The Starkville City Jail

Barbour grants more than 200 pardons

2012-01-10T19:27:00.000-06:00

Barbour

Out-going Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour issued lots of pardons in his final days in office, including trusties working at the Governor's Mansion convicted of murder. Here's a story about it that I wrote for Reuters that appeared in the Chicago Tribune.
Today, Barbour issued more than 200 pardons for people convicted of many crimes, including murder, rape, robbery, and DUI.
Below, see all pardons, clemencies and suspended sentences Barbour granted while in office.
Barbour Pardons

It's official!

2011-12-22T20:59:00.001-06:00

Marcela officially accepted an engagement ring from me at her mother's home in Bogota, Colombia this evening. Here are a few photos. She gave me the ring on my finger months ago, a special souvenir from her field research in Mexico in 2011.

UPDATE (December 24, 2011):
Marcela, her mom and I visited part of Bogota's floral market to select the perfect flowers for our engagement party tomorrow.

Our Poverty and Thanksgiving

2011-11-21T14:02:00.001-06:00

My parents filed bankruptcy when I was in the fifth grade.My father did it again with his second wife years later.

My childhood included growing up in a trailer park outsideof Meridian, Mississippi, and later living in a single-parent home, attending publicschool in the Mississippi Delta, one of the most poverty stricken areas in North America.

An early childhood memory, I can still hear the sound of myfather slamming the front door of our mobile home and seconds later mymom screamed. I jumped out of my small bunk bed, ran out of my bedroom andsaw my dad’s hands wrapped around my mom’s neck, choking her.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I grew up in poverty. AsI’ve grown older, I see that I wasn’t alone. More than money orother material things I wanted, the resources my family lacked the most werelove and spiritual well being. The feelings ofisolation I felt while steeped in poverty made life almost unbearable.

As statistics show on an annual basis, Mississippi routinelyranks last in the nation in key areas related to poverty, including physicaland mental health, education, income and quality of life. As an adult, I know people growing up inpoverty live in a silent epidemic not monitored by the national Centers forDisease Control. Unlike other killers, this problem goes ignored by many people in the middle class, a steadily shrinking group itself.

A year or so ago, I traveled to an Episcopal church inTupelo to hear a friend give a sermon that changed my life. I sat in the pewnext to her husband and heard her talk about poverty. But she didn’t just talkabout it during this church service. She took action.

Here in Starkville, financial adviser Lynn Phillips Gaines organized aworkshop for middle class people to see what life is like for people inpoverty. She helped about two hundred of us see life without middle classfilters. I feel so thankful Lynn allowed me to help facilitate the first class in Starkville related to this, called Getting Ahead in a Just Getting By World.

Through this class, I’ve had the privilege of partneringwith about a dozen women who want to make better lives for their children andthemselves. They know that to improve their station in life, they can’t waitfor someone else to do things for them. They want to change and have what ittakes inside of them to do it.

As I’ve gotten to know them, I see my life in theirstruggles. Even though she died just more than a year ago, I still see my mother struggling through these women. Many of these determined women don’t have husbands. They struggle tomake ends meet. Life’s struggles make them feel depressed and sometimes makesthem question why they should keep trying.

But they keep working for something better.

As we approach Thanksgiving in the United States, it’s atime for us to appreciate what we have in our lives. Many people continue tostruggle with unemployment, finances, relationships, and other areas of life.However, in our poverty, we always have hope as long as we know we can changeand make a difference in others’ lives and our own. As long as we live incommunities where neighbors haven’t given up on each other, we’ll have hope andopportunity.

Looking back to that six-year-old version of me running intothe living room and seeing my mother choked by my father, I think of my lifenow and those beautiful women I’ve come to know through this remarkable class.

Redemption

As scary as it makes us feel, to save our country andourselves, we must attack poverty and pry its grip from those we love. Assomeone who believes in redemption, I know it’s never too late to help those we love escape poverty. As a 33-year-old marathon runner with a graduate degree, I still struggle to escape the lingering poverty mindset resulting from childhood scars.

Only my closest friends have known about my experiences growing up, the stories of my dad's emotional manipulation, infidelity and painful experiences that have left deep scars on my two sisters and me. Few people know that I spent Father's Day in 2006 at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. On a day when children gathered with their father to show gratitude for nurturing and love, I spent the day acknowledging the severed relationship. I chose to spend time with drunks like my dad, trying to understand how a man could do such awful things to people he "loved."

About a year ago, my father's older brother told me a story from their childhood that I'll never forget. Their mother--my grandmother--sat in the pickup truck at the stoplight with her husband. Feeling panicked and alone, she saw this as her moment for escape, jumping out of the truck and running into the nearby sheriff's department. "He's killing me," she yelled to the deputies.

During that time, the good old boy system thrived in Mississippi even more than now. Those awful men drove my grandmother home, only telling their buddy, "Ed, you've got to do better." In tears, my nearly 70-year-old uncle also told me about the Christmas morning his father beat his mother, threatening worse if she told anyone who visited during the day.

Years after I left the financial struggles of child in a single-parent household, I've fought emotional and spiritual poverty. Few people have known why the concept of redemption resonated with me enough to create a festival based on it. More than anything in this life, I believe in redemption, especially our own.

After all these years, still smiling.

After many years of self-exploration through writing, therapy and great friends, I keep trying to escape the mental poverty from my childhood. I know a better life exists and try to find it each morning I wake up. While I may not have a functional, biological family, many of my friends have become my family, even if they don't know it.

These days, I live one of the most colorful, interesting worlds that I could ever imagine. I consider myself a storyteller. I hope sharing stories with others helps us better understand the many worlds around us. I love my life story and look forward to each day, experiencing it unfold with unknown opportunities, waiting for the magic in next chapter of my life.

Without experiencing poverty, I wouldn’t appreciate everything inmy world that makes me feel so thankful. Through memories of little boy I see in photographs, I feel even more thankful for the man reflecting back in the mirror and all of the people who made it possible.

That's why I will never stop trying to make life better.

Mississippi's Democratic Party Mess

2011-11-16T20:31:00.001-06:00

After spending time with Democratic candidates for office in recent months and covering electing night returns from Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree's gathering, my post-election analysis appeared in today's issue of the Jackson Free Press, Mississippi's only alternative news weekly.

Here's a taste of it:

Once again, election night last week revealed a grim reality for Mississippi Democrats and the Mississippi Democratic Party.
Just minutes after polls closed statewide, the Associated Press began delivering dismal news for Democrats, calling the races of state auditor, lieutenant governor and secretary of state for Republicans. In these races, the GOP didn't even have token Democratic opposition. While incumbency often increases a candidate's chances for reelection--the case for secretary of state and state auditor--the Mississippi Democratic Party failed to field a candidate for the open seat of lieutenant governor.

In Hattiesburg, the atmosphere for the city's mayor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Johnny DuPree made for an evening of defiance until the inevitable loomed.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Democracy in Mississippi

2011-11-03T09:59:00.000-05:00

Mississippians vote on Tuesday!

Whetheryour political ideology follows televangelist Pat Robertson, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson or someone altogetherdifferent, Mississippians have plenty of reasons to vote on Tuesday.

If you want to remove thegovernment’s grubby hands from yet another opportunity to take your property ordefend economic development tools to lure more jobs to the state, you have areason to vote. Initiative 31 on eminent domain prohibiting government takingprivate property for private certainly has potential to impact thousands ofpeople.

If you worry about the sanctity ofvoting, the integrity of our system or have concerns about adding barriersbetween voters and their privilege, Tuesday’s general election ballot hassomething for you, too. Initiative 27 will allow voters to decide whether torequire identification before voters can cast their ballots in futureelections.

If you worry about the sanctity oflife, the government’s infringement on a woman’s body, gray areas in between,you may want to strongly considering going to vote on Nov.8. Initiative 26 willtry to define “personhood” as the moment of fertilization, whenever that means.This has drawn lots of media attention from all over the country and beyond,since many people view this as a strategy toward overturning women’s right tohave an abortion in the country.

If you care about leadership oncounty and state levels, do your duty and vote. A close friend of mine willspend this election somewhere in Iraq. Supposedly, our government’s actionsover there will help that Middle Eastern nation carry out free and impartialelections. It’s a shame so few of us take the minimal effort of voting in ourown nation.

Corey

We complain and grumble most of theyear, but Tuesday is one day where our voices can be heard loud and clear. Ifyou don’t believe me, ask Al Gore. Heck, just ask Starkville Alderman Richard Corey, who won his first election by a single vote.

As a state, we have the opportunityto choose to direction of our state for the next four years. Will we choosethree-term Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree or Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant? If we wanta governor whose position on immigration makes Haley Barbour look like afence-sitting liberal, we’ll probably go with GOP and Bryant. If we want a cityleader who has supported quality of life issues including education, you may gowith Democratic nominee DuPree.

