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"And praises be, that the Gulf of Mexico precludes a sixth state, to our south."
Got an hysterical call this afternoon, from a friend who'd just barely made it into the parking lot at the gym, alive. Apparently, it had been a harrowing experience driving from Madison to Flowood, with all the people zooming into town for the St. Patrick's Day events. Mostly tags from Mississippi's distant counties, plus Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama.
"You didn't have to wonder. Breakneck speed, while putting on makeup. Dayglo nail polish. 'Home-did' hair color. I had to put on my emergency flashers three times, to keep from being rear-ended. Once, I saw a woman looking up from whatever she was messing with in the passenger seat, see the flashing lights on my car, get an alarmed facial expression, and quickly slow down and stop. What kinda mileage does a tank get? That would save me, if some drunk rear-ended me: right?"
Somebody else sent me a pic of three portapotties strategically placed in front of smashed-in plate glass windows on the old Cadillac dealership. It is supposed that this is to keep drunks from falling through the broken windows. Photo was a classic vignette of the current state of Jacktown. However, I seem to have deleted it. But portapotties appear to be an important motif for Jackson's St. Patrick's Day celebrations. Some of the better floats supposedly feature them in their decor.
All the years we lived in the metro, none of us went to any of the St. Patrick's Day festivities. Always meant to, but more pressing matters always surfaced. By the time the boys were old enough to be 'Spud Studs', they had joined their big sister out here in Oregon.
Anyway, if anyone does go, this weekend, feel free to post up-to-the-minute reports here. Just please don't do so while you're driving...
Ah - Paddy Potties. What a concept! Up in Mountain View, AR where I spend some time there are actual 'Outhouse Races' so perhaps those folk driving in w/AR tags are looking for some of the same. Top a the Mornin' to all and hopefully a wonderful St. Paddy's Day Parade!
Now, now, Savage Chevelless! Saint Patrick's Day in Jackson is about inclusiveness and fun. We all know about the hate-fest celebrations in the Northeast, excluding Gays, etc. Not that I mind the personal attack at all (it was rather mild, compared what you said to that guy in Memphis, today). But really: everybody already knows I'm a Eugenics-loving Globalist Vampire, and generally awful person, without your needing to remind us. However, this thread is about what's going on in Downtown Jackson, today, and not about me.
I realize you're from North Jersey, where St. Patrick's Day probably has a different focus than it does in Jacktown. So, you must understand that everyone else regards the confluence of degenerates upon Downtown Jackson as being a positive thing. It's a vast improvement over the otherwise empty and vast stretches of Downtown concrete and vacant lots. So, when someone says 'degenerate' in this context, I think you should know that it's meant in a positive way, dear.
But It's so good to hear from you, again! I was so afraid you'd finally found that '69 Charger you were looking for ( 1969 Charger Rear Photo by traveler_1701 | Photobucket ), had taken it on that road trip to New Orleans, and had ended up impaled on the steering wheel column or something. Alternately, I feared that following a two-pound steak at Doe's Eat Place in Greenville, on that same planned road trip, you'd suffered either a heart attack or a fatal car-jacking.
But you're baaaaaaaaaack! ...apparently as cheery and helpful as you've always been. And I apologize for having thought you were a female, tearing around the countryside in a 'vintage' muscle car (I was picturing a spiked-up Mullet hairdo, dyed Canary Yellow, a sleeveless black t-shirt, and a tattoo of a heart, inscribed 'Dad'.) But I was wrong. You have a wife and everything (although, as a denizen of Portland, I'm supposed to be free of gender assumptions: so having a wife should not automatically mean you're a 'man' or anything...).
Anyway, you're just the kind of person who could give us real insight into the scene in Downtown Jacktown, today. Considering your knowledge of where to get the cheapest cigarettes and best steaks, and your connoisseurship of casinos and all, I'd figure you could give us some really cogent analysis of the group dynamic down there today.
