Sigh …

I have never felt so nostalgic, in a bluesy way. Where shall I begin?

You see it is all about Mississippi. Yes, the mass located between Alabama and New Orleans, you remember, don’t you? Mississippi, the little piece of red dirt and piney woods tucked between a river and the gulf. Mississippi, known as the backyard of Faulkner and front porch of Welty, yes, that’s the one.

What has happened?

True, we are known today as Red, Right, Republicans, but it was not too long ago that we were thought of as Blue, Dog, Democrats. We believe in the Good Book, stand for the American Flag and Love Our Neighbors, even when they are not loveable. I mean we don’t have to “like-em,” but “love-em.”

Where have we, dear Mississippians, gone wrong? Or has the world gone wrong? I think the latter.

It seems we can sum it all up with the words of a song:

Meanwhile Back at Mama’s (in part)

Performed by Tim McGraw & Faith Hill

Well I found a girl and we don’t fit in here

Talk about how hard it is to breathe here

Even with the windows down can’t catch a southern breeze here

One of these days gonna pack it up and leave here

‘Cause meanwhile back at Mama’s

The porch light’s on, come on in if you wanna

Supper’s on the stove and beer’s in the fridge

Red sun sinkin’ out low on the ridge

Southern breezes, life is sweet and easy here – oh, we have problems, but hey, supper is on the stove and beer (or sweet tea) in the fridge and that red sun is sinking low on the ridge. You know life is temporary here, but remember we’re just passing through. We are pilgrims searching for eternity. I vote to make the journey peaceful and as meaningful as possible. Like, don’t sweat the small stuff.

But it is the big stuff that will get my attention. As you can probably ascertain, I am trying to calm myself. That’s what I do, I write, especially when someone has stumbled along into my little corner of the world, with their fangs all exposed.

As a tax base, Mississippi is small but as an entitlement base, we are huge. We struggle to make ends meet but we do not deny those with needs. I have never read about a more generous state. Locally our volunteer/charity groups seem to outnumber the population and that’s not counting the churches. And we are not just community-bound with our giving. We participate with world-wide efforts such as the Samaritan’s Purse initiative plus mission work (medical needs, building schools, digging wells, buying goats and farm animals, providing farm implements) which has included all corners of the world.

As said by the main character, Abilene, in the movie, The Help (set in Mississippi). “You is kind, you is smart, you is important.” And I will add that as well we are generous people, but it was what happened this week that made me snarl (and I’m not easy to snarl, really.)

Can you believe the Biloxi School District has banned the South’s, no, indeed, probably the world’s most beloved novel from its curriculum? Yes, “To Kill a Mockingbird” has been deleted from the school’s eighth-grade reading list, period. And why was it pulled, because the style of the language used made some students “uncomfortable.”

Come on, the book, written in the 1930s, has for decades taught a powerful lesson about one little girl’s awareness of a community’s racial injustice and how this child, with great compassion and courage, made a positive difference. It is good stuff, however the hang up is the language used which is on point for the time. I am sure you will agree that the lesson taught is desperately needed today.

And then, a so-called celebrated, New York born writer, who claims to be an atheist, made a snarky remark about Mississippi. You can read all about it in Marshall Ramsey’s Oct. 19 column in the Clarion-Ledger. I choose not to repeat it in my column.

My dear, dear Mississippians please continue to walk the high-road, with head held high. We’re OK and we are headed in the right direction.

Anne McKee is a Mississippi historian, writer and storyteller. She is listed on the Mississippi Humanities Speakers Bureau and Mississippi Arts Commission’s Performing Artist and Teaching Artist Rosters. See her website: www.annemckeestoryteller.com.