No matter your ideology or personaldecisions for voting, do it. However, I do make one request: Educate yourselfon the issues and the candidates before casting ballots next week. Beyondcatchphrases and political pandering, most races this year have candidates withgenuine differences. Our responsibility as voters involves finding out who willbest represent us.

Remember, voting—or lack of it—hasconsequences. Leaders we select for the next four years will have wide range oflatitude in shaping public policy on county and state government for the nextfour years. That’s a long time for us to spend under the leadership of someoneelected because a few too many of us didn’t do our homework or just stayedhome.

To see a sample ballot used for Tuesday's election, click here.

Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree and Mississippi's Democratic Party

2011-10-28T13:10:00.003-05:00

I spent more than a month exploring the current status of Mississippi's Democratic Party, how it got into the shape it's in and what the future may hold for it.

The story, this week's cover of the Jackson Free Press, offers honest reporting and analysis of the state affairs of Mississippi's Democratic Party.

Here's a small exert from the piece:

Rickey Cole, executive director of Mississippi's Democratic Party, spoke candidly about the current state of affairs for his organization. He didn't hide his shame in the party failing to field candidates for three statewide offices and high-quality, viable candidates for each of the eight statewide offices on the ballot in November. Along with Attorney General Hood and DuPree, other Democratic candidates for statewide elections appearing on the ballot include Ocean Springs Mayor Connie Moran for state treasurer, Pickens Mayor Joel Gill for commissioner of agriculture and commerce, and former Moss Point Mayor Louis Fondren for commissioner of insurance.

"It's embarrassing to not field a candidate for the open seat of lieutenant governor," Cole said. "It's equally as embarrassing to field a candidate who doesn't have a chance."

To read the full story, click here.

Pedophilia, cancer and eminent domain

2011-10-28T08:26:00.000-05:00

A lot of people who read thiscolumn will feel more ashamed of what I write than usual.

Some things in life seemindefensible. Take pedophilia, for example. I can’t think of a single redeemingquality from this psychiatric disorder. Another indefensible thing in this lifeis cancer, not just one form of it—all of it.

To many people throughoutMississippi and other parts of the country, I support something worse thanpedophilia and cancer. I support government’s limited ability to use eminentdomain for private projects.

There, I said it.

I hold this position because unliketesticular cancer and serial rapists, eminent domain for purposes of privatedevelopment has redeeming value.

Citizens across the state and in neighboring places can lookat Nissan in Canton and Toyota in Blue Springs as types of projects that mayhave not happened in Mississippi without eminent domain as an option.

While government secured propertiesfor the purpose of securing land for our state’s two automotive plants, few canargue that the thousands of jobs created didn’t benefit the entire state.

I oppose Initiative 31, one of thethree initiatives appearing on the Nov. 8 ballot as part of statewide election,and believe it passing will handicap the state while trying to court newbusinesses and industry during an on-going sluggish economic time.

This effort will prohibitgovernment from using eminent domain as a mechanism for economic development.It prohibits government from using eminent domain for a period of 10 years forpurposes of transferring property for non-government use.

While I know the populist positionon this initiative should have me holding up a pitchfork in the middle of ruralfarmland and shouting to the top of my lungs, “Government, stay off myproperty,” but concern for unintended consequences of this law persuades me towardrestraint and reason.

Gov. Barbour

Before you scratch my name fromyour Christmas card lists, you may want to scratch a few other folks off, too.Another socialist liberal who opposes this ballot initiative, Republican Gov. Haley Barbour sees this necessary tool of government as a way to help createdesperately needed economic development projects. Another flaming liberal andanti-business activist, Leland Speed, executive director of the MississippiDevelopment Authority, has urged voters to oppose this emotion-driving ballotinitiative.

Unable to run for reelection due toterm limits, Barbour has gone on record opposing this ballot initiative, sayinglimiting the bargaining tools used by Mississippi Development Authority andeconomic development organizations throughout the state could affectrecruitment of major projects that can bring literally thousands of jobs.

People who fear government takingtheir property for purposes of building a mall or other retail space will helpto pass this misguided initiative. Political pundits in the state expect thisto pass by the highest of margins among the three on the ballot.

No one champions government takingindividuals’ property, especially for private interests. However, sometimes thisprocess can be the only roadblock between a major industry locating in a Mississippicommunity or it going to another state.

DuPree

Bryant

Both candidates forgovernor—Republican Phil Bryant and Democrat Johnny DuPree—support this initiative.As in many instances, we have politicians missing the boat on what’s good forthe state in exchange for what will gain them the most votes.

Nov. 8 won’t be the first timeMississippians have supported legislation that hurts their own self-interests,and it likely won’t be the last.

Lazy, poor people and our community

2011-10-20T04:44:00.001-05:00

The percentage of working poor in the United States continues to rise.

A good friend recently saidsomething ignorant about a mighty fine group of ladies I know.

He showed his middle classignorance. After telling my friend about a class where I serve as a facilitator, part of a program aimed at helping people in poverty transitioninto the middle class, my friend said what he thought was a joke.

“Tell all those poor people to stopbeing so lazy and get jobs,” he said.

I want to believe that he didn’t realizehow hurtful his words cut. This friend comes from an educated middle classfamily that included Christian upbringing. He should know better, but how couldhe? He has never experienced realities people in poverty face each day.

Census data show that 21.8-percent of Mississippians live below the poverty level, compared to 14.3-percentoverall in the United States. In Oktibbeha County where we live, nearly a thirdof all residents live in poverty.

My friend believes that only asmall percentage of people living in poverty actually want to get out of itenough to do something about it. This middle class ignorance advancesstereotypes against the poor.

The class I facilitate—Getting Ahead in a Just Getting’-By World—associated with Ruby K. Payne’s book, “A Framework for Understanding Poverty,” helps people in poverty learn hiddenmiddle class rules we take for granted. In Starkville, the class brings 15families identified as living in poverty together for two nights a week for twomonths, helping them build bridges from their lives now to a middle classmindset.

Of all the adults in my class,every single one works hard to support her family. None of them want handouts. Theywork to have the best lives possible for their children, given their current circumstances.They should be applauded for wanting better lives than what they experienceeach day.

For many of us in the middle class,we take for granted opportunities and relationships that have helped us getwhere we are today. We kid ourselves if we pretend we succeed in life based onour individual efforts alone. We also live in an ignorant (or smug) fantasylandwhen we show contempt for the poor, saying they should get jobs and stopburdening communities.

More and more in this state, thenation and around the world, the poor we criticize is ourselves. With U.S.living standards declining since 1970, the ever-shrinking middle class, morecompanies outsourcing manufacturing jobs to foreign countries and the continuedeconomic slump, many of us in the middle class remain just a couple ofpaychecks from poverty ourselves.

Sure, many people in poverty sufferfrom many challenges, including mental illness, addiction and physicaldisabilities. Finding sustainable solutions to improving lives for people livingin poverty isn’t easy or simple. Many churches, nonprofit organizations,government agencies, private foundations and individuals continue to work tohelp people carrying these challenges on their backs.

Using cable news sound bites of thelatest sensational headline and stereotypes to form our views on people wholive in different worlds from us only reinforces our insulated thoughts. Whilewe may all live in the same community, most of us also live just a few minutesfrom worlds we don’t understand and could survive in.

The next time you or a friend sayssomething about the lazy poor folks who won’t work, resist the temptation.Instead, give thanks that you have never experienced a life of poverty or nolonger do. After that, you may want to help someone who has his or her hand up,trying to find a way out of poverty’s quicksand.

Urban Ministries of Durham has a wonderful game to see how you could make it for a month in poverty. Click here to visit the site.

playspent.org

Possible Halloween costume?

2011-10-14T10:28:00.000-05:00

Don't you dare consider dressing as a gas pump man for Halloween. Show your creativity to the world by showing up to all the parties as the "Guy on a Buffalo."

   In case you haven't figured out your attire for upcoming Halloween or Fall Festival gatherings, you may want to consider dressing as a "Guy on a Buffalo."

     More than 700,000 of the folks in YouTube land know about him.

     In case you don't, watch the brief video below, and I'm sure it will make you a fan.

If this wasn't enough, click here to view episode 2 of Guy on a Buffalo.

Steve Jobs, Mama’s message: Give an iDamn

2011-10-13T08:25:00.002-05:00

Jim Henson with Kermit the Frog, born in Deer Creek near Leland.

Life is filled with paradoxes. Forinstance, why does it take death to remind us how much life matters?

When Steve Jobs, founder of Appleand visionary who helped guide the world of technology for much of his life,died last week, his life ending helped remind us of the impact a single personcan have on the world. For all of the iThings that he created—iPads, iPods,iPhones—his largest gift to the world arrived through his message: Steve Jobs encouragedus to think different—reject the status quo. Much of his professional andpersonal life seemed based on thinking different.