And as someone who loves Memphis so much (but who seems to be looking for something in Olive Branch, away from the crime ... and you do realize I'm not implying you're a hypocrite or anything, don't you, dear?), I'd imagine you'd have a special take on the 'Vibe' in the throbbing metro that is Jackson. I mean, after all, anyone who owns TWO fabulous Chevelles must be a true bon vivant (I'll say it again: "Nothing says taste and class, louder than a '71 Chevelle SS!")
"And praises be, that the Gulf of Mexico precludes a sixth state, to our south."
Got an hysterical call this afternoon, from a friend who'd just barely made it into the parking lot at the gym, alive. Apparently, it had been a harrowing experience driving from Madison to Flowood, with all the people zooming into town for the St. Patrick's Day events. Mostly tags from Mississippi's distant counties, plus Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama.
"You didn't have to wonder. Breakneck speed, while putting on makeup. Dayglo nail polish. 'Home-did' hair color. I had to put on my emergency flashers three times, to keep from being rear-ended. Once, I saw a woman looking up from whatever she was messing with in the passenger seat, see the flashing lights on my car, get an alarmed facial expression, and quickly slow down and stop. What kinda mileage does a tank get? That would save me, if some drunk rear-ended me: right?"
Somebody else sent me a pic of three portapotties strategically placed in front of smashed-in plate glass windows on the old Cadillac dealership. It is supposed that this is to keep drunks from falling through the broken windows. Photo was a classic vignette of the current state of Jacktown. However, I seem to have deleted it. But portapotties appear to be an important motif for Jackson's St. Patrick's Day celebrations. Some of the better floats supposedly feature them in their decor.
All the years we lived in the metro, none of us went to any of the St. Patrick's Day festivities. Always meant to, but more pressing matters always surfaced. By the time the boys were old enough to be 'Spud Studs', they had joined their big sister out here in Oregon.
Anyway, if anyone does go, this weekend, feel free to post up-to-the-minute reports here. Just please don't do so while you're driving...
People coming into Jackson for the parade are expected to bring in around 6.4 million dollars to business in and around the city. Jackson needs all of the tourist that it can get.
People coming into Jackson for the parade are expected to bring in around 6.4 million dollars to business in and around the city. Jackson needs all of the tourist that it can get.
Dear Hannah! How many people are you expecting? I mean, if you brought in 64,000 people, they would still have to spend 100$ EACH! Family of four......400$!
Sounds to me like the politicians have been talking again.
I suspect that you are right about a politician coming up with those humorous numbers. I heard it on the local news channel wapt. They didn't say who fed them the numbers. I'm still trying to figure out why someone from out of state would come to our parade when I'm sure they had their own.
Dear Hannah! How many people are you expecting? I mean, if you brought in 64,000 people, they would still have to spend 100$ EACH! Family of four......400$!
Sounds to me like the politicians have been talking again.
Yep! And even if the events did (somehow) cause a $6,400,000.00 uptick in spending within the Metro, that doesn't mean the area actually PROFITED by that amount. An honest accounting would have to take into account all manner of little things like: Overtime for Police, Sanitation workers, Emergency Responders, Firemen (and categories, surely, with which I am unfamiliar); increased usage of sewer and water (those pennies add up fast); operating costs of vehicles involved, both public and private; labor costs for all those serving the throngs, both public and private...
One accident caused by drunks in town for the festivities, moreover, could easily (assuming two or three people sent to University Medical without enough insurance) run into the millions. Mending broken bodies, plus YEARS of follow-up care, are not things which come cheap. I have no idea how to put a price tag on someone's spending decades as a quadriplegic, or a previously productive person's facing a lifetime of coping with severe brain injuries. But those are common costs associated with speeding and driving drunk. I'm hearing that St. Patrick's Day visitors to the city are driving very aggressively, and probably while 'under the influence'.
And portapotties ain't exactly FREE. Whatever those cost, that amount needs to be deducted from the optimistically-derived 6.4 million.
On the other hand, the morale boost the city gets is of inestimable value. That is a huge plus. You can't put a price tag on a thing like that.
