A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day....04-13-04....Mississippi - "Virtute et Armis"

Mama_Bear

[Mama_Bear]

Great presentation MB. Traveled through Mississippi at very young age on the way to Grandma's House in neighboring Alabama. You ladies are lookin' mighty gracious in those dresses.

Why thank you, Diver Dave, and thank you for joining us on Travelin' Tuesday. Never know where you're going to end up on these cyber-trips, do you? LOL

[Mama_Bear]

Absolutely beautiful thread today Lori. Feel like I'm in the south...

Thanks, dutchess. I really do try to capture the feeling or the "flavor" of a state. Each state has a unique atmosphere, I think. Some are easier to define and convey than others though.

....and magnolia's are my absolute favorite.

Aren't they beautiful? We have a variety of Magnolia tree around here. I don't think it is the same as those found in the deep south, but they are very pretty.

You take care of yourself and get over that cold. Rest and drink lots of fluids......as they say.

[Mama_Bear]

hopefully can stop back later

Come back if you feel up to it. It's more important that you rest.

((((((((((dutchess))))))))))))

[Mama_Bear]

I already know I could not have selected a better, or more beautiful state than MS or found another state with nicer people.

It's wonderful to have that kind of feeling about where you live. I used to feel that way about California, back in the Reagan era. I hope to once again.

[onyx]

I used to feel that way about California, back in the Reagan era. I hope to once again.



I hope you can too.
I'm a native Californian,
but I just have to leave.
Too crowded and too costly
and no end in sight.
I need the slower, friendlier pace of MS.

[Mama_Bear]

I need the slower, friendlier pace of MS.

I hear you, and I'd be right behind you if there was any way possible to uproot our small business and take it (and our clientele) with us.

I'm glad you made it out. Unfortunately, we are stuck here for the duration.

[JustAmy]

Click for Jo Stafford

Wonderful Thread, Lori. Thank you.

Should have posted on Louisiana.

[WVNan]

Hi Lori. Well, you've put up another of my "home" states. My youngest child was born in Jackson, Miss. in 1969. That year Camille hit the Gulf Coast and toppled a tree over on our house, even though we were 200 miles inland. Scary and destructive storm.

Miss. is one of my favorite states too. The people were very warm and friendly. We were living there when the schools integrated. A lot of people pulled their children out of school. We left ours in and they did just fine. It was a bit tense but not as bad as depicted on the daily news (of course).

[WVNan]

Lord protect Lakeside's two sons. Surround them with your love and protective power. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.

[dixiechick2000]

"Mississippi sounds like a lovely state, I would especially like to spend some time on the Gulf Coast. It appears to be an up and coming vacation destination."

It IS a very lovely state, and your thread has done it proud. I love the Gulf Coast. But, if you go there, watch your wallet. There are many casinos just dying to relieve you of it's contents. ;o)

[petitfour]

I was born in Jackson in '69. Wonderful place. Even my hubby who was semi-prejudiced against MS prior to us living there came to love it as much as I do. I'm not sure what he expected, but what he found were characters of all varieties. He loves characters. He once drove through a town called Tchula on a Saturday night. That was an experience that he'll tell about till he dies. It was nothing like driving through certain sections of Detroit or Chicago or DC on a Saturday night. :)

I lived in Alabama for a number of years, and I learned to smell the difference between the two places when I crossed the state line. (there really is a difference.) And I love Alabama, too. But Mississippi will always be home.

[dixiechick2000]

"I already know I could not have selected a better, or more beautiful state than MS or found another state with nicer people. Looking forward to living in Vb."

You are very blessed to be moving there. They are gonna love you, too. ;o)

BTW, I'm jealous. lol

[Mama_Bear]

Good evening, Nan. It is always such a treat when you come onto a thread!

I wish I had known that you had roots (of sort) in Mississippi, I would have asked for some input. I loved what you did on West Virginia.

I have not experienced a hurricane, but I have lived through a wild typhoon who's eye went directly over the island of Guam when I was a kid. Winds that were bending the palm trees all the way over to the ground. Of course, I was only six and didn't know enough to be afraid. Everything is an adventure to a six year old.