Looking at his background,beginning as an adopted child, Jobs needed to think different to appreciate hisworld. He realized at an early age that his imagination could shape not hisreality but that of those connected to him. By the time he died, Jobs seemedconnected in some way to people in every place in the world.

Jobs died at 56-years-old. His impact on the world cannot be calculated with even the most up to date Mac computing strength. Not just his professional persona, his personal life reflected a man who lived differently: He followed tenets of Buddhism and pescetarianism while appreciating Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohandas Gandhi and Jim Henson.

Thinking of Jobs’ impact on theworld after his passing reminds me of one of the most important people in mylife. My mother died last year after alengthy struggle with muscular dystrophy. She was 58.

I will never forget my last image of heralive, smiling toward me, feeling the strength in her grip as she held my hand.Seeing Mama struggle, sometimes breathing with help from a ventilator andunable to walk without falling down, I saw her tenacity and persistence to moveforward.

Among many lessons, my mothertaught me to stand up and fight for my beliefs. Steve Jobs gave us affirmationto think different. They both seemed to live with authenticity, something somany people around us today seem to lack.

As a native of Mississippi, a placeforever misunderstood even by Her own people, I try to remember the importanceof thinking differently with conviction and gumption.

Living a different life cansometimes be tough in areas like Mississippi, a place that often seems toappreciate different only after the rest of the world validates it. Don’t takemy word for it, just look at the lives of writers like William Faulkner andRichard Wright.

Mississippi can make those withdoubt second- and third-guess themselves. Maybe that’s why the Magnolia Statehas produced such strong-willed, different thinkers like Fannie Lou Hamer whorailed against racist laws and Constance McMillen, who as a high school studentrefused to allow her school district to discriminate against her based onsexual orientation.

Depending on the current statisticor report or artist or writer or musician or athlete, Mississippi often offersthe best and worst of America. Feel satisfied with what you see? If not, Mamaand Steve have some good advice—Change the world.

Starkville taxpayers deserve the city they pay for

2011-10-06T07:00:00.000-05:00

Days after Starkville voters resoundingly rejected a referendum to build a new police headquarters, witnesses reported Starkville Mayor Parker Wiseman and Police Chief David Lindley looking around the city, scouting vacant properties.

Wiseman

A first-term mayor not too long out of law school, Wiseman seems to have underestimated this community’s unflinching ability to reject radical, left-wing ideas such as providing law enforcement with adequate facilities that appropriately reflect the city’s growth.

If citizens telling him months ago to move the city’s police headquarters to a trailer park didn’t sound an alarm for how this community values needed public services, then perhaps the 55-percent of voters who rejected the $8.45 million bond proposal woke him up.

The city of Starkville’s history of actions—or more appropriately inactions—reflects the community’s indifference for providing appropriate facilities and resources for public safety. Wiseman, a seemingly eternal optimist, would probably disagree with the assertion that the community doesn’t value a first-class police force, but reality speaks for itself.

Reflecting on his sophomore year at Starkville High School in the late 1990s, Wiseman recalls the city trying to relocate police facilities into a former Wal-Mart building, now home to a bowling alley. More than a decade later, his hometown still can’t find a better alternative location than the rundown former National Guard armory donated to the city in 1968, a building no longer able to keep up with police staffing that has more than doubled in more than 40 years since the city inherited it.

Starkville police have urgent needs for additional workspace. One valid reason includes an evidence storage area vulnerable to water exposure during heavy rains. Low morale and retention also result from taxpayers refusing to provide a decent work environment.

Wiseman and Chief Lindley cite poor working conditions as contributing factors to officers deciding to find police work in communities that better value them.

Each time the city loses a police officer to another community, it costs taxpayers invaluable experience and thousands of dollars invested in training. Additionally, living in a community that doesn’t provide police with proper working conditions can’t hurt the confidence of someone considering committing a crime.

After citizens rejected the bond referendum that required a 60-percent supermajority to pass, local pundits began predictable speculation of whether Wiseman can win reelection, if he chooses to seek the office again. However, a larger issue looms for the city that hosts one of Mississippi’s largest public universities.

Starkville’s decade-long failure to support resources for adequate public safety reveals something more concerning than wondering who will sit in the mayor’s office. It suggests a community that doesn’t care about essential public services communities need to properly function.

For decades, Starkville has had an inferiority complex with other cities such as Oxford, Columbus and Tupelo. After visiting other places, Starkville residents complain about what our city doesn’t have. Looking at Starkville’s hostile attitude toward funding city necessities, few should wonder why we miss out on amenities other communities enjoy.

As Starkville residents and visitors drive through downtown and other parts of the city, here’s something to consider: Taxpayers get the community they pay for. Nothing comes free, including public safety.

Starkville rejects redemption—for now

2011-09-29T05:52:00.000-05:00

STARKVILLE—Talking to people through the years about Johnny Cash’s experiences here, I’ve heard all kinds of stories.

One old timer told me about Cash returning to Starkville to perform a few years after his concert on May 10, 1965, the time when he was arrested for “pickin’ flowers.” In the story the man told, Cash—someone never accused of not having a sense of humor—sought out local police officers and gave them tickets to his show.

At this concert, Cash acknowledged his run-in with the Law and everyone smiled and seemed to get a kick out of the Man in Black making nice with the fellows who threw him in the drunk tank, a place where he broke a big toe for kicking the steel door.

The story of Cash contacting the police and inviting them to his performance makes for a great tale that includes a little humor and redemption. It’s too bad that I haven’t been able to verify this wonderful anecdote. But it does make for a great story.

This week, I wanted to tell another story about redemption in Starkville, how citizens in this community finally voted to approve an $8.45-million bond referendum to build a new police headquarters. I wanted to tell how symbolic of redemption the plan would be, since the city would build the much needed facility on the property where Cash was arrested that early morning on May 11 more than 45 years ago.

Having moved back to Starkville in 2003—the year Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, died—I cannot think of a time in my adult life that this community’s leaders did not discuss the need for better resources for police, the taxpayer-funded part of the city assigned to protecting our city. I remember entering Starkville’s police department for the first time and thinking how beaten and worn down the place looked.

As I have gotten to know Starkville Police Chief David Lindley and other professionals dedicated to public safety through the years, I have seen city employees dedicated to making the most of resources they have, like poor kids embarrassed of hand-me-downs they wear but determined to do their best even in their tattered jeans.

Starkville passing this bond to provide adequate facilities for police would have been a great redemption story, especially after the 2006 referendum to build a new police headquarters and city hall failed by a handful of votes.

This story of redemption would have included a small park near the police headquarters, a much needed green space downtown. We could have named it the Johnny Cash Flower Pickin’ Park, honoring our quirky story of redemption with an American Icon.

This park full of colorful flowers could have helped a tired part of the city in need of a little help, encouraging businesses to open, increasing the quality of life for residents and adding to the Starkville experience when visitors spend time here.

But this story of redemption hasn’t happened yet.

For whatever reason, more than 55-percent of citizens who voted in the referendum decided this plan wasn’t the right for Starkville. No one argued that the plan didn’t have flaws, but we all know that perfect is the enemy of the good.

Like Johnny Cash giving tickets to those police officers many years ago, not all stories of redemption can be verified. Like Starkville’s referendum this week for adequate police facilities, we often turn our backs opportunities for redemption.

We all love great stories of redemption. Sadly, they don’t always happen in places where we want them the most.

View this column on the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal's web site by clicking here.

So much for 'recovering' journalist...

2011-09-27T13:31:00.002-05:00

For a number of years now, I have considered myself a "recovering" journalist. As many in the field know, once someone has a journalism infection in his or her blood, it never really leaves.

The American Psychiatric Association should strongly consider including journalism in the upcoming, updated version of the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual for Mental Disorders, commonly referred to as the DSM. For me, journalism is an addiction that I haven't been been able to shake since I first encountered it as a student reporter in college.

As many people must learn to live with their addictions, I will try to do the same with my journalism affliction. However, I will get my fix in every way I can. As some of you know, I have written to all of the inmates at the Starkville City Jail for some time now. Sadly, addictions can worsen until the addict needs more and more to fill his fix.

Beginning tomorrow (Thursday), I will become the newest columnist for the Starkville Daily News. Other news organizations, The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal and the Jackson Free Press, will also run columns I write. I will also occasionally write freelance long-form journalism pieces for the JFP.

I hope you will enjoy reading them a fraction as much as I will enjoy writing them.

Starkville's Redemption

2011-09-21T05:23:00.000-05:00

I believe in redemption. The idea that we can make things right after mistakes or past errors can give us hope for the future. Redemption can change lives and transform communities.

