A visit to the Bible Belt

In a 48 time period, I'm getting to vist 4 more airports. My favorite so far is Dallas and my least favorite is Jackson. Jackson doesn't have wireless, which is why I am writing this instead of working. There's a Business Center at one end of the terminal; I went to it hopefully, praying for an internet connection. Instead I was confronted with two desks, on top of which sat two cream-colored rotary phones. The only business I could think to conduct was low-level drug deals, so I decided instead to go sulk on a very roomy seat. My first flight is now delayed 2 hours, meaning I will again be traveling for a minimum of 12 hours. I did the same thing yesterday.

My only consolation in Mississippi has been the food. (Clearly, based on the size of my ass, this is my consolation for most things.) I've had fried chicken drenched in a honey glaze, fried green tomatoes with crawfish, blackened green beans, red skin mashed potatoes, biscuits and gravy, crawfish eggrolls and a bananas foster bread pudding. My bag is filled with praline pecans, of both the standard and whiskey drenched variety. My lunch today was with a few locals that I was meeting for work-related reasons. As our food was arriving, one asked, "Do you mind if I bless our food?" I was struck dumb, and one of my co-workers quickly replied "we don't mind at all." I was forced to bow my head and give thanks for my lunch. Luckily, it was a lunch to be thankful for, as it consisted of a blue plate special with chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, butter beans and cornbread. Blessing things is kind of what Mississippi is like.

This was the Bible Belt. Churches dotted the landscape: Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian. Along the side of the road people dressed in loudly striped pants and wearing shirts that proclaimed "CONVICT" picked up bits of garbage. For some reason, it's only in very religious locals that chain gangs seem like a good idea. Large signs proclaiming statements about 'The Lord' hung proudly in places of business and quickly began to make me uncomfortable.

One of my co-workers who was with me said "half-Jew? You've got it easy. At least you aren't brown." I realized he had a point as I watched him get searched at the security checkpoint at each leg of our trip.

When they finally told us that our flight out of Jackson to Dallas might be cancelled, we scrambled for flights out of Mississippi. We ran to the ticket counter, trying to beat the rush of people that were sure to follow once they heard the news. We asked to go anywhere--any major city that might allow us to get back to California. The only response we got was "Lafayette? Want to go to Lafayette?" We finally realized we weren't going anywhere unless through Dallas and worried that we'd have to spend another night there.

As we sat dejectedly at the (one) airport bar, I remembered the source of entertainment and and fried delicacies that I had seen at each major intersection in Mississippi. Finally, as my co-worker tapped furiously on his Blackberry and finished another Jack Daniels and Coke, I suggested "let's just call it a wash and go to Hooter's." And so closed my first trip to the Deep South.