Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
I went for a cup of coffee in a hotel on Main Street and bought a copy of the local daily
paper, the Commercial Dispatch (“Mississippi's Most Progressive Newspaper”). It was an
old fashioned paper with a banner headline across eight columns on page one that said
TAIWANESEBUSINESSGROUPTOVISITGOLDENTRIANGLEAREA,andbeneath
that a crop of related single-column subheadings all in different sizes, typefaces and de-
grees of coherence:
Visitors Are Looking At Opportunities For Investment
AS PART OF TRADE MISSION
Group to Arrive in Golden Triangle Thursday
STATE OFFICIALS COORDINATE VISIT
All the stories inside suggested a city ruled by calmness and compassion: “Trinity Place
Homemakers Give Elderly a Helping Hand,” “Lamar Landfill Is Discussed,” “Pickens
School Budget Adopted.” I read the police blotter. “During the past 24 hours,” it said, “the
Columbus Police Department had a total Of 34 activities.” What a wonderful place-the po-
lice here didn't deal with crimes, they had activities. According to the blotter the most ex-
citing of these activities had been arresting a man for driving on a suspended license. Else-
where in the paper I discovered that in the past twenty-four hours six people had died-or
had death activities, as the police blotter might have put it-and three births had been recor-
ded. I developed an instant affection for the Commercial Dispatch (which I rechristened in
my mind the Amalgam Commercial Dispatch) and for the town it served.
I could live here, I thought. But then the waitress came over and said, “Yew honestly a
breast menu, honey?” and I realized that it was out of the question. I couldn't understand a
word these people said to me. She might as well have addressed me in Dutch. It took many
moments and much gesturing with a knife and fork to establish that what she had said to
me was “Do you want to see a breakfast menu, honey?” In fact I had been hoping to see a
lunch menu, but rather than spend the afternoon trying to convey this notion, I asked for a
Coca-Cola,andwasenormouslyrelievedtofindthatthisdidnotelicitanysubsidiaryques-
tions.
Itisn'tjusttheindistinctness withwhichSoutherners speakthat makes itsodifficult tofol-
low, it's also the slowness. This begins to get to you after a while. The average Southerner
has the speech patterns of someone slipping in and out of consciousness. I can change my
shoes and socks faster than most people in Mississippi can speak a sentence. Living there
would drive me crazy. Slowly.
