Salon - - regards from south mississippi

kathleen · #1 10-21-2001, 01:35 AM

regards from rural south mississippi . . .

1) "the old homeplace", built in 1850's, grandma came here as 19 yr old bride of 45 yr old grandpa. mom born in room front right. place of enchantment and wonder to yankee city kid. (me) step for mounting horse under r side roof; dutch door also in r front room. had to get water from pump to l, not seen here. place in kitchen floor lifted up to throw scraps to chickens. how cool is that. only lived in occasionally now by a cousin.

2)downtown. cotton gin. used to be 5 in the county. now long defunct.

3)more downtown. st peter's catholic church. pretty big irish catholic population. it looks like a currier & ives card @ christmas - they festoon with garlands, wreaths, bows. hope to make a card of it someday

4)also downtown. general store, woodfloors. overalls, groceries, rakes, hoes, dress patterns, tin washtubs, at least the last time i was in there.

5)my house. built 1983. to l is my "chair tree". to r, garden arch my dad helped me build. on part of the land that once belonged to grandma.

i realized putting these together i tend to take pictures of houses or structures more than nature. but here, it's hard to see the forest for the trees. the dirt here is red clay, sometimes almost purple, stains your clothes beyond help from clorox. lots of green, lots of trees, wildflowers now and spring. i love it. thanks for letting me share it.

thomasgeorge · #2 10-21-2001, 05:35 AM

Cool Photo's. Seeing all the green trees and such reminds me there are colors other than brown. Love the house and cotton gin! Must be a lot of history down your way! Tom

Ed_L · #3 10-21-2001, 05:54 AM

Nice photos Kathleen. The old homeplace looks to be in excellent shape, having been built in the 1850's. That looks like a great place to raise kids. Who's the youngster in the photo?

Ed

kathleen · #4 10-21-2001, 08:32 AM

hey tom,

your comment about history made me smile; i considered including a picture of the local cemetary, to which we made countless trips in my childhood. the oral traditions there handed down, who was mean, who was a good cook, who came from where when and such. some of the "great-greats" drove turkeys here from about 70 mi. nw of here. not a cattle drive, a turkey drive. not cowboys, turkey boys. don't usually see them in marlboro ads.

re green: i spent some time in tucson a while back; @ first cold to the whole sw motif and look of the place; it took less than a week for it to "get to me", the sky the sky the sky, piercing brilliant blues, and the air was so different. i had pangs on leaving.

hey ed, the house is in good shape. has great old heart pine floors and doors, solid. the front used to be separated from the back by about a 4 ft breezeway so if the kitchen burned down, it was separate from the rest, another enchanting feature to a kid. wasn't quite as enchanted by no bathroom. there is one now, don't remember when it got there. and the breezeway's closed in now. the child is my niece, annie; attempted to give her the sense of place we had as kids. i think they think it's magic too.

i hope we get to see lots and lots of places here.

DJ Dubovsky · #5 10-21-2001, 09:06 AM

So that's where you're from. Love the pictures and I know Sam will be thrilled to know her idea has taken root. Beautiful area there Kathleen. You even gave us a good family history too. I guess we will have to start digging up the ole homestead photos and keep this going.
DJ

Sam · #6 10-22-2001, 05:33 AM

Well done, Kathleen, for being the first to bare your soul (as it were)!!

Your pics are great - it looks really idyllic there - lovely, leafy trees & cosy houses.

Loved the bit about the turkey drive - I had a great picture in my mind of a very s-l-o-w and somewhat noisy progress ...!

kathleen · #7 10-22-2001, 12:33 PM

thanks sam and dj for your kind words; the history of this place and my family, while fascinating to me, are prob. not so much to others; hope i didn't go overboard.

and mostly i hope to see lots more threads of this is where I live

DJ Dubovsky · #8 10-22-2001, 12:49 PM

Guess we'll have to all start checking our photo albums.

DJ

Chris W. · #9 10-22-2001, 01:23 PM

Love the trees Kathleen.

Your house looks like the house I'd like someday...is it a log cabin type structure?

Nice downtown store....a little bigger than our local store...and it sounds like it is a little more stocked as well.

Enjoy seeing your place and the surroundings!

kathleen · #10 10-22-2001, 01:34 PM

dj-
get to it, girlfriend

chris-
it's cedar, board and batten. 1200 sq ft, basically one room down,1/2bath, 2 up, bath. plenty for me. wouldn't do just one big room downstairs again, though.

i have wondered when you described your area if it wasn't similar to mine.

re the stores, reckon they are a chain? hehehe.

i love the trees too. don't think i could live without them.

DJ Dubovsky · #11 10-22-2001, 04:04 PM

I'll see what I can do but you don't know boring until you see where I live.

DJ

kathleen · #12 10-22-2001, 05:51 PM

deej,

i very much doubt it would be boring to see where you live, but if you really thought so, then send pix of something around you that you think is interesting. welcome to my milieu , doncha know. (i get paid .50 for using big words)

DJ Dubovsky · #13 10-22-2001, 06:26 PM

Gave it a shot but no matter how small or how low a res I tried I kept getting the message that the file was too big. I kept trying to make it smaller and even saved it to web but I couldn't upload it and I know it was much lower than the amount alloted not to mention the photo became so pixelated it looked awful. I finally said @*&!!&%$#! and gave up. Sorry, guess it ain't gonna happen.
DJ