Tag Archives: Mississippi

The Hana Chronicles: Month 9, Day 27

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Posted by on in children, Community, Family, Historical, Personal Values, Social, Striving, Travel

October 18, 2026- Hana is starting to mimic sounds. When her mother made a mooing sound, after putting a pair of cow-print pants on her, Hana made her own mooing sound. This afternoon, on our neighbourhood walk to find Halloween displays, we passed a front yard with six witch figures. I let out a cackle and Hana made her own cackling sound. She laughs heartily, when someone mimics her babbling.

My granddaughter continues to show interest in the framed photos in my common area. She was delighted to see one of her parents at their civil wedding of November, 2018. That ceremony, in Guam, was what made it easier for Yunhee to get her Green Card, as it was performed on U.S. soil. Hana is thankfully very careful, when handling the pictures.

HANA’S NOTE- Papa takes me on some pretty long walks in the stroller. We are finding new connections between our neighbourhood and some others that seem far away. I usually fall asleep on the way back.

EXPANDING CIRCLES: Mississippi- The Magnolia State shares its namesake’s final course towards the Gulf of Mexico, with Louisiana, until their border takes a sharp right-hand turn, just south of Point Breeze. Louisiana then has the Father of Waters all to itself, the rest of the way.

I have made seven visits to “the Sip”, as the home folks sometimes call it. I first passed through in 1987, on a bus between Atlanta and New Orleans. Our stops at Meridian, Jackson, Hattiesburg and Biloxi were fairly short. In 2000, Aram and I stopped for lunch in Jackson, and toured Vicksburg National Military Park. My solo road trips took me along the coast in 2015 and 2022, and to various spots in the interior on other cross country jaunts. I’ve found nothing but heartfelt hospitality here, from both Black and White folks. Paying homage to Emmitt Till, Fannie Lou Hamer and the three Civil Rights workers who were killed in Philadelphia, MS (1964) did not make me suspicious to anyone. People mostly are trying to rise above the limitations of the past.

The turf- Most of the Magnolia State is flat riparian plain. The northeast is a region of rolling hills, and piney woods. Mississippi is drained by the Mississippi, Pearl, Tombigbee, Pascagoula, Leaf, Tallahatchee and Yazoo Rivers, as well as their tributaries.

First Nations- Mississippi is the ancestral home of the Choctaw, Quapaw, Chickasaw, Natchez, Houma, Tunica, Biloxi and Ofo peoples. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw, descended from those who refused to leave their homeland during the Trail of Tears, in 1830-32, is the only Federally-recognized Native American entity in the state. All others were relocated, in the Jacksonian Era. (Prior to Andrew Jackson’s campaign of relocation, the Choctaw sold 4.5 million acres of land to the U. S. Government, under the terms of the Treaty of Mount Dexter {1805}.) The Natchez have returned since, and have a significant community at Grand Village.

Where I most feel at home- Ocean Springs, Waveland, Tupelo, Ruleville, Vicksburg, Corinth

Where I most feel at peace- Corinth, Ruleville, Natchez Trace

NEXT: We head back up to the states of the Central Great Lakes region- starting with Indiana.

A Child Is A Child

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Education, Family, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 19, 2021- I have friends and family, on both sides of the Chasm, when it comes to discussions of race. Just so we’re clear, I am dead set against ANY policy or action that limits or prevents a person from following his/her life plan-so long as that plan does not itself involve limiting or preventing another person from following theirs.

It started, in a sense, with Emmett Till. When he was killed, I was four. An older cousin saw the news on TV and commented: “That is just plain SICK!” I asked what was sick and he told me that a kid, not much older than he, was killed by some crazy people in a place called Mississippi. I knew that name, because the older girls in the neighbourhood spelled it out while jumping rope. It bothered me, from that time on, that adults would kill a child.

As time went on, I witnessed and experienced all types of adult behaviour towards children-mostly good, but some very wicked things as well. I was, thankfully, never beaten or abused-but I knew plenty of boys and girls who were.

Growing up in a mostly White town, I saw and heard people of all ages-including some of my mates, express hostility towards people of other racial groups. In fairness, they were just as caustic towards people of other European ethnicities. I never felt such animosity towards anyone, but as the saying goes, “You stand in chalk, you inhale the dust.” It took time in the Army and frank discussions with people of other backgrounds, in which I chose to listen more than talk, for me to truly understand their experiences.

It is the duty of adults to teach teens in the ways of maturity. Maturity, as my father explained to me, means not rushing furiously into a situation, unprepared and likely overmatched. Now, we see what happens when the reverse is true. Kyle Rittenhouse went into battle, in his own mind, against an imagined foe that he barely understood, and of whose diversity he was completely ignorant. Someone in his life owed him a hand of restraint- not a violent hand, but a firm one.

Like many people in adolescence, he seemed to think he was capable of rising to the occasion and fending off those who had trouble in mind. Ironically, it was not the thugs on the periphery of the social justice movement whom he faced down, that awful night. It was three grown men, who likely fancied themselves allies of that movement, coming at him, a boy of 17.

I question how he was able to bring an AR15 with him, when the minimum age for BUYING such a weapon is 18. Yet, there it was, in his hands, after who knows how much training and practice he had been given in its use. Even people in the military, who are, with rare exceptions, 18 and over, have to have a minimum of eight weeks of training in the handling, use and maintenance of firearms, especially automatic weapons. Kyle should not have been there alone. Adults should have been with him, and then as a force of restraint.

There is, additionally, the research into the maturation of the human brain. The brain is not completely formed until the age of 25, if then. I look back on myself, in my teens and twenties, and sometimes shudder that I am still alive- my parents’ best efforts to raise me aside.

We are, however, in a crisis of adulthood when, once again, people at the street level are left trying to explain to the wider society why People of Colour are frustrated and angry-while not exactly hearing the voices of reason from those above them, in the halls of power. We are in a crisis of adulthood when a child is castigated in the court of public opinion, publicly coddled by a sitting judge and probably just as confused as he was on that awful night. We are in a crisis of adulthood when the voices of the nation’s leadership use vitriol, rather than step back, breathe deeply and foster healing. We are in a crisis of adulthood, when we just go back to the same sides, across the Chasm, that led us here in the first place.

A good-hearted, gentle family member remarked this evening that she just wants to see love for everyone. She is a conservative Christian. I am a gadfly, who leans progressive, in most matters. My sentiments, though, are the same.

A child is a child; raise him (her)!