You know, most of the World has been trained by Big Media to believe that Mississippians: don't wear shoes (cowboy boots, maybe...); live in shacks (or, according to Neil Young, "tall white mansions"); spend their time whipping slaves, lynching slaves, handling snakes up in church, making moonshine, making babies with their close relatives, and going to Klan rallies. Movies show Mississippi as not having air conditioning. Mississippi men are shown walking around in wife-beater undershirts, with greasy hair combed-backwards, wearing baggy old khakis held up by suspenders.... sweating, of course....
The attention the Zippity do Dah and Mal's events draw to the city provides a rare antidote to the media poison heaped upon the state. Anyone who sees the YouTube vids of Jackson parades can see normal people having fun (without anybody burning crosses or waving snakes in the air, even). They can see that Mississippians are not all held in thrall by religious dogma - and that the races don't just coexist but actually enjoy interacting (exactly the opposite of the lies incessantly told by Mainstream Media and 'educators').
I think the cluster of events is a huge plus for the city(whether or not it is an economic wash). But what I'm hearing is that it is attracting a crowd which contains a high percentage of spoiled young people with overblown senses of entitlement. Too, it is attracting a high percentage of older people who never recovered from being spoiled young people with overblown senses of entitlement. Some people never grow up. All that is fine, not hurting a thing... until these groups get behind the wheel. When these people start driving aggressively and irresponsibly, they are putting the lives and livelihoods of others at risk.
I emailed around and asked friends in Madison. One said she got nearly to the Interstate on-ramp, but, "Big SUVs, self-important kids yakking on cell phones while riding my bumper. Every stoplight, I'm sitting there, wondering if they're actually TOUCHING my bumper. I don't see this sort of thing, normally, in Madison. It's like they're really practiced at being bullies. You know what school has a law school turning out bullies like that. I don't know if these are law students, or their daddies are attorneys living in Madison. But they're in town for that St. Patrick's Day mess., and they're MEAN: looking at me with these "What are you gonna do about it, lady" facial expressions. I just headed back to the house. Shopping can wait. Not worth it. Not going back out 'til Monday."
And another, "I figured I could avoid the drunks, by taking the Spillway to Flowood. There's construction on the Rankin County side... very slow-moving traffic. I get this olivey-beigey-greenish Lexus SUV riding my tail the whole way. Traffic is heavy, only two lanes, and moving slow. Every stop, they're nearly rear-ending me. They're so close, I can see them really well. I mean, they're practically up in my back seat. Very young couple, very well-groomed. Not the kind of people you usually see over there. Clearly, they're in town for Mal's Parade. You know in the remake of 'Carrie', the really blonde girl who dumps the pig blood on Carrie? Well, that's about what the girl in the passenger seat looked like. Finally, there's one last redlight, and it looks like their bumper is inches away from mine. I adjust my rearview mirrors to see if I can see just HOW FEW INCHES. Well, these two don't like that. 'Trey' is smirking at 'Misti', and they're laughing about it. Little Miss Perfect Blonde Princess gets this evil smile, and takes out her little notebook and jots down MY license number. MINE. Preemptive strike. You can tell this is something she does, anytime anybody challenges her aggression. I bet she's been getting people into trouble since third grade. I mean, we're talking Nanette Manoir, here. When did she learn how to do that? Is that sociopathic or psychopathic, or just plain narcissistic? And to think that the guy she's attached to is probably just as bad. Predators hunt in pairs... So, anyway, I've learned that Ridgewood is probably safer, when there's an event that draws the Ole Miss Crowd. You used-to could avoid them by going into Rankin County. But they're over there, now, too. And you can't take the Interstate, because of all the old drunk women from Tennessee and Arkansas, headed for Zippity do Dah."
Every time I visit back home (once every year or every two years) I drive around Jackson and down, and the way people at around rush hour drive is absolutely banana flakes. I've lived in six states and driven around their metros, and I've never seen such erratic driving behaviors. I can't imagine what it's like in route to a St. Patrick's Day celebration. The irony in it all is that some of those people don't have a speck of Irish in them, but want an excuse to party. I just wish younger people would get as jazzed up about things like Earth Day celebrations or flock in on weekends to volunteer to build H.F.H. houses as they do for partying. Fat chance of that. It's so funny to me to see kids get so jazzed up about getting plastered, yet they barely remember what they did afterward.
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