Many of you know about efforts to spearhead a movement in Starkville dating back a number of years ago to symbolically "pardon" Johnny Cash for his grave judgment error of pickin' flowers in 1965 on a private property located at Highway 182 and Jackson Street. To many Johnny Cash fans worldwide, his life represents the idea of redemption. He went from someone who developed a drug addiction, hurting many of his friends and family, to a man who worked for much of his life to overcome this addiction and try to make things right with those he loved. As a country music superstar, his personal struggles often played out in the public eye.

The Man in Black's story resonates with so many people because we've all made mistakes and sought redemption in our lives. A number of my ex-girlfriends (and my current girlfriend) and former employers (and current employer) can vouch for my continual need for redemption.

But redemption isn't just for people. Sometimes, redemption comes to communities. Now is such as moment for the city of Starkville, Mississippi. For more than a decade, the community has sought opportunities to build a new police headquarters. Anyone who has visited Starkville's City Hall, home to the Police Department, on Lampkin Street, knows our city's law enforcement need better resources to help serve and protect our community.

Through the years, a number of plans have emerged as possible opportunities to help provide adequate facilities for the Starkville Police Department. Most recent previous efforts in the Dan Camp mayoral administration failed by less than 50 votes to win the more than 60 percent supermajority to pass the plan. Starkville's current mayor, Parker Wiseman, formed a citizen committee to help successfully plan better police facilities.

Rendering of proposed police headquarters.

Citizens of Starkville will have an opportunity in less than a week, Sept. 27, to help Starkville find redemption. This community can make things right by passing a $8.45 million bond that will finance this necessary project that will have multiple effects for the community.

The project will have an immediate impact for Starkville by equipping police with better infrastructure to do their jobs for us. This is the easiest benefit to see for the project. However, this project will have a far-reaching impact that will positively affect citizens for many years, even decades, that will result in a strong public return on investment for this project.

Park rendering on proposed police headquarters site.

The project will help spur future redevelopment along Highway 182 within the city limits. As many of you know, much of the this area could use a new neighbor to help encourage private developments. Additionally, this project includes a public park on the property acquired through a successful referendum on Sept. 27.

The meaning behind this property already speaks to Johnny Cash fans. However, if citizens of Starkville support this needed bond issue, the symbolism for redemption on this property will continue to grow. Mayor Wiseman and members of Starkville's Park Commission have expressed support for naming this future downtown park on the proposed site to appropriately acknowledge the Man in Black's flower pickin' experience in our great city more than 40 years ago.
This park will have potential to host many public events, even future festivals honoring that flower pickin' scandal many years ago, along with the symbolic redemption it has come to represent.

As the community comes together to support this bond issue on Tuesday, Sept. 27, please do your part to encourage Starkville residents to vote for this worthy project. No one believes the project is perfect, but we know it's good. It's the right thing for Starkville. This project will have long-lasting implications for Starkville related to public safety, economic development, tourism, and overall quality of life for the community.

I believe in Starkville and redemption. On Sept. 27, help Starkville find redemption. After this passes, we just may need to hold a flower pickin' festival to celebrate.

Nothing says redemption like locating the city's police headquarters on the site of one of the area's most notorious crimes.

Voting locations for Tuesday's bond referendum:

Ward 1– National Guard Armory (Industrial Park Road and Highway 12 West)
Ward 2 –Starkville Sportsplex (Lynn Lane)
Ward 3 –Starkville Sportsplex (Lynn Lane)
Ward 4–City Hall Courtroom (101 E. Lampkin Street)
Ward 5– Fire Station #3 (Garrard Rd. and Highway 389)
Ward 6 –Mt. Peiler Church Fellowship Hall (North Jackson Street)
Ward 7 –Oktibbeha County Courthouse Annex (West Main Street)

Excuse me, a little more civility, please

2011-09-11T21:40:00.000-05:00

Ground Zero on Jan. 4, 2011

As news editor of my college newspaper who worked on deadlines late the night before, I kept pressing snooze on Sept. 11, 2001. I thought I dreamed about the voices from my clock radio reporting planes crashing into the buildings in New York City. Even in my dreams, I knew these words sounded irrational and impossible.

Planes don't fly into buildings. This doesn't happen in the United States of America, I thought. Until minutes after this "dream" on Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism existed in my mind mostly as a vague notion that happened in Israel, England, Ireland and other areas I had never visited. A young Mississippian struggling to balance work with college studies, I was much less experienced in the world than I wanted to believe. However, I soon gained insight into how much I didn't know about our world neighbors, especially those who hated the American ideals in life.

Before the terrorist attacks, I thought of George W. Bush as the Texas cowboy who lost the popular vote to Al Gore in the presidential election. However, after 9/11, I saw him to as a leader who would help comfort Americans and the world during this most uncertain time. I remember feeling proud of his speech when he addressed Congress, the nation and the world about how we could stand together against enemies to the American way of life. In an undergraduate communications course on persuasion, I wrote an analysis paper on President Bush's effective speech, a talk that galvanized the world to remember that we're all Americans, all New Yorkers.

Little did we know that a few years later, that same president would use faulty logic and secret intelligence to justify a second war based on 9/11 attacks to further extend our military in the Middle East. We would have never guessed while viewing President Bush standing at Ground Zero speaking from a megaphone to first responders that he would leave office disgraced from his war in Iraq and a nose-diving economy. His legacy today remains toxic even for members of his own political party. Right-wing friends of mine even stopped identifying with the GOP, instead, choosing to call themselves "conservatives."

Now we have a lukewarm, left-leaning president, former U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, who replaced Bush to help right America during perilous times with our shaky economy. Vitriol in the United States now makes political animosity during the Bush and Clinton years seem like infatuated lovers. And that says a lot considering the father of my ex-girlfriend who kept the flag at his home at half-mass during the entire Clinton presidency citing as justification, "our country is in mourning."

Watching Fox News, MSNBC, talk radio and so many other outlets, I miss the civil ways we used to hate each other. With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 attacks, let's try to remember what makes us great as a nation. We can achieve so much together through our creativity and teamwork. We don't have to hate each other in the name of politics and other differences. Just because talking heads spout venomous rhetoric, we don't have to act as angry sheep. We can agree that many political differences exist in the United States, as they do in every other place in the world. However, maybe we can also agree to tone down hateful rhetoric about people who have the same ideas as us.

We all want the same things. We want to find love, happiness, safety, security, education, and future success for those we love. Maybe our African-American President Obama doesn't hate white people as Glenn Beck said. Maybe Republicans don't want poor people dying in the streets and the elimination of school lunch programs at your nearest public school.

Maybe, just maybe we're not as evil as we think. Maybe we have much more common ground than we want to believe.

Maybe...

During a June visit to New York City, I visited Ground Zero and met some of New York's great citizens. This fellow was in his apartment four blocks from the Twin Towers on 9/11. Today, he sells booklets about the future of the site and documents to help us remember the tragic day in world history. During my visit, he took a few moments to share his thoughts on New Yorker's resilience, 9/11 and the future.

I had to hold my face to keep from laughing uncontrollably.
I'm not afraid of your silly needles.

To remember tragic events from a decade ago, my girlfriend and I signed up to give blood after church today. While she needs to eat more steak and spinach, United Blood Services allowed me to donate double for both of us.

Blood donated can help people suffering from trauma such as those experiences people had during 9/11. Along with red blood cells, plasma helps burn victims, and blood platelets help people with cancer.

Joan Mylroie organized the blood drive
at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Starkville.

Joan Mylroie, a member of Trinity Presbyterian Church, has organized September and February blood drives at the church for 17 years now. She said the goal each blood drive is 25 blood donations.

"It's more significant today," she said. "We had more people donate." As I mentioned, I gave a little of myself today for a cause larger than any individual. Each of the four United Blood Services employees at the blood drive provided exceptional service. Pam, the worker who had the burden of putting up with my poor attitude, told me she sees her job as "helping others make a difference and save people."

If you want to help by giving blood, contact UBS or e-mail Joan.

She's still my hero, even if she didn't have enough iron in her system to donate this time.

Marshall Grant, architect of Johnny's boom-chicka-boom sound, dies at 83

2011-08-07T15:18:00.005-05:00

Marshall Grant waves to a crowd at Mississippi State University's campus in 2007, during the first Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival. Photo by Troy DeRego

Marshall Grant, bass player and original member of Johnny Cash's Tennessee Two, died Saturday. He was 83.

I met Marshall Grant in 2007, the first year we organized the Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival. Leading up to the festival and until his death yesterday, I feel honored to have known such a fine person, a man who just happened to have created one of the most recognizable musical sounds, Johnny Cash's trademark "boom-chicka-boom."

After retiring from performing with Johnny Cash, Grant served as road manager for the Statler Brothers, among a number of musicians. After retiring from the music business, Grant and his wife, Etta, settled in Hernando, Miss., just south of Memphis, where Johnny Cash, Grant and Luther Perkins started their musical career together at Sun Records.