BTW, my only son is the same age as your youngest. Mine born in February of '69. :-)

((((((((Nan)))))))))

[dixiechick2000]

Thank you so much, Billie!
I love the bluejay.
Even as mean as they are,
I still miss them.
We don't have them in Oregon.

[WVNan]

Not to mention that lovable rogue, Rev. Will Campbell. "Brother to a Dragonfly". Ole Will joined my husband and me in holy matrimony. He was a real liberal rebel. He may have gotten over some of that with age.

[petitfour]

Here's an official MS website for folks who are interested in knowing some places to visit while in MS.

http://www.mississippi.gov/ms_sub_sub_template.jsp?Category_ID=38

[WVNan]

Wow, you were born there in 69? My son was born at Baptist Hospital on June 8. We lived in Ala. also. Montgomery 76-80. It's true what you say about the smell. I've noticed that every state has it's own unique smell and feel. When I lived in Va. I felt peaceful and when I would go back to Tenn. to visit family I would get a headache as soon as I crossed the line. Ha, I guess it could have been caused by the thought of visiting family.

[WVNan]

Lots of coincidences there eh? Oh, I'll see what I can find to contribute. I have pictures of our home there, but don't know if I can put my hands on them at will. BTW, hurricanes have never frightened me too much. Those of us who have lived in Fla. take them in stride unless they are an Andrew. However, Camille did bend those Miss. pines almost double. I'll never forget how I hit the floor and grabbed that new baby when that tree hit.

[petitfour]

That's funny. I think my grandma-in-law probably had headaches when she visited her family in TN, too. It may have had more to do with the roads they had to travel to get to her family. (East Tennessee mountains) I hate to go to Arkansas. The place gives me the creeps. Well, since I knew of the Big Creep, it has. I love travelling the country. Every place is unique, as are the people of all the various states.

I wasn't born at Baptist. Faith Hill was, and so was LeighAnn (sp?) Rimes. I'm a South Jackson girl.

[dixiechick2000]

Hattiesburg is the birthplace of Rock 'n' Roll, and Meridian is the home of Jimmy Rodgers, the Grandfather of Country Music.

My grandaddy played with his band, and my mother still has the ukelele he used at that time.

The Father of Country Music. That's a heavy load for a scrawny, tubercular ex-railroader who set out only to prove to the folks back home in Meridian, Mississippi, that he wasn't the shiftless no-count they all thought he was.

When Jimmie Rodgers arrived on the scene, there was no such thing as 'country music.' It was just beginning to be called 'hillbilly' - and whatever it was, Jimmie Rodgers wasn't much interested. He dressed in the latest uptown-style box-back coat, bow tie, and snappy straw boater and cultivated a broad repertoire which, at the outset at least, leaned decidedly in the direction of current hits from Tin Pan Alley: Who's Sorry Now?, I'll See You In My Dreams, How Come You Do Me Like You Do?, and similar pop fare of the 1920's.

From the beginning, however, Jimmie Rodgers was nothing if not versatile. Over the years, scuffling from town to town as an itinerant brakeman and would-be entertainer, he had absorbed the haunting blues music of his Southern upbringing and the rowdy, colorful ballads of railroaders and rounders all across the land. So, when he met up with a big-time record producer who wanted 'old-timey' folk songs, or original compositions that sounded like them, it was altogether natural that he turned to the simple, plaintive, often whimsical music sung and played among the ordinary people he'd known from childhood. "They want these old-fashioned things," he told his wife. "Love songs and plantation melodies and the old river ballads. Well, I'm ready with 'em. And I've got some new ideas for songs too, in the back of my head - when I get 'em worked out."

The new songs he called 'blue yodels.' They combined the raw energy of jazz and the poetry of the blues with that particularly rustic, home-spun vocal embellishment known as the yodel. Add a driving, eloquent guitar and Rodger's personal magnetism - the cocky little boy grin and the winsome drawl, along with a heady sense of someone who'd done hard-traveling and lived to tell about it - and you have the beginnings of country music, even if it didn't get it's proper name for another twenty years.

JIMMIE RODGERS