Seadory

I just looked-up the demographics of the little town with the cute houses. STELLAR! Unreal, actually. So, the low prices can't be because people are fleeing nasties.

Natchez has elected a different mayor. I'm astonished. There's hope for the town. Actually, the people are really nice. It's an isolated area, now. I've written about it in City-data posts. Nice microclimate (for the South), & the Loess soil is a gardener's dream. Basically, it's the same dirt that makes the land in Iowa so valuable, washed down the Mississippi, & piled in huge drifts. The vegetation around Natchez is beautiful. But the houses are NOT CHEAP. There was a beautiful 1920s limestone BANK, that we considered buying as a townhouse for weekends. At the time, it was maybe 90 thousand. Would have been great, except where would you park? & why would we have been spending weekends in a town where everybody is basically a delusional do-nothing? Aspen and Malibu are more our speed.

Danes, Finns, and Norwegians all did their part. Considering that the war was barely won, each contributor to the effort could truthfully say, "If not for us, the war would have been lost." However, considering that the Western Democracies' governments are giving those nations away, to people far worse than the Nazis, and the cloak of darkness is about to descend, forever, over the world, all those sacrifices now seem pointless. I know I'm only supposed to worry about the good of my own little group. But I hate to see Western Civilization on the brink of extinction. It would have meant the extinction of my own little tribe, but I cannot help but wonder if it wouldn't have been better, for intelligent Humanity as a whole, had the Nazis won.

The nice thing about Elk Horn (aside from the cute houses and hot Danish farmers) is that it's between Omaha and Des Moines. Neither is particularly far away. Omaha is a REALLY fun town, if you ask me. Des Moines was a complete heaven, until Governor Vilsack deliberately (in order to gain status within the Democratic Party) imported inner city criminals from the East Coast. Now, it's got problems. But it's a lovely city. I associate Ohio with the Mob. But having friends there would make it much more attractive. Horrible what your friend had to endure in L.B..

And speaking of Elk Horn, look at these BARGAINS!!! Elk Horn Sadly, the same people who're ruining California are also moving to the Midwest - and everywhere else, including Connecticut. But actual Iowans are the sweetest people on Earth. Danish Iowans are even nicer. (and I don't have to tell you what sort of hidden assets Danish men have going on). We spotted some real beauts. But even when sun damage and extra pounds ruin their looks, they've still got .... well.... I'd rather date a sixty-five-year-old Dane, than a nineteen-year-old Mayan...

If you don't mind a town with Natchez' demographics (Incl. Mayor), then Jackson-proper might not be bad. Here's a house in Woodland Hills, that has gotten the best of everything, for decades. Top architects - top decorator - most recent architect is now doing homes for The Band Perry & other Nashville royalty (he did the master bath addition & other areas with Gothic woodwork.) All this, for under a million, & it's within the 'Fab Fondren' district: 229 RIDGE DR - Listing # 275106 - Jackson MISSISSIPPI - The Overby Company You can tell by the pattern-on-pattern-on-pattern decor, that the owners are major intellectuals (& rich, & very secure in their social position - his mom was "the only real lady in Jackson, back before nice people started moving in from the rest of the state.").

I just looked at Devil's Hopyard. AMAZING!!! So beautiful! Gilette Castle looks pretty interesting, too.

We DID consider New England. Our sons, with their aversion to women wearing makeup, like 'That Vermont/New Hampshire Look'. I'll have to take a look at Devil's Hopyard. Have you considered Elkhorn, Iowa? We know a design oracle, who flew to Des Moines, to hook up with a giant Polish bodybuilder. But an epic Midwest thunderstorm gave him a splitting headache (big drop in barometric pressure), so that didn't pan out. Instead, he had to pull off the road to Omaha, & thus discovered Elkhorn. Danish people, cute town. So, my Decorator & I went there, & fell in love with the place, too. (Design oracle flew, later, to Omaha, where the giant lives. They DID finally hook up. Not the enduring love they'd hoped for, but the chemistry was AMAZING for 1/2-hour. Also, I think Oracle racked-up a giant Belgian, a hunky Czech, a gorgeous German, & passed on a diminutive Dane, a too-sweet-Sioux, and several other Gay Rodeo attendees. Persistence pays.)

The schools there are unbelievably top-heavy. Administrators out the wazoo, pulling down ridiculous salaries, consultants on astonishing retainers... And that's in addition to athletics programs which suck all the money out of the schools. Yes: there is a completely self-serving 'establishment' in Mississippi Education, which has largely replaced the relatively earnest and caring establishment, which was beginning to go, when I was in school. The new 'establishment' is very much into fancy cars, fancy clothes, and fancy restaurants for having 'meetings', where they suck on ribs and cocktails. And there's always a scandal about some coach carrying on with one or many students.

Have you seen the news stories concerning the schools in the Delta? There was a HUGE scandal, last year, about enormous kickbacks in the Greenville School District (as in 25% of gross, which is just astonishing - normally, you rake off one or two percent - or less). And now, Clarksdale, I think, has a standardized tests cheating scandal going on. And there's always a scandal somewhere in the state, involving the schools. But anyway, it's somehow the white folks' fault, for fleeing. They're long-gone - been gone for decades - but somehow this is their fault, anyway.

I wonder if that's the same elephant trainer with whom the future Debutante Chairwoman's mother ran-off. The (probably slanderous) story is that Deb leader's mother ran off with the circus elephant trainer. And when she returned home, she had the baby. I doubt that's true. The woman supposedly was a real-life Margaret Drysdale.

So it's the bootlegger that this Garza character finds implausible? Maybe he didn't grow up in a dry county... Who would he THINK would be in the back seat, counting the money? An accountant? I figured he'd read my tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd... Or my Alligator Question post...