| October 27 '07 |
 |
| Volume 595 |
Game Day State
Vs. Tennessee
On Saturday, October 13th,
the bulldogs of Mississippi State played the University of Tennessee volunteers
in Starkville. The next morning, Bill Jackson, an ardent Mississippi State
fan, greeted me outside the church-house door.
"I was down in Starkville yesterday, actually on the campus of Mississippi
State." I shared.
"What in the world were you doing down there?" he asked.
"That’s the same thing I asked myself," I responded, laughingly. "Believe
it or not, I watched Tennessee beat State. And, other than the guy that invited
me to go, I didn’t see but two people that I knew, and neither of them
was you."
"No, I didn’t go yesterday," Bill allowed.
"You remember Millie Townsend, who went to church here a number of years
ago and taught Home Ec at the high school?" I queried.
"Yeah, I remember Mille," he stated.
"Well, her brother, Steve, took over the family grocery business. He’s
helped me meet my project management goals early this year. So, when he invited
me to go to the game with him, I felt that was the least I could do to show
my appreciation."
Bill acknowledged it was a good business decision on my part. But, on a personal
level, I consider Steve Townsend a friend, as well.
Steve is a season ticket holder at Mississippi State and his block of four
seats near the 45-yard line, about midway up on the lower deck provide a
good viewing of the players on the field. As a retailer, he sometimes is
offered tickets by food vendors who do business with him, and he often parcels
out such extra tickets to friends or business associates who are interested
in attending the game.
"I’ve got an extra ticket to the Tennessee game, and if you want to
go, you can sit right beside me," Steve offered, a couple of weeks before
the game.
"I need to check with the woman who keeps my personal calendar, to make sure
I don’t have a conflict," I responded, all the while trying to remember
what it was I was supposed to remember about October 13th.
When I got home, Barbara told me that was Merilese’s birthday, but the
party was going to be at our house on Friday night, which let me off the
hook to do whatever I wanted to do on Saturday.
I let Steve know that I could go to the game with him, and we agreed that
I could meet him in Columbus and ride with him to the game.
"If you ride with me, you won’t have to walk more than a fourth of a
mile to the stadium," he stated. "But, if you take your car and don’t
park in a paid-parking area, you could walk a mile or more. Plus, where I
park, I’ll be back to Columbus while you’re still stuck in the
traffic. Anyway, Coca Cola will have a tailgating tent and we can get something
to eat there before the game."
On Game Day, the weather was perfect with a light breeze and temperatures
expected to top near eighty degrees. Still, I took a windbreaker with me
as a precaution, knowing our seats would be in the shade for most of the
game. Now that I'm on blood thinner medication, being chilly comes far more
easily than it once did.
Steve's a pretty fair guide, and as we arrived on the campus, he pointed
to various landmarks and named them for me, as I followed him to one of the
tailgating areas. Steve's Coca Cola representatives appeared equipped to
feed a hundred or more guests but seating was limited to perhaps a dozen
or so at a time. We ate a light lunch and then worked our way toward the
stadium, stopping off at one building where Steve said the restrooms were
less crowded than at the bookstore or the stadium.
Chris, whose last name I can't spell, works for SUPERVALU in a different
capacity than I, was also invited to the game by Steve. Chris brought his
parents, his wife and two daughters. Chris phoned Steve to ask for last minute
directions, but since Chris didn't know where he was, Steve suggested that
Chris ask someone how to get to the Barnes and Noble campus bookstore, and
we'd all meet there.
That part of the plan worked out fine, but when Chris described where he
had parked, Steve told him we had better make sure he wasn't parked in a
tow away zone. Part of Chris's family had seating on the visitor's side,
so they headed toward the stadium as we walked to where Chris had parked.
Sure enough, his car was in a tow away zone. A nearby campus policeman informed
us that all the cars illegally parked would be towed.
We climbed into Chris's SUV and Steve directed him to the Research Center,
directly across the highway from the main campus and a good mile from the
stadium.
