By Warner M. Montgomery warner@thecolumbiastar.com

The Shack Up Inn rents out rooms in old shotgun houses. These symbols of Southern life are said to attract ghosts (haints) because they can pass straight through them. Elvis was born in a shotgun house, and the Neville Brothers grew up in one.

Linda and I raced along the Mississippi roads from Oxford to Clarksdale to make a reservation at the Shack Up Inn. It is listed as one of the 1000 Places To See Before You Die, so we had to stay there. Since it has no phone, no email, no fax, and no Internet reservations, we had to personally confront the shackmeister. The inn claimed to have no brochures, no discounts, no room service, no wake up calls, no breakfast other than Moon Pies, and no beer, but it did brag about its indoor bathrooms, leaky roofs, and "damn good beds."

So why stay there?

Southern ambience, my little darlin'. Ain't nut'in better.

It was hot as hell in the Mississippi Delta that day, my friends. Shoulder- high cotton lined both sides of the potholed road. At noon, we pulled into the rickety, tumbledown collection of farm buildings called Cotton Gin Inn, Headquarters of the Shack Up Inn. No one was home. A sign hung on a handpainted 1961 VW Hippie Bus announced: Full Up, Go Someplace Else.

We did. Back to Clarksdale where we got the last room in town. A signpost outside had two huge guitars hanging over the words The Crossroads. In our ignorant bliss, we had landed at the legendary Crossroads of the Blues, smack in the middle of the Cradle of the Blues.

Clarksdale, Mississippi,at the junction of highways 61 and 45, and known as the Crossroads of the Blues.

The Blues Festival was just cranking up, and the air was thick with Sam Cooke, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Charlie Pat- ton, Son House, and Elmore James. We had quick shower, a quicker hot tamale lunch at Abe's (one of the 1,000 places), and went strolling through the Delta Blues Museum, the Cat Head Delta Blues and Folk Art store, the Brick Gallery, the Rock 'n Roll Blues Heritage Museum, and Hambone Art Gallery.

At dusk, we entered the world- famous Ground Zero Blues Club located at #0 Blues Alley. The owners - attorney Bill Luckett, actor Morgan Freeman, and entertainment executive Howard Stovall - created the club in 2001 in an old brick store next to the railroad track. They wanted a place to display authentic Delta Blues and Southern cooking. The xeroxed menu included live blues served with down home fried catfish and slow- cooked pork BBQ.

My woman and I sat amongst the graffittied walls and autographically- carved tables, ordered two beers, and watched a strange- looking gravelly- voiced person pound out the blues on an electric keyboard. The huge room was filled with every sort of human being God ever created and every blues poster ever printed. Sweaty blues lovers were packed in shoulder- to- shoulder, shank- to- shank.

An Australian hottie noticed my Survivor T- shirt and got all googly when I told her I was voted off the third day. She took my picture and got my autograph. I take fame wherever I can get it.

Our day was completed at Ramon's, another place to see before you die. It was across town away from the ear- piercing blues. Thomas and Barbara Ely, the couple who run it, rent the building for a dollar a month, so needless to say, it hadn't been painted or repaired in 20 years.

The tables were bare, the chairs mismatched. The wine and whiskey bottle lamps on every table provided all the decor a hungry man needed. The sign on the cash register said Barney Fife was in charge of security and "We take only American dollars."

Thomas told me he hadn't been to a Blues Festival since "I was a farm boy in coveralls. I grew up with the blues in black juke joints. I don't need no more. Want some livers?"

I ordered chicken livers and spaghetti. Linda chose a dozen fried butterfly shrimp. The livers were rich and crunchy. Linda's shrimp were huge, succulent, and sweet. With that feast our day in the Cradle of the Blues slammed shut.