William Faulkner said that, and no truer words have been spoke. I took a plane down to Mississippi, the glorious place of my birth. I don't remember much about living there, but my parents always talk about how great it is and I have nightmares about people telling me to spell M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i when I was like a fetus. I visited a friend of mine named Steve Evans from college. Steve worked for Teach for America in the Mississippi delta, where he met his fiance Wendy. Wendy is a local news anchor in Jackson, where they currently live. So, basically, I was hanging out with a local celebrity and a fellow teacher. Who wouldn't go to Mississippi? So, what did we do? We bowled - I got a 176. Beat dat!
I also dragged Steve and Windy around Jackson to some of my parents favorite eateries and stomping grounds. Below are 2 places we lived in. The first is a duplex. Wendy said that 20 years ago, this was THE PLACE to live in Jackson. Then it flooded and now it's not such a nice area. We were shooed away by an old woman in said duplex. I tried to tell her my connection but she wasn't having it. We quickly drove to the house I essentially grew up in. It's a nice ranch style. I wasn't sure this was actually the house I remembered but my parents confirmed that it was. I now know I will never be a real estate magazine writer because I am blanking on anything relevant to say about these properties.
Finally, we took a trip out to the Mississippi delta. Wow. Below is what I saw for about 100 straight, flat miles. Corn. Soybean. Catfish farms. That is it.
Anyway, we drove around Greenville and met up with some Teach for America fellows. What do you do after that? You find train tracks and walk. This is what we did. I took a few pics of Steve and his dog Jack. We found some old box cars in the middle of...what? A corn field. If you put these pictures in black and white, I'm sure they would be considered artsy.
To complete our man-date, Steve took some pictures of me. I obviously want to be in this 100+ degree humidity.
Anyway, I completed my tour of Amrrrrica by taking an overnight Greyhound from Jackson to Charlotte. I have now found the scariest place on earth - Jackson, Mississippi at 10:45 at night. I actually had my own set of Greyhound attendance bodyguards. Nonetheless, after going through Meridian, Birmingham, Hotlanta, Greenville, Spartanburg, and Gastonia, 13 hours later I made it to Charlotte. It was there that I blinked for the first time, took my first gasp of air, and unclenched my kung-fu grip on my possessions. Anyway, the trip is over, but hopefully the blog is not. I'm going to Mexico (tough summer!) next week so I'll probably have some other pictures up.
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