"It won't cost you anything to park over here," Steve shared. "And, they
run a shuttle back to the campus."
I was glad to hear about the
shuttle, as I had already walked more in one day than I sometimes walk in
one week. The shuttle let its passengers disembark within a rock's throw
of where Steve had parked when we arrived on campus, so it wasn't like we
were let out in front of the stadium. Chris kept apologizing for what he
considered "all the trouble he put us through," though we assured him we
didn't mind. Anyway, who wants to have their outing ruined by having to pay
a fine for an impounded vehicle? The four of us made it to our seats in the
stadium before the ball clubs hit the field.
I am a poor excuse for a sports fan, and actually prefer to watch a game
from the comfort of my living room. The last time I was in a college stadium,
I was a student at Ole Miss. And, while I want the teams of my alma mater
to do well, I don't fret over a losing season. My affection for Ole Miss
is an academic one, not one rooted in the world of sports. However, I am
exposed to enough fans and media coverage to know which teams are worthy
opponents for the Ole Miss Rebels. And, I knew it would be difficult for
State to beat Tennessee, even with State playing at home. So, I went to the
game to show support for Mississippi State, but I fully expected them to
get beat.
I can understand the allure some football fans find in being "at the game,"
as opposed to watching it on television. There is an atmosphere in a stadium
unlike anywhere else, and I don't just mean the smell of beer, wafting in
the otherwise fresh air. Television can't capture the voices of thousands
of cheering fans nearly so well as the confines of an open stadium. Nor can
television allow its viewers the same panoramic view afforded the fan in
the stadium. But, televised football games have some advantages.
Early into the game, I nudged Steve Townsend and jokingly remarked, "I can't
see the yellow line on the field for the first down."
"That's something I miss, too," he replied.
Television also offers better instant replays, and the commentary of the
sportscasters is superior to that of the play-by-play announcer at the stadium.
At one time, a chorus of boos rang out from the home team, and I didn't have
a clue as to why. At the end of the game, Steve told me the fans were booing
the change of quarterbacks.
As we left the campus and headed to Columbus, Steve noted the emptied out
sections where vehicles had been towed, and we saw one vehicle being towed,
even then. There were not enough available tow trucks to tow all the illegally
parked vehicles, but they towed a lot of them.
While I had a good time spending the day with Steve Townsend and actually
enjoyed the ballgame, I don’t expect that going to college campuses
for sports events will become routine for me, especially when one considers
it has been forty-two years since I was a student at Ole Miss and fifty-seven
years since I sat in the stands of the football stadium at Mississippi State.
That’s right, my family lived "inside the gates" of the campus, when
I was in the Second Grade, and I had the opportunity to watch what was most
likely the Spring Game.
Mini Vocation
Day Two On The Coast
Barbara and I drove from our motel in Ocean Springs to Biloxi, to meet Brother
Joe Steen. Our plans were to spend the day with him sightseeing and visiting
Habitat houses in Biloxi and Gulfport.
"We’ll turn east on Division Street," Barbara told me as I took the
Biloxi exit onto I-110.
As soon as I turned onto Division Street, I recognized the area and remembered
the old Delchamps store location which SUPERVALU acquired a number of years
ago. We serviced the account for perhaps a year after selling it to an
independent retailer.
"I’ve never been more than a block past the store," I recalled. "I was
told the neighborhood got rough fast, the further east one goes."
Brother Joe had told us he lived in what is known as Volunteer Village, a
"gated community" next to a stadium, but I couldn’t picture it until
I found the site. When relief efforts were first begun, following Hurricane
Katrina, the Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity set up temporary housing
for volunteer workers using the old sports stadium. The area beneath the
stadium bleachers was converted into offices, cafeterias, and lounges for
volunteers housed in campers and dormitories on the grounds. The "gated
community" was more a secure community, enclosed by chain-link fencing, with
guards at each entrance.
Brother Joe’s camper was
near the guardhouse. Barbara had phoned him when we were about a block away,
so he met us at the guardhouse. Upon leaving Volunteer Village, we first
drove through a nearby area where homes damaged by Katrina were in various
states of repair or neglect and where a few new Habitat homes were constructed.
