Week of August 9th – Mississippi

You probably already noticed that I skipped a week in between states here. We were getting ready to go on vacation so there wasn’t much time to celebrate. But true to the cause we picked our next state and planned on taking our Mississippi celebration on the road. (Although the reality is, the Magnolia State was bound to be a little shorted.)

In honor of Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets and native Mississippian, I thought about getting myself the “Tickle Me Elmo” that I’ve wanted since they first came out with them but I had spent more than enough time in Walmart just stocking the frig of the rented condo so Elmo would have to wait for another holiday season.

When you ask a Mississippi native what exemplifies their state, apparently the answer you’ll get is Catfish, Cotton & the Blues. I don’t have any blues on my iPod but as luck would have it; my son’s friend was fully stocked with B. B. King & Muddy Waters. Enough for at least one of our boating outings. Although Muddy Waters is usually associated with the Chicago blues, he is in fact from the Deep South.

Just to guarantee that all bases were covered, Elvis (Tupelo, MS) and Jimmy Buffet (Pascagoula, MS) dominated the playlist for yet another of our boating outings. Unfortunately our Mississippi celebration week fell 1 day short of the 33rd anniversary of Elvis’ death.

Left to my own devises (including a laptop) one afternoon I decided to see what would happen if I searched under “Magnolia” on the Etsy site. Big mistake! You’d be surprised how many fun treasures you can find under the guise of a southern flower. A couple of hours later and I had 2 new “Magnolia” treasures to add to my collection of hand-crafted jewelry. Almost better than fresh magnolia blossoms for the table.

OK, we had the Blues and the magnolias covered, now back to the catfish. I have never been particularly fond of catfish and really wasn’t looking forward to trying it again but in typical “50 Plus 2 coincidence style” the restaurant we went to on our last night of vacation was featuring an “all you can eat catfish” special. My son offered to take one for the team and stocked up on the deep fried morsels. Just for the record, Mississippi is responsible for the majority of the farm-raised catfish consumed in the US but we decided not to ask where this catfish was from.

By the way, if you were wondering why a Lake of the Ozarks snow globe suddenly appeared weeks after our Missouri celebration, it’s because that’s where we were on vacation and I thought it would be legit if I included my new addition here.

Color in Mis-sis-sippi with my favorite magnolia image – “Still Life with Magnolia” by Henri Matisse and travel to her western neighbor, the “Natural” state – Arkansas. 39 down – 13 to go.