starts off with the big riverboat casino billboards. A gigantic Paula Deen urges me to try the buffet at one casino -- they've added 25 of her dishes. Since the only recipe I ever saw of hers was a bread pudding made with Krispy Kreme doughnuts, I can't imagine folks eating a whole meal of her food.
There's a little swamp, with cypress trees and their knobby knees, and then the flat land on both sides of the highway is deeply green with cotton on both sides. I didn't know they still grew cotton in Mississippi.
And, of course, it reminds me of his father and his story about his own father hiring him out for 25 cents to an uncle to chop cotton when he should have been in school. My father was never one for letting the truth get in the way of a really good story, but that one has a feel of truth about it.
Other than the occasional field of corn, taller than I am and already dry and yellow, there's mostly cotton for the two hour drive.
My mother's father came from Mississippi, and my father said some of his did, too. I wonder what he'd think about his trip of mine.
The roads are better than I expected, and the few schools I've seen have been new and clean-looking. I wonder if it's the money from the casinos? When I was a girl, the roads got worse the minute you crossed the Mississippi/Alabama line. Still, Mississippi came with a hint of sophistication and romance: my mother's best clothes when she was in college came from Meridan and she was always proud of that. And going to college in a dry county, my father would cross the state line late at night to buy moonshine.
I, however, have been unable to find a store from which to buy wine to stock the little refrigerator in my room. To my suprise, I have been able to find soy milk and rice cheese. Who knew?
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