Update

I’m nearing the end of the Trace and I’m feeling a bit sad about it.  I’ve enjoyed drifting south with the weather.  The trees are pretty nearly all leafed out, azaleas are in full bloom, wisteria is beautiful and regarded as a near weed and crops are starting to be planted.

The earth really is red, at least in places, some people really do say “ lil ol “ this or that and Beaureard, Piccit ( I think that’s spelled wrong) and Burnside are well-respected names.  Some days I’ve seen more horses than people.

And I’ve finally found some black people.  There are surprisingly few on streets or in shops and jobs that would be held by blacks or latinos in MN are held by white people.  I have seen a few black people holding public works type jobs but they must work and live someplace and I’ve been looking.

Well, there was to be a rhythm and blues festival in a near town so I decided to go.  The town is about 1500 people and I think all of them and their friends and family were there.  Parking no longer existed and the streets were barely one car wide.  I may have tried harder to find a spot if I’d seen even one other white person.  I didn’t feel unsafe, just very strange.

I’ve been at gay gatherings and we fit together differently when we know its us.  When somebody that is clearly an outsider appears, they aren’t treated badly, it’s more of a knowing kind of tolerance that they don’t really belong, that this time, they are the outsider.  That’s what that gathering felt like to me.  The kind of look that I would have given an outsider is the kind of looks I saw directed toward me.  I thought I understood, so I left and simply drove around.

In driving, I went through several small towns that were not on my road map.  Actually most of the roads aren’t on the map either.  Nearly all the people I saw in those little towns were black.  In many cases the roads were in poor shape.  Some I think have only been patched since they were first paved maybe 40 years ago.  Many of the houses looked poor though there was a sprinkling of efficient looking small ranches; there are no attached garages here. Regardless of how poor a place looked, in Mississippi it was usually neat and tidy, unlike some other states where poor and heaps of trash seem to be tied together.

There are parts I have not explored and I am not ready to count this state as done.  Maybe in a couple more weeks when I finally leave it I will however not just yet.  There’s still the coast, a plantation or two and I may even risk visiting a city!