Breathing old air

“Somewhere in Mississippi,” I intended to write Saturday night, but after leaving Parrish, Fla., around 10 a.m. and stopping in Laurel, Miss., around midnight, tired overcame me.

Priscilla and I were going to Texarkana to get her brother John for Thanksgiving and likely all of December. The end date depends on doctors’ decision concerning John’s clogged carotid artery – surgical or chemical cleaning. We hope doctors do not decide on surgery.

History, not John’s medical condition, is the point of this writing.

Big green road signs announce the nearness of Mississippi towns. Laurel, Hattiesburg, Jackson, Philadelphia. If you are around 60 or older, you might remember those towns from black and white TV news stories. Bad things happened in those towns and in other towns in other states – Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana.

Laurel, Hattiesburg and Philadelphia were location slugs on more newspaper stories than in TV broadcasts.

The names don’t go away. You remember.

There was one other sign, a brown sign noting a nearby park as we drove west on the four-lane highway. Ross Barnett Reservoir, the sign proclaimed. If you look on-line, you will see a sign at the reservoir site: Barnett Reservoir.

Maybe a reminder of which Barnett the lake is named for is too remindful of a previous Mississippi.