During our many phone conversations and visits, I felt thankful to have an adviser who experienced of the musical world from the outside looking in to assist with the festival. Marshall believed in the event and helped from many angles, from logistics to assisting with securing performers. He advised me about small things inexperienced festival organizers like me wouldn't have considered, such as having the stage at the lowest possible location and having performers facing the sun to keep the audience from facing the sunlight all day. I will remain thankful for his years of brainstorming ideas and believing in the event that recognized Johnny's colorful run-in with the law and celebrated redemption.

Grant was inducted in the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2007.

The world lost a fine man, but Johnny and Luther have another friend in heaven.

Read The New York Times obituary for Grant here.

Marshall Grant accepts a "Ring of Fire" plaque of appreciation from festival executive director Robbie Ward during the 2007 Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival. Grant provided guidance to Ward related to the festival. Photo by Troy DeRego

Marshall's memoir

Marshall discusses how he ended up playing upright bass with Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two:

Marshall speaks at the Starkville Public Library in 2007 about Johnny Cash's run-in with the authorities in 1965. Marshall participated each year with the Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival.

Leaving our comfort zones

2011-08-02T15:05:00.006-05:00

When I first met him, I called him "Old School." After about six years, I call John Tate a good father, husband, employee and friend.

Heroes and role models show up at unlikely times and places. I met "Old School" in the Oktibbeha County courthouse while covering a murder trial.

Waiting for the jury to deliberate, I spent time getting to know a man dressed in a blue shirt and khaki pants I'd seen around the courthouse for months. The other inmates called him Old School since he was the oldest guy in the jail. A trusty at the Oktibbeha County Jail, he worked as a custodian at the courthouse. He'd see me in and out of the building working on the news of the day while he made sure things stayed picked up in the hallways, bathrooms, and in the many offices in the building. Getting to know John over months and then years, I realized how easy one bad decision can change someone's life and affect the family depending on him.

The more I spent time with Old School, I also saw that committing a crime in the eyes of others doesn't have to define who we are. I saw a man with dignity, morals and values, even in jail. In fact, I admired him for carrying himself with dignity in his situation.

He and I would spend time talking to each other, sharing thoughts and stories about what we learned and saw. Old School taught me a lot more than I ever could have impressed on him. He helped me see the humanity in those society often tries to marginalize--the inmates stuck paying time to a system that may or may not be fair. Not everyone can afford adequate legal counsel. Not everyone who serves time is a terrible person. Not everyone who spends time in jail wants to do harm others.

Work, family, friends and other key parts of my life often keep me focused on immediate priorities. Overwhelming media competing for our attention, commercials, and day-to-day time constraints all contribute to cynicism and disillusionment about stories we hear about those around us, especially those who look different from us, those who come from another background or may not always agree with us. But when I start to feel callous to the world around me, I try to take a break and remember that I'm a product of all that's out there. We all are, whether we admit it or not.

Remember, not everyone has opportunities to attend the best schools, or even have a decent meal during the day. Some people don't have support from family and friends to let them know they have value and can achieve great things. I didn't have to visit the jail to know that. I have first-hand experience struggling to make a better life and give thanks to those who have helped me along the way.

I visited the jail the night John finished serving his time. I'd never seen a bigger smile on a man's face than when he left out of the building to see his wife waiting on him. After leaving that chapter of his life, he works three jobs to support his family, but he still struggles to make a good life for them.

But he never forgot the people who helped him during a low time in his life. He'll never forget the people who treated him like a human being when they didn't have to.

John and I caught up recently. He told people he knows out there struggling. We went for a short drive to see people he knew, invisible people to the community. With many invisible people live in Starkville the surrounding areas, I find myself and many others blind to them. But the U.S. Census can open our eyes. About a third of Oktibbeha County's residents live in poverty.

Regular people want to help but really don't know how. One problem with middle class people helping people in poverty is they don't understand the different values and survival systems. I recently read about the hidden rules of different socio-economic groups--poverty, middle class and wealth. We have to learn the hidden rules to make it, many of which we take for granted.

Lynn Phillips-Gaines

Starkville financial adviser Lynn Phillips-Gaines has started an initiative to help the community better understand poverty. Starkville's Bridges Out of Poverty, modeled after successful programs throughout the country, will bring the middle class to the same table as those in poverty. We will learn from each other how to help each other.

"Until you see what it's like to live in their world, you can't understand," Phillips-Gaines said.

This is our community. We can make a difference.

On August 9, Starkville Bridges Out of Poverty will host a workshop
for middle-class participants to understand the truths about poverty. Based on the work of Phil Devol, Ruby Payne and Terie Dreussi, the training provides insight on bridging divides that happen along socio-economic lines. It provides the tools and a common language to aid participants in working together as a community to reduce, prevent and eradicate poverty.

Get involved: Starkvillebridges.com. You can make a difference.

Help 'Mississippi's Daughter'

2011-08-02T11:20:00.001-05:00

It feels great to see someone you've known for years working to make her dreams come true. A classmate of mine in Greenville, Mississippi, left the Delta after school to pursue a career as a jazz performer.

Gabbie McGee has amazed audiences all over the world with her soulful voice and songs of strength.

Her "Mississippi's Daughter" takes me back to Greenville and reminds me of struggles so many people go through trying to find a better way.

Now based in Atlanta, Gabbie is one of three finalists in a BMI competition of new independent musicians and needs your help. Vote for her on Facebook each day until Aug. 5. You can vote by clicking here.

This is what Soul Tracks had to say about "Mississippi's Daughter," Gabbie's most recent album:
Vocals: 4.0 stars
Music: 3.5 stars
Lyrics: 4.0 stars
Production: 3.5 stars
SoulTracks Call: Highly Recommended

Gabbie's website: gabbiemcgee.com.

The Gays Make My Skin Crawl

2011-07-07T09:07:00.012-05:00

Not long after New York approves gay marriage, this Starkville letter to the editor says it all about the culture divide in this nation.
For a little background, this letter responds to Starkville Daily News news editor Carl Smith's recent column [posted following Wayne Fondren's letter.] about gay marriage.

Gays Make My Skin Crawl

For those of you who want to read the offending column, keep scrolling down, like toward Satan, as in the Devil.

Same-Sex Marriage Should Be Protected

Mississippi native Carl Smith can be reached at sdnnews@bellsouth.net.
Leilani Salter, editor of the Starkville Daily News can be reached at sdneditor@bellsouth.net.

And remember to be careful today. After all, the gays and lesbians may make your skin crawl.

UPDATE:

Here's the followup column Salter published yesterday in response to Smith's column.

This Page Includes All Opinions

National challenges like the slow economic recovery, the debt ceiling crisis and our military still entrenched in wars have distracted us from this nation's real cancer: Gays and Lesbians!!!

SECOND UPDATE:

I decided to give Mr. Fondren a call to discuss his letter. I told him I found his letter very interesting and that I'm sure he received lots of response from it.
After he asked if I supported his letter, I replied politely that I didn't agree with it.
"Well, are you gay?" he asked.
He let out a sigh of relief when I informed him that I wasn't.
I ended the call by wishing him a good day.

New York

2011-06-12T07:33:00.000-05:00

I met this incredible soul a few days ago. I will post more soon. I can tell you this, I love New York!

Wyatt Waters captures MSU's mascot (with watercolors)

2011-05-20T17:03:00.010-05:00

Acclaimed watercolor artist Wyatt Waters wandered onto Mississippi State University's campus Friday to find something interesting for his 2012 calendar.

He said Bully's symbolism made a great subject for a calendar highlighting places throughout the state. The Brookhaven native and longtime Clinton resident scouts locations and identifies possible subjects, but also appreciates serendipity.

Starting the day off at Friendship Cemetery in Columbus, Waters realized he already had a painting of it that would work for the project. With Possum Town checked off his list, Waters ventured into Oktibbeha County and found one of the three Bully statues on campus. He waited for the late afternoon light to shine on the bulldog statue. Timing and location cooperated on this warm Mississippi day.

"It just came together," he said.

Before leaving for Italy to work on another book with Robert St. John, Waters will explore places all over the state for his calendar next year.

He seemed to enjoy chatting with people as they approached and visited for a few minutes.

Waters, recipient of 2010 Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, said the calendar will be available on his Web site.

Here are most of the 13 Mississippi cities included in the calendar:

Starkville
Hattiesburg
Meridian
Vicksburg
Natchez
Clinton
Greenwood
Columbus
Brookhaven
Oxford

A world full of diamonds

2011-05-08T20:33:00.004-05:00

Billy Joe Shaver performs in Starkville, Miss., at the 2008 Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival. [Photo by Troy DeRego]

The first time I met Billy Joe Shaver, he talked about feeling ghosts of Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and his first wife Brenda in his presence. He raised his pool stick and whirled it around that Birmingham, Alabama bar.

“I talk to them all the time,” he said, an hour before he would perform with his band. Two years and the death of my mother later, insight from that hell-raising country music poet still encourages me to keep fighting when life lands a flurry of sucker punches.