It wasn’t a place I care to be after dark and was glad when we set a
course toward Hwy. 90. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, we could have driven along
Hwy. 90 from Ocean Springs across Biloxi Bay right into Biloxi, but the bridge
connecting the two cities was destroyed by the storm surge and was not fully
repaired at the time we were there.
It was the first time either Barbara or I had been to the Gulf Coast since
the area was devastated by the hurricane. Though much progress has been made
in rebuilding and restoration, there weren’t many landmarks recognizable
to either of us. Yet, if one can gauge the population by the traffic count,
then it’s safe to say most of the residents who fled the coast have
returned.
It should be noted that our visit coincided with an event called Cruisin’
the Coast, where hundreds, perhaps thousands, of vintage automobiles were
showcased all along the highway, as well as the downtown areas of the coastal
cities. Indeed, there were a lot of visitors for that event, but most of
the old cars we saw were parked, where admirers could look them over. We
made our way along Hwy. 90 from Biloxi to Gulfport, enjoying the view afforded
by the beach-front roadway.
Brother Joe guided us to an area south of I-10 in Gulfport where a number
of new Habitat houses were ready for occupants, and a lot more were under
construction. The finished ones we toured were landscaped with sod, plants,
and trees. Built with either three or four bedrooms and with a bath and a
half, the homes were modest, but certainly met the criteria established by
Habitat for Humanity International, "simple, decent, [and] affordable."
I mentioned in last week’s article
how cold our motel room was and that my glasses fogged up as soon as I stepped
outside that morning. Well, the picture on the right illustrates this even
better. My camera was in my computer bag all night in the cold room, but
upon leaving the motel to pick up Brother Joe, I put the computer bag in
the trunk of my car. More than an hour later, the camera lens fogged over
when I took it out of the trunk to make some pictures.
By the time we finished the housing tour, it was almost noon, so we began
to look for a place to eat lunch. Barbara knew where the outlet mall was,
having shopped there on prior trips to the Coast, and suggested we might
find something to our liking in the Food Court of the mall. Choices were
somewhat limited, so we headed back to Hwy. 49 in search of other eating
establishments.
"There’s Zaxby’s," Barbara pointed, "Rayanne and the girls and
I ate there a few years ago."
From the fast food restaurants in the area, Zaxby’s looked as good as
the next, so we pulled in for lunch. Zaxby’s is a regional chain that
features chicken and has a menu more similar to Chik fil-A than to a KFC.
After lunch we headed back to Ocean Springs, specifically to visit the Walter
Anderson Museum. Locating the museum was easy enough; getting to it proved
more difficult as the direct route was blocked off so that "cruisers" could
park on one side of the street to showcase their cars. We finally found a
parking lot near City Hall and only had to walk about a block to the museum.
Barbara had been to the museum on past trips to the Coast, but neither Brother
Joe nor I had ever visited the museum. As museum days go, theirs was a slow
day. We had the run of the place mostly to ourselves. We watched an introductory
video that provided helpful information about life and work of Walter Anderson
before touring the exhibits. There were plenty of exhibits, but many of them
were paintings and pottery by Walter’s brother John McConnell Anderson.
Barbara stated there were more works by Walter when she was there several
years ago but that many of them were now in the Smithsonian.
I don’t have enough background in art to appreciate much of what makes
it into a museum. My preference is art that realistically depicts objects,
people, or landscapes. Though the artwork of Walter Anderson has an impressionist
vein to it, I can easily recognize in his art the natural world that he so
fondly appreciated.
We perused the gift shop but didn’t make any purchases, because Barbara
knew of a couple of shops a few blocks north of the museum, one of which
contained Walter Anderson prints for each day of the calendar. Along our
walk, we saw close to one hundred of the vintage automobiles either on the
main street or on the several side streets we passed.
