Oxford, Mississippi
One of the prettiest towns you'll ever come across.
It's not a trick...They named it after Oxford, England as part of a successful effort to have the University of Mississippi located in the town.
Ole Miss was founded there in 1848. Bones (not the actor :) ) from Star Trek is an alum, John Grisham, Charlie's Angle Kate Jackson...the school's produced three Miss America's...
and of course William Faulkner was a student there.
The school also produced The University Greys*, Company A of the 11th Mississippi Infantry...only 4 students showed up for class in 1861 after secession.
The other 135, along with much of the faculty, enlisted. They suffered 100% casualties during the war...that's everybody either killed or wounded. Got farther than anybody during Pickets Charge...and paid dearly for it. Gen Barksdale was killed on the second day of the battle leading his men from the front. One dumbfounded yankee was overheard saying "we don't have officers like that." Damn right they didn't...they were past-masters in burning and raping things...and slaughtering Indians though.
Ole Miss is a fine academic institution but, more importantly it's the home of The Ole Miss Rebels**...founding members of the SEC. It's been about 60 years since they were dominant force on the field....but, off the field, in The Grove, they're still champs.
"Don't win many football games but, they've never lost a party." ***
Lots of music around Oxford. It's the home of Fat Possum Records...R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough territory. The Silver Jews and Modest Mouse have recorded records there...Johnny Marr used to have a house there.
Books...Books and more Books...
Square Books is annually rated as one of the best privately owned bookstores in the country (along with Lemuria in Jackson...we are book lovers)...it's even too big for one store...
It's just a pretty place.
Grenada (that's Gre-nay-duh in Mississippi) is not really that pretty of a place but, I like it all the same. Had business in Kosciusko...so I stayed there Wed. night.
I ate my supper here...
Looks great...sorriest BBQ I ever had south of the Ohio River...pulled pork straight from a bucket. I've had better pork in a school cafeteria...place should be shutdown by the cops.
Should've eaten here...
or maybe here...
Anywhere but High on the Hog.
Anyway fortunately I made it home in time to see this...
Next week...Baton Rouge.
*That's GrEys...we spelled words correctly down here until after the war. Evidently a part of being reconstructed was learning a peculiar New England way of spelling English words.
**Let's not go there for now.
*** Sorry Jenny Q, Sister...I'll make it up to you after my next trip to Starkville.
"I'll make it up to you after my next trip to Starkville."
ReplyDeleteAnd how might you do that? Is there anything worth saying about that hole? 'Cause I'm pretty sure there's nothing within 10 square miles of S'ville worth photographing. Unless, I reckon, you happen to have the ability to photoshop a few picks, bring the standards of S'ville from "hole" to "below average."
Hotty-Toddy! :)
Ohhhhh...you mean, some
I guess this is unavoidable...half the readers will see some pretty pictures and have little to say.
ReplyDeleteThe other half will be at one another's throats...at least I hope so.
That said, aside from the occasional hard-to-find tome on the works of Faulkner, y'all can have Square Books. A more self-satisfied, self-righteous and downright priggish bunch of folk (i.e., owners, operators, etc.) I've seldom witnessed.
ReplyDeleteI once applied for a job there. One is given a literature "test." Which, as far as it goes, is alright with me. But I was clueless on at least half of the questions...only to later discover that these "literary greats" were...um, well, among the likes of Thoreau, Emerson, UPTON SINCLAIR (!!!)...
I said, "Well g*dd*amn...I did fine with Faulkner, Welty, Shakespeare..."
But apparently not well enough. And I quite obviously hold a grudge. :)
Just keep in mind y'all that this is a fella who thinks that makin' grits with half and half is puttin' on airs and who gives philosophy lectures with snuff in his mouth.
ReplyDeleteUpton Sinclair?...seriously?
Scoreboard.
ReplyDeleteShe's got a point.
ReplyDeleteLooks pretty, just what I'd want to see from a lil' town over there.
ReplyDeleteHey is that store like Black Books then? Do you guys have that TV show? We have one called bookends in Carlisle, sorta fits both yours and Allans description, depending what angle you are looking at it from.
Haven't seen that one...and of course, it's doubtful they'd ever make a tv show about a bookstore in Mississippi :)...despite the fact that most literature sections are half filled with Mississippi authors.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny you talkin' about what you'd expect to see over here...and Oxford is like that to a hyper extent*...the graduate school that I went to was built to look like Cambridge for the most part.
First week we had a tour of the place. There was a big group of English students and almost to a man they spent the whole time complaining that they wanted to see something American.
There was one big colonial style building that we passed by without comment...every one of them stopped.
*As the Sister is quick to point out...once you leave the square it has the same highways and strip malls of every other town. This is a little more sensitive subject than y'all might expect.
Carlisle is very similar, its sort retained some flavour of an old Northern Town in places, but then such a lot got lost to the same crap that is cut and pasted from every town in the country.
ReplyDeleteThey recently tore down the Victorian public baths in Carlisle to put in a Pizza Hut, and PC world. Last month the big Gym outside town went bust, so now we have no swimming pool in the city.
I dunno what to say really? People want a PC world and a Piza hut, but we lost a pretty unique building for it. When does the immediate wants and demands of the people, actually end up destroying more than its worth? The fickle and slippery wants and demands of individuals, you can be sure the self same people will be ranting about the destruction of the historic city in the papers next week, and the the week after grumpin gabout the lack of decent Mulitplex facilites or something, but then who dictates when we this gets ignored, and when they have a point? Are people just unable to manage, or come to terms with their own expectations and the compromises, or perhaps balances is a better word, that inevitably have to be made in almost every part of life?
That should say historic baths in Lancaster, not Carlisle.
ReplyDeleteSorry bit of a random musing session there /-:
Random musing is encouraged here...it's what we love most.
ReplyDeleteThat's where space becomes a great asset...pick a direction...there's bound to be a few acres.
'Course we don't really have that problem too much around here...most everything older than 1864 was burned to the ground (as the sign tells).
^^ Thats barely English though, for which I apologise. You can tell I'm skiving at work, and managers keep poking their damn heads in, and interrupting me mid stream!
ReplyDeleteI half wrote a post on this, then left it for months as I keep forgetting to take the picture I need of the weirdness that took the old bus stations place.