Does Natchez have wrong kind of bones?

By Ben Hillyer (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Friday, September 18, 2009

Clyde Ray Webber has been working in the boneyard for nearly 44 years.

That is what the Concordia Parish Clerk of Court calls the world of politics he has been a part of since 1966.

He’s been a preacher, a disc jockey, a teacher and a musician. But in my mind — and probably the minds of a lot of people in the Miss-Lou — he’s first and foremost a humorist.

You might say Webber is the Will Rogers of the Miss-Lou. Like some of Roger’s famous wisecracks, Webber stories are filled with poking jabs at the issues of the day. Hidden inside his tomfoolery are small nuggets of truth about life.

In the light of recent events in the Miss-Lou, one of Webber’s jokes seemed particularly pointed Thursday morning as he spoke to the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement at the Vidalia Convention and Conference Center.

“I compare people to bones in the body,” Webber started Thursday.

“The first group of people are the jawbone people. You know the ones. They will talk off the horns of a Billy goat,” Webber said. “Now don’t think they are going to do anything about it. They just want to talk about it.”

Then Webber moved onto other bone types. He talked about the tailbone people who criticize people while they sit on their tailbones doing nothing.

In between each bone type, Webber kept the crowd in stitches with stories from his Monterey and Ferriday childhood.

“Then there are the wishbone people,” Webber said. “They sit around wishing something would happen but they ain’t going to make it happen.”

Webber admitted he has a little of that wishbone mentality himself.

He didn’t claim to be much of a bonehead though — another on his “bones” list.

Still it was the backbone people Webber said he admired the most.

“They are the people who make things go,” Webber said. “They all have one thing in common and that is common sense.”

Unfortunately it is the least common of all the senses Webber said half-jokingly.

Maybe I am wrong, but it seems like the west side of the Mississippi River at the Natchez-Vidalia pass is overflowing with backbone people.

In a time when it seems as if a lot of people sitting on the east side of the river prefer moving their jawbones, sitting on their tailbones and using their wishbones, it seems as if some parish folks are putting their backbones to use.

New buildings are springing up on both ends of Carter Street in Vidalia.

A new recreation complex is now more than just wishful thinking for Concordia Parish residents.

Hard work on the part of parents, teachers and administrators are paying off for one parish school. Vidalia Junior High is now just one of seven schools in Louisiana to be named a blue ribbon school.

Local leaders in the parish are working, not wishing, to provide a better quality of life for their constituents.

And they are not keeping their success a secret. They are bringing people from across the state to witness the fruits of their labors. Invited by Concordia Parish Sheriff Randy Maxwell, more than 400 people from every corner of the state filled the Vidalia convention center Thursday. Many admitted that they were stunned by everything Vidalia has to offer.

At the end of his talk, Webber remarked that 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work. Of that 20 percent almost all are backbone people.

From this side of the river, it appears that the parish must have a higher percentage of backbone people than that.

Ben Hillyer is the Web editor of The Democrat. He can be reached at 601-455-3540.