Above Average Children at the Mississippi Book Festival
They unveiled a new “Writer’s Trail” placard at the Mississippi Book Festival to commemorate itself. It begins, “Founded in 2014 by Holly Lange and Jere Nash, The Mississippi Book Festival brings together book lovers of all ages and backgrounds.” People in Mississippi used to get mad at Jere Nash because he held our feet to the fire about the things that happened here, and never let us forget it. I tend to think of him as the guy who teamed up with guys from the other side to write very honest, very human books about Mississippi Politics, here-to-fore known as “my childhood.” Jere now has an office on the top floor of the John Stone House at Millsaps College, where he’s still holding people’s feet to the fire and pissing them off, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
They have all sorts of these aluminum historical marker signs in Mississippi. There’s the Blues Trail, the Writer’s Trail, the Country Music Trail, the Civil Rights Trail that they call “The Freedom Trail,” and a few others. They each have their own unique logo, but I’ve searched and I can’t find one for a “Civil War Trail,” which amuses and pleases me.
Usually, the signs say something like, “This and this happened here, and this guy did this, and that guy did that.” I’m now at the age where about half the time, I read the sign and think, “I remember when that happened,” and more often than not, “I really miss that guy.” I’m to the age now where, if I get a message from Tom Lewis in the middle of the night, it’s not to go out, but to tell me that somebody I used to get drunk with won’t ever go out again. You’ll get there too one day if you’re not there now. I can’t recommend it.
A few years ago, they put up one of these signs out from Glendora, Mississippi to commemorate the murder of Emmett Till. Three KAs from Ole Miss took it in their head to fill the sign full of holes and dump it in the river. In Mississippi, it’s not unusual to use a sign for target practice, but using a sign that large for target practice means you’re a pussy who can’t shoot.
There’s an actual ritual as part of the KA Customs to warn a brother when he’s about to fuck up monumentally. It comes with hand gestures and everything. Clearly, nobody cared enough about these dickless wonder brothers to do that for them. Now, they’re no longer a part of the Kappa Alpha Order and will carry around the reputation for doing this for the rest of their lives. I’m sure they’re telling people they’re the victims of some sort of Woke Mind Conspiracy and assured order will be restored if Donald Trump wins in November.
It’s actually very possible for a young man to recover from that kind of thinking. If you’ve never read George Malvaney’s book, you should. I used to think his sister was real pretty. So did most of my friends in high school. A few of them cast a net for her but came up empty-handed. It happens that way sometimes. The new Emmitt Till sign is made of stainless steel and weighs five hundred pounds, just in case anybody else gets any ideas.
I was only too happy to have any part of the Mississippi Book Festival, even if most of it was just telling people where the bathrooms were, although some of the people who had to pee were pretty famous. Most of my utility came from knowing every inch of that two-block area, from playing hide and seek at lock-ins and church picnics there from birth.
Between events, a woman in an orange “Volunteer” shirt caught my eye. In her early thirties, her bone structure, jaw, and especially her eyes and hair made me think, “I bet I know who you are.” Giving her my name, she gave me hers, and I smiled because I knew I was right. “I knew your grandfather,” I said. Having never laid eyes on this woman before, she was surprised but pleased, I think. In Mississippi, meeting an old man who knows “your momma and them” might be a surprise, but it’s not a shock.
Her mother’s maiden name was famous in Mississippi. Her grandfather and his father were on the board at First National Bank, which Jenne Luckett helped rebrand as “Trustmark.” Her family had an operation working with retailers in Mississippi and Lousiana, but the Reagan deregulation on how you raise capital came along, and working-class and middle-class retailers all over Mississippi soon found themselves replaced by Walmart, including my uncle’s Habidashary and Ladie’s Wear operation in Columbia Mississippi.
When I was fourteen, I took her mother to the movies but was too nervous to hold her hand. Frustrated at myself for not being braver, I never called again. Her mom went on to meet a really swell fella at the University of Mississippi, which we call “Ole Miss.” “Ole” means “Old,” not “Olé,” which is something they say at bullfights. They don’t have bullfights at Ole Miss, but it’d be pretty popular if they did.
I meet people all the time whose parents and grandparents have threads emanating from them that wind around Mississippi and find their way back to me. I’m pretty sure this woman went to Ole Miss. She’s like a quintuple legacy. I bet I know what sorority she was in. The thing is, she could have spent the weekend up in Wake Forrest or somewhere in Mississippi, celebrating them ole Rebels playing football on a wide-screen TV, drinking beers, and talking about how pretty Lacy and Brock’s charcuterie turned out, but she didn’t, she spent it in an orange t-shirt volunteering at The Mississippi Book Festival, that suggests she possesses the kind of mind you hope for a child when they’re small enough to hold in your arms.
Garrison Keillor used to produce a radio program about an imaginary place called “Lake Woebegone,” a not-too-clever play on words. He described it as a place “Where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” Nobody ever described Mississippi as a place where your woes were gone, far from it, but I can safely say our women are strong, our men are good-looking, and our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are above average—especially at the Mississippi Book Festival.
