Ashley and I didn’t have much to do with the production of the Autumn, 1983 issue, although there’s a photo from around that time that shows mother and daughter in the dining room—which, in a foretelling of the work-from-home phenomenon, for many years served as Country Roads’ global headquarters, complete with a paste-up table, photocopier, and fax.

In the column Dorcas welcomes readers to Country Roads, defines the region that the magazine will cover (Natchez to Baton Rouge, aka “English Louisiana”), and promises “pilgrimages, concerts, art, craft, and antique shows that forecast the seasons as reliably as the calendar.” This she delivers—and this is vintage Dorcas—in about 111 words. Despite having apparently decided to be a magazine publisher of her own free will, Dorcas showed no great enthusiasm for the actual writing side of things. Rather, her talents were in the realm of ad sales (thank God), and in meeting people and making friends. You know that old quip: “Where else but Louisiana would you meet someone in the porta-potty line at a festival and they end up on your Christmas card list?” That might have been written about Dorcas. She didn’t have time for writing long editor’s columns; there were concerts and art shows to attend! So, when a son-in-law with a weakness for run-on sentences wandered into that dining room around 1995, she was happy to hand over responsibility for the “Reflections” column. We had to find a bit more page space to accommodate it.

[Read another of James Fox-Smith's "Reflections" looking back on forty years of Country Roads here.]

“Pilgrimages, concerts, art, craft, and antique shows that forecast the seasons as reliably as the calendar.” Forty years since Dorcas’s original Reflections column, the Calendar of Events she conceived as a mainstay still occupies about a third of every edition. And in it, a reader can still expect to read about those old-school events, alongside a galaxy of others that early editions and their readers could only dream of. In any given calendar, for every old event (I’m looking at you, Shrimp & Petroleum Festival—held every Labor Day since 1935; appearing in every Country Roads since 1983), there’ll be a Federales Fest (inaugural festival coming to Baton Rouge October 7). The calendar is still forecasting the seasons, too. In fall the number of events it contains can swell into the hundreds, and describing them in a manner both informative and pleasurable is a labor of love that has reduced more than one calendar editor to tears. Hardly seems a job for the constitutionally long-winded, does it? As you read, spare a thought for CR Arts & Entertainment Editor Alexandra Kennon, who loves a run-on sentence almost as much as I do. Who was it who said, “What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure?” Today, that’s a motto Country Roads’ editorial department has gotten behind.

You know that old quip: “Where else but Louisiana would you meet someone in the porta-potty line at a festival and they end up on your Christmas card list?” That might have been written about Dorcas.

There’s one more aspect of Dorcas’s personality that drove the development of Country Roads, that I think continues to animate its pages to this day. That’s her unbreakable commitment to active participation—of showing up to support every kind of community and cultural event, and making everyone a friend. From that very first issue, the magazine she established encouraged its readers to get out, meet people wherever they are, and celebrate the cultures that define us and bind us together. Forty years on, I hope that spirit—of meeting people and making them friends—is still what you find when you open a copy of Country Roads. It’s Dorcas through and through, and it’s our privilege to be part of it.