I read lyrics to his song, “Life Forever,” at Mama’s funeral in July.

Nobody here will ever find me

But I will always be around

Just like the songs I leave behind me

I'm gonna live forever now

When someone loses as much as Shaver has, it takes a real gift to share the loss and pain with others. Hearing him in radio interviews, I couldn’t believe the pain and hurt this man has experienced. His dad beat his mother and left her for dead while pregnant with him. His mother left him the day that he she had him. A work accident resulted in him losing a couple of his fingers. His first wife died of cancer. His son died of a heroin overdose. He even had a heart attack on stage a few years ago. Somehow, he still finished the performance.

"Writing's the cheapest psychiatrist there is," he has said.

His song, “Try and Try Again,” reveals his thoughts of contemplating suicide after experiencing losing his son and wife but deciding against it. He has lost so much that his life embodies the songs that he writes.

Pain, loss, and hurt didn’t make him bitter. He just keeps trying and trying.

“And if all you do is lose, you better find a way to win,” Shaver sings.

Knowing about his life convinced me to have him perform at the festival I produced for three years in Starkville, Mississippi—The Johnny Cash Flower Pickin’ Festival. Based on The Man in Black’s 1965 arrest for “pickin’ flowers” in the small Southern town, the festival celebrated hell raising and redemption. This festival was made for people like Shaver, a honky tonk hero who has always mixed redemption with having a good time.

Shaking hands with him, I felt where his missing fingers would have been.

Seeing him perform recently in Fayetteville, Arkansas, I saw he’s missing a little more these days—his arm mobility. After rotator cuff surgery and more injuries to his shoulder afterward, he can’t flap his arms like an angel during his performances anymore. “I used to fly around all over the place,” he told the Arkansas crowd. “I just can’t do it anymore.”

Most of the audience at the Arkansas concert didn’t know anything about Shaver. They bought tickets to see Lucinda Williams, a hometown girl of sorts since her father lived in the city and taught at The University of Arkansas.

I found only one other person there who had heard of Shaver before, Frank Atkins, who brought with him a copy of Shaver’s autobiography. After Shaver played his opening set, Atkins caught Shaver's attention before he left the small multipurpose building.

“Mr. Shaver, would you sign my book?” he asked.
“I’m just glad you know who I am,” Shaver replied.

Shaver performed one of his newest songs at the show, “Wacko in Waco,” which came from his arrest for shooting a man in the face at a Texas bar after working on a gospel album. He still sees the humor in life, even when it could have led to him spending the rest of his life in prison.

"He's not fake," Atkins told me in Fayetteville after Shaver autographed his book. "He's been through a Hell of a lot."

Life has a way to telling us to slow down or speed up. After his shoulder surgery, Shaver told people with the company that books his shows that he wouldn’t tour again, that he needed to recover from his setbacks. Months later he announced a few concert dates from May until July mostly in Texas. He tours now with a couple of musicians he treats like family.

For his fans, Shaver is more than family. He's simultaneously down home and larger than life. One of his fans, Johnny Cash, looked in the mirror each morning and sang Shaver's "Old Chunk of Coal."

I'm just an old chunk of coal

But I'm gonna be a diamond some day

I'm gonna grow in glory

'Til I'm so blue pure perfect

I'm gonna put a smile on everybody's face

I'm gonna kneel and pray everyday

Lest I should become vain along the way

I'm just an old chunk of coal, now Lord

But I'm gonna be a diamond some day

Diamonds are overrated. I'll take Billy Joe Shaver every time.

Mama's Favorite Souvenirs

2011-03-14T08:08:00.007-05:00

Competing in a "serious speech" Toastmasters competition on Saturday.

I shared “Mama’s Favorite Souvenirs” this weekend in Columbus during a public speaking competition.
The talk began with revealing my favorite childhood memory—that lime green and faded yellow foam lizard I brought home from the Lauderdale County Fair. Leroy “lived” as my pet for about two weeks before things fell apart. During his short life, I walked him all over the house and the neighborhood.
More than 25 years later, I still keep Leroy close to my heart. When times get really tough, I take him for a walk in my mind.
That’s the beauty of souvenirs. They take you back to a special place and time. They can help remind you of what’s important. In a lot of ways, our special souvenirs say a lot about what we value and prioritize. They represent emotions, really—love, loss, sadness, happiness.
The word souvenir has French origins and translates into “memory.” Souvenirs represent these special memories. Sometimes we don’t realize how much the souvenirs we give to others make a difference in other people’s lives.
Mama died last year after a long struggle from complications related to her muscular dystrophy. A while after the funeral, I visited her house just outside of Yazoo City to find the deed to the property and other important documents in the filing cabinet she kept next to her bed. I put both drawers in the trunk of my car and drove them to Starkville, leaving them alone for until I felt comfortable to sort through them.
Looking through these filing cabinet drawers, I found more than financial documents. I found scraps of paper, cards, letters and event programs more valuable than any piece of property.

We keep special souvenirs close to our heart.

I found Mama’s favorite souvenirs: Letters I wrote her in college, the program to my college graduation, birthday cards I gave her, an envelope full of newspapers during my college newspaper editor days, among many other valuables.
Knowing my mama cared so much about these souvenirs that she literally slept next to them each night reminds me how much she loved me.
Seeing her valuables helped me realize how important souvenirs can affect not just people who receive them but those who give them. Take a moment and think about all the souvenirs in your life that you’ve given. Chances are high that you don’t have a clue how many valuable souvenirs you’ve given people in your life. People keep souvenirs in safe places likes filing cabinets next to their bed and in their hearts.
Don’t be afraid to give the best souvenirs as you travel through life. I have found the more souvenirs we give, the more we receive. I also learned that souvenirs aren’t just about the past. They help reflect our values and priorities in life.
What do your life souvenirs say about you?
Leroy the foam lizard helps remind me to keep my childlike spirit and sense of wonder with the world. My Mama’s filing cabinet of souvenirs shows how much she loved. It also shows how much I loved her.
Last night, I received an e-mail informing me the foam lizard I recently ordered online should arrive this week. I may not walk this new friend as much as the five-year-old version of me walked Leroy, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

One Mississippian on Haley Barbour's history

2010-12-23T17:32:00.008-06:00

You may have seen recent articles about Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's comments suggesting that the 1960s weren't a "big deal" related to school integration in his hometown of Yazoo City. While he may have been a teenager when schools integrated, a GOP political genius like Barbour knows better than to pass off this revisionism as truth.

Like the Mississippi governor and former Republican National Committee chairman, my parents and both sets of my grandparents are from Yazoo City. My father played softball with Barbour growing up in the small community. Based on my experience in Yazoo City, the Mississippi Delta and the state in general, I have a hard time swallowing Barbour's nonchalance about racial strife in his hometown during the 1960s. I grew up around men from that era living in Yazoo City who taught an altogether different history lesson.

My grandfather on my father's side would proudly tell anyone who would listen during integration about his disdain for mixing whites and blacks together. He sent his school-age children to the newly opened private school. "My kids might go to school barefoot, but I'll be damned if they go to school with the niggers," he said repeatedly through the years. While he and others tempered their vehement racial hatred as time passed, no one can honestly suggest that struggles to integrate Mississippi public schools weren’t a big deal. In many parts of the state even today, integration never took hold.

I grew up around the constant reminder of race in Mississippi, often from my own family. After my parents divorced, I attended public school in Yazoo City for a couple of years and then in Greenville, another Delta town about a hour from Yazoo City. Of the 115 classmates in my senior class in 1996, 110 were black, four were white and one was Vietnamese. Most whites in the Delta still avoid public school. Race is such a factor still in Mississippi that to this day, my parents don't know that I took the valedictorian of my class, a black woman, to the prom.

Beyond Barbour's comments, recent experiences serve as reminders of Mississippi's reprehensible past. They also resurrect the Faulkner quote about the past never dying in the South. During a recent trip to Clarksdale, another Mississippi Delta city, someone I visited took me to lunch at the city's country club. As we walked toward the door, he casually mentioned that the place was still whites-only. The country club in Yazoo County is still whites-only too.

As a native Mississippian with a desire to improve this place, I acknowledge the state has plenty of nightmares in its past. However, denying or sugarcoating a reprehensible history will not advance Mississippi. In fact, it only advances a farce of a narrative many whites from that time want to believe—that life for blacks in the South during that time wasn't that bad after all. That same narrative suggests that all the blacks living in poverty in Mississippi could turn their lives around if they weren't so lazy.