We didn’t find anything to purchase at the other gift shops, but stopped
to talk to the owner of 1978 pickup that once belonged to his father. He
told of it being sold after his father’s death, and how he bought it
a few years ago and lovingly restored it. He showed us the "before" pictures
in his scrapbook that also contained pictures of his mom’s first time
to see it in its restored condition, this past Mothers Day. No doubt, there
is a story associated with each of the old cars we saw, if only one had the
time to hear them all.
Having whiled away most of the afternoon, we went back to the motel to relax
and converse until suppertime. Barbara and Brother Joe still had a lot to
talk about with respect to their work with Habitat, as neither of them seemed
to have caught up on news with the other since Brother Joe left Pontotoc.
For dinner on Friday evening, we chose McElroy’s on the Bayou, a moderately
priced restaurant offering a bit of variety. From our table we had a good
view of the bayou for perhaps an hour before twilight darkened the landscape.
The place was packed, as it seems almost everybody in the area wanted to
go out and eat at the same time, which stressed all the help from cooks to
servers. While the food was good and the service as good as could be expected,
there was a matter of an annoying drip. No, not a person, this drip was
condensate from the cover of the air vent above our table, which periodically
dropped between Barbara and Brother Joe. They didn’t take my suggestion
to move seriously, nor did they heed my warning about Legionnaires Disease.
Neither of them got wet, and as of this writing, their health is fine.
When we returned Brother Joe to his camper, he gave us a tour of the facilities
inside the stadium and of his personal quarters. We even met a couple of
the staff who were tidying up the food service area. Afterwards, we said
our goodbyes to Brother Joe from inside his camper. We expect to keep in
touch with Brother Joe, mostly through regular mail, as he’s not very
comfortable using a computer. I imagine we’ll try to visit him again
someday, but we plan to wait until he’s wrapped up his assignment in
Mexico and is back stateside.
Bodock Beau The
Ventriloquist
The following blonde joke has been around the block, but it bears up well
with repetition.
The Ventriloquist
A young ventriloquist was touring the clubs and one night he was doing a
show in a small town in West Virginia.
With his dummy on his knee, he started going through his usual dumb blonde
jokes when a blonde woman in the 4th row stood on her chair and started shouting:
"I've heard enough of your stupid blonde jokes. What makes you think you
can stereotype women that way? What does the color of a person's hair have
to do with her worth as a human being? It's guys like you who keep women
like me from being respected at work and in the community and from reaching
our full potential as a person. Because you and your kind continue to perpetuate
discrimination against not only blondes, but women in general - and all in
the name of humor!"
The embarrassed ventriloquist began to apologize.
The blonde yelled, "You stay out of this mister! I'm talking to that little
guy on your knee!"
Contributed by Ed Dandridge
------------------------------------------------
An elderly Florida lady did her shopping and, upon returning to her car,
found four males in the act of leaving with her vehicle. She dropped her
shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to scream at the top of her
voice, "I have a gun, and I know how to use it! Get out of the car!"
The four men didn't wait for a second invitation. They got out and ran like
mad. The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load her shopping bags
into the back of the car and got into the driver's seat. She was so shaken
that she could not get her key into the ignition. She tried and tried, and
then it dawned on her why. For the same reason she did not understand why
there was a football, a Frisbee and two six packs in the front seat.
A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces further
down the parking lot. She loaded her bags into the car and drove to the police
station to report her mistake. The sergeant to whom she told the story couldn't
stop laughing. He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four
pale men were reporting a car jacking by a mad, elderly woman
described as white, less than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair,
and carrying a large handgun. No charges were filed.
Moral of the story…If you're going to have a Senior Moment, make
it memorable.
Shared by Vickey Murphree
Simple Solution
A man ran into a cafe and frantically told the waitress he needed a cure
for the hiccups.
Not saying a word, the waitress poured a glass of water, turned and tossed
it into the man's face.
The startled man sputtered and said, "It's not for me. It's for my friend
out in the car."
Laugh Letter Newsletter – October 2007
In Memoriam – Frances Crausby Carter 1918-1989
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