The Magnolia State has made many strides since Barbour's years growing up in Yazoo City, when he listened to the girls instead of choosing to listen to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak at the fairgrounds. Mississippi has made significant efforts to prosecute homegrown terrorists who sought to destroy the chance for the American dream for the part of the population who happened to be born with a different skin color. Mississippi has one of the largest number of black elected officials and graduates many future black physicians, engineers, teachers and attorneys each year. The nonprofit organization Mission Mississippi works with a number of communities throughout the state to help create dialogue between majority white churches and majority black churches. Many Mississippians born decades after public school integration no longer view life from the distorted lens of white and black, but the lens still exists.

With each generation, incremental change brings progress, sometimes more. While Mississippi continues to change, the past remains bloody, hateful and painfully the same no matter how much some of us want to think of it as something else.

As community and civic minded people throughout Mississippi and the rest of the nation dream of a better place, we should work on changing the future, not the past. Looking at the state of things around us, the present seems like a good place to start.

UPDATE: This column was published on Dec. 31 by The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, based in Tupelo.

Thank you

2010-11-07T12:52:00.004-06:00

The church bulletin mentioned today as All Saints’ Sunday and listed some of the church “saints” affiliated with my church who have passed.

These thoughts led me to revisit my mom’s passing and all the kindness people showed me during this tough time. I also remembered that I hadn’t thanked the church for the kindness it showed during the time of my mother’s loss. During today's church service, when I should have paid more attention, I jotted down a few words to say during the time for announcements.

Here’s what I said:

Thank you Trinity.
My mother died in July while at my granny’s house.
Losing my mother felt like the hardest challenge to ever confront me in life. Sorrow, pain, and emptiness filled me. However, through friends and family, including my church family here at Trinity, I endure this loss while also balancing love, friendship, compassion, empathy, kindness, and so many other qualities from people who care.
The casserole the Sparrows delivered to my house fed me for a few meals, but the love it represented continues to nourish. Phone calls from Buren allowed him to listen to my voice tremble as my tears affected my speech. That conversation ended, but I know you still care. Thanks you Alison, who told me you love me and cared when I saw you at the Community Market.
Along with my mother’s death, other scars in my life also weighed on me. I hadn’t felt loved in many parts of my life for a while. Friends and family, including my Trinity family, helped me find perspective.
I spent time reflecting on my shortcomings and areas where I can shine and gave thanks for this wonderful life we all share together. Losing my mother in this world has helped me appreciate all the blessings God showers on us.
Thank you.

Mama's death certificate and a purple and blue giraffe

2010-08-18T07:23:00.010-05:00

Sitting at my kitchen table typing, how can I find the joy and wonder of the world with so much missing?

Instead of a letter from Mama here beside my laptop, her death certificate waits in an envelope ready to make it official.

Mama died and won’t come back, but I feel so much love inside of me, bouncing around all over my body like unexplained sunlight at 5 a.m. Like my lithely colored coffee mug of purple and blue giraffes, brown monkeys smiling on top of a wandering tiger all within striking distance of such a tiny sage frog, I keep smiling with my bright Irish green eyes.

As I’ve mentioned to so many of you in conversation, I take much comfort knowing my mother will never leave me. Some people who have never lost a parent or a child may have a hard time understanding this, but it’s true. They never go away. I feel my mother more now as much as when I could call her on the phone or visit her at home. The first time I heard Billy Joe Shaver tell me that, I stood next to him while he played pool before a show in the Zydeco bar in Birmingham. I thought he was nuts, crazier than I’d already imagined.

He walked around shooting pool with one of his band-mates telling me about how he still visits with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, his wife Brenda, his son Eddie and others.

“They’re around me right now,” he said, holding his pool stick in his good hand, the one with all of his fingers still intact.

I thought he was crazy.

After losing my mother, I understand him, which may make me crazy too.

For what it’s worth, I ain’t crazy despite popular consensus.

Speaking to a good friend a few Sundays ago, he told me about letting my future kids know all about Mama. He told me about my ability to keep her spirit alive to others, to keep her unyielding strength, tenacity, and perseverance alive to myself and others. Fortunately, I have a number of videos of my mother and me. I thank Alan Messer more than he’ll ever know for taking a photo of Granny, Mama and me in October 2009, the last photo of Mama smiling with her favorite son and mom. I still feel her hand touching mine the last time I saw her alive.

As long as I remember and tell her story, she continues living. Billy Joe Shaver sings about this in his song, “Live Forever,” whose lyrics I read as part of Mama’s eulogy. All we have to keep us in this life after we die are the memories, thoughts, action, love, and other lasting influences on others.

For Mama’s birthday this year, I drove from the hospital in Meridian where my father had heart surgery across the state to Vicksburg to see her. My gifts to her, I brought Mama a calendar of Ireland, a Sonic bacon cheeseburger, and cut her toenails and rubbed her feet with moisturizing lotion. I felt as close and as loving and loved to her than as I ever had.

My experiences with Mama during her life will continue to carry me for the rest of my life.

God is the roses and the thorns.

Mama went to Heaven, and I stayed in Starkville to grieve

2010-08-05T13:34:00.013-05:00

Nothing has ever stressed out your humble narrator like God calling Mama to Heaven.

For months she talked about wanting to travel to Ireland with me in 2011 when I run the Dublin Marathon and how she wanted to visit Suzanne and Caleb in Missouri, but she never said jack about wanting to visit Heaven anytime soon.

In recent weeks while spending time with Granny, I learned about other secrets and trickery Mama committed while living with her mother just months ago. When I delivered a pizza to Granny’s house on Saturday, she told me about one of Mama’s tricks.

“She’d roll her wheelchair into the kitchen and pick up the phone book,” Granny said, sitting at her kitchen table, slice of pepperoni pizza in hand. “A little while later they’d deliver a pizza.”

Basically, I grew up with Mama my entire life, so I knew about the trickery she could pull. She also could appreciate the mischief of others. For example, when she discovered how the night before my birthday that year I snuck into the kitchen, quietly found a butter knife, opened the box to my Spider-Man birthday cake, removed his icing head and ate it, she just smiled and asked “Do you have any sense?”

Mama, if you’re listening from Heaven, I finally have an answer to that question. Here it is: No.

Footage from videos I took of Mama in recent years threw me for a loop about a week ago when I watched them again.

Reviewing what she had to say on film, it seems like she was up to her old tricks. She didn’t outright say it, but she sure hinted about taking to take a trip to Heaven before too long.

I will always love that woman with everything humanly and spiritually possible.

I know she wouldn’t want me to stress out too much about her taking a trip without giving me too much advanced warning. However, this sure ain’t the first time I’ve done something I know she wouldn’t have approved. Many moons ago, back when I had fewer laugh wrinkles and was a little less educated, the little boy version of me aggravated the mess out of her inside Fred’s Dollar Store. I kept bringing toys up to her buggy in the store to ask if she’d buy them for me. For some reason, she tired of this after about four or five times.

“No. The answer is no,” she said, looking down at me. “You can’t have anything in this store unless it’s free.”

And so you ask, what did your humble narrator do then? Well, I did the best I could to come up with a plan. One item at a time, I took each toy I wanted, including He-Man’s Battle Cat, and approached store employees.

“Is this free?” I asked each time, using my saddest face.

I usually went home without a toy, but I sure remember Mama laughing.

Honestly, I don’t care if she likes it or not, I’m going to stay stressed out from her going to Heaven.

Even though I can’t hug you anymore or call or visit you at home or at Granny’s house, I know you never left me, and I’ll never leave you.

I love you, Mama.

The digital age meets politicking at Mississippi's Neshoba County Fair

2010-07-30T09:38:00.005-05:00

PHILADELPHIA, Miss.—Folks leaning up against trees talking politics at the Neshoba County Fair in recent days may seem to have gone back in time with the unique experience, but the emergence of so-called new media helped bring it to more people.

Called the Mississippi’s giant house party, the Magnolia State staple for politics and good times had roots dating to the late 1890s. Many decades ago, Gov. Ross Barnett would sing country songs with lyrics related to his political platform, but little if any video footage of it exists.

While the fair has preserved a part of rural culture—from mule races to political speeches under a tin-roof pavilion—it seems to have easily embraced another world, the digital age.

During political speaking at the fair on Wednesday and Thursday, plenty of fairgoers tweeted their political analysis and play by play speakers and gossip. Whether reporting on Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller telling a dog joke or filming candidate footage for YouTube, this year’s fair brought the old world of red dirt and tin roof together with live tweets and future Internet footage.

Marty Wiseman, director of the Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State University, said various electronic media used by a number of fair attendees will preserve moments captured for a long time, for better or worse.

Politicians speaking at the fair want moments captured on video of them delivering a strong line during a speech, but also know the potential recording mistakes make public appearance more of an increased liability at the fair.

“If you get up there and get the heck booed out of you, it hurts,” Wiseman said.

However, few speeches this year had many noticeable jeers. One upside to technology allowing video to be more easily recorded and uploaded to the Internet is showing a large group of supporters cheering during a speech.

“If you can get it,” Wiseman said, “it can go viral.”

More than ever, this year’s Neshoba County Fair ushered in politicians embracing the world of Twitter, Facebook and viral videos. As candidates spoke and walked throughout the fairgrounds, at times someone holding a video camera followed.

While many political campaigns want to capture images and video reinforcing positive messages of candidates, the world of “YouTube moments” has liabilities too. Political campaigns in other states have been sunk by “YouTube moments,” such as when former Virginia Gov. George Allen was recorded calling an Indian person a racial slur.

Closer to home, a recording posted on YouTube of Republican candidate Angela McGlowan speaking to a radio host about gun registration helped sink her congressional aspirations this year. And don't let the Republicans think they've got the monopoly on silly gaffes, can anyone say "Joe Biden"? Here's another one out there for you Arlen Specter fans:

Morgan Baldwin, general consultant for Alan Nunnelee, Republican candidate for the 1st Congressional District, said the campaign recorded Nunnelee’s speech to post online.

“A lot of people aren’t able to be there and see what’s going on,” Baldwin said. “The ability to go online and see Senator Nunnelee talk about what’s important to the people of north Mississippi is key.”

Along with online video footage, Nunnelee updated his Facebook status and tweeted throughout his time at the fair.

When asked about the possibility of getting caught on video at the fair, state insurance commissioner Mike Chaney didn’t sound too worried, especially since his office already uses YouTube to help inform the public.
“It’s a part of it all now,” Chaney said.

For Brandon Presley, Northern District Public Service Commissioner who made a brief appearance at the fair, allowing more people to participate in politics only strengthens involvement in the process.

“People can post their own stuff,” said Presley. “I think it’s wonderful for democracy.”

P.S. For this of you who didn't catch the story I wrote for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal that appeared in Thursday's paper, check it out here.

Carol Sue Ward: January 15, 1952-July 8, 2010

2010-07-12T07:17:00.012-05:00

Mama when she attended nursing school in Vicksburg.

[I delivered the following text as the eulogy at my mother's funeral service.]

I want to thank you for attending my mama’s funeral service today. She was a special lady. Today my sisters and I will face one of the hardest experiences a person can go through in life. I appreciate you being here to help ease the burden for us as you also grieve. I can only think of one thing worse than a child losing a parent—a mother losing a daughter.

Granny—this will be hard. But I want you to know that God planned mama’s homecoming in a special way that will help us find comfort in the days ahead.

–I can’t think of a better way for a child to leave this world than in the loving presence of the woman who gave her life.

–We don’t always know the future. We’re not even promised our next breath. Mama didn’t let us know, maybe she didn’t know herself, but two weeks before you she left us, she got ready to go home. I'll never forget seeing her two Sundays ago, her warm, loving smile, feeling the strength in her hand as it touched mine. To show me how much improvement she'd made, she raised up from her bed, stood and walked a few steps, an accomplishment for a woman who couldn't move her legs just a few months ago.

–She also did things her own way. She didn’t like to give her age—even when I needed it to fill out the financial aid form to attend college. The best she could do, she wrote down the day she was born on a small scrap of paper and left it on her bedroom dresser for me to see. Something else, she was late for everything during her entire life except for the one thing she should have waited as long as possible. She loved to travel and kept asking us to take her on trips–the Smokey Mountains, to see Suzanne and Caleb in Missouri, even to Ireland where I plan to run a marathon next year. I told her as soon as her health improved we'd travel. But mama couldn’t wait on us anymore. To hell with the Smokey Mountains and Dublin, my mama went to heaven.

Mama in the hospital in Yazoo City.

–She was ready. Blood clots in her legs won’t cause her to fall down anymore. She won’t have any more problems breathing. She won’t feel any more pain. When she got to heaven, she was greeted with her wings and walked through the clouds to hear Johnny Cash play “A Boy Named Sue.”

–She worked as a dedicated nurse. She cared about others. A graduate of Yazoo City High School and the practical nursing program Hinds Junior College-Mercy Hospital Center in Vicksburg, she stopped working after symptoms related to myasthenia gravis kept her from providing care to patients. Dedicated to helping others get well, after working a 12-hour shift in one part of the hospital in Greenville, she walked from her wing of the hospital to the emergency room, seeking help for breathing problems threatened her life.

My parents on their wedding day.

Mama with Tonya and me on Easter

–Her family meant the world to her. She married her high school sweetheart Billy D. Ward of Benton but divorced after 17 years. That brought tremendous pain to her and the rest of our family. Mama valued her role as a mother most in life. Even during times of strong financial struggles as a single mother, she made sure her children had clothes to wear to school, enough food to eat and a decent place to live.
She also loved her parents for their caring nature, particularly her mother, who served as caretaker toward the end of mama's life. No longer able work due to symptoms related to muscular dystrophy, she returned to Yazoo City after her parents purchased a house out in the country for her to live. A shy, quiet woman, she felt lonely at times by herself. To keep herself company, she worked on word puzzles and usually kept a cat or two around. I remember the time she had that wild cat that lived behind the stove and inside the cabinets until I caught it and took outside, where it ran off and never returned. She often spoke on the phone to family and always welcomed company.

Billy Joe Shaver, one of my favorite human beings, has made a lot of mistakes in his life. He may consider shooting that man in the face in Waco Texas a few years ago a big mistake. However, one mistake he didn’t make is writing the song “Live Forever.” Lyrics from it seem appropriate right now.

I'm gonna live forever
I'm gonna cross that river
I'm gonna catch tomorrow now
You're gonna want to hold me
Just like i always told you
You're gonna miss me when i'm gone

Nobody here will ever find me
But I will always be around
Just like the songs i leave behind me
I'm gonna live forever now

You fathers and you mothers
Be good to one another
Please try to raise your children right
Don't let the darkness take 'em
Don't make 'em feel forsaken
Just lead them safely to the light

When this old world is blown assunder
And all the stars fall from the sky
Remember someone really loves you
We'll live forever you and I

Like the song says, “Nobody here will ever find me, but I will always be around. Just like the songs I leave behind me, I’m gonna live forever now," you'll live forever in my heart.

The Lord has blessed me in many ways. He gifted me with a woman who loved me more than I can ever appreciate. He granted one parent who would give the world to me, and she did in her special way. I tried to treat her in a way that reflects my love and appreciation for her.

In 2010, a photographer for the Clarion Ledger took photos of us for a Mother's Day story.

–She’s a fighter. She kept going after a hard divorce, attacks on her health from muscular dystrophy, and, toward the end, even when a tornado took the roof off her house.
She didn’t let any of that get the best of her.
We must take comfort in knowing my mama left this world in the presence of the woman who brought her into this world, knowing how much we loved her.

She may have left her earthly body, but her spirit will always be with me until I see her again in heaven.

Granny, Mama and me at the 2009 Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival. Photo by Alan Messer.

Media access to the military: Resignation of Gen. McCrystal

2010-07-07T18:59:00.005-05:00

I'm sure you have heard of the Rolling Stone article about General McCrystal, the military leader in charge of the U.S. operations of the Afghanistan war, that involved criticisms of President Obama's ideas and handling of the war. The article reports about McCrystal thinking Obama wasn't really focused, possibly even intimidated during their first meeting together. It went on to have McCrystal's aides describe vice president Biden as "Bite Me" and other colorful insights that seemed to undermine the commander in chief's authority and the executive branch's credibility.

Of course, Gen. McCrystal resigned as the commander in Afghanistan and soon announced his retirement from the Army. Retiring in disgrace after a long, distinguished military career seems like unfortunate way to exit for McCrystal.

As a recovering journalist, current public relations professional and graduate student of public policy, I applaud freelance writer Michael Hastings for writing an honest account of what he saw and heard amid generals and other top U.S. military leaders in Afghanistan. Reading his piece puts you beside the general's aides, drinking a scotch and soda with them, hearing their military honesty. Hastings has mentioned during interviews, he didn't misquote anyone associated with the article. He was doing his job.

However, Gen. McCrystal's public relations' staff clearly didn't know what the hell they were doing. The person responsible for granting Hastings access to McCrystal and his aides for such long periods of time should have been the person fired. I've only covered one four-star general in my time as a journalist, but it seems McCrystal's handlers would have known not to provide nearly unlimited access to a journalist with little interaction with him prior to the interview. A basic Google search on Hastings shows he's not the reporter you want sitting in on sensitive conversations.

So where does this leave us with the military and the press? If military brass have learned anything from this experience, they'll take former Mississippi First Lady Pat Fordice's advice when she excused herself from an interview a few years ago. "I'm sorry but I have to go," she told me. "I've always been told if I stay longer than 30 minutes with a reporter then my brain will be overtaken by aliens and I'm liable to say anything."

Hastings wasn't even a beat reporter. He was a freelancer for Rolling Stone sent to write a one-time piece on the war. The military should have known better. In the months, years, we'll see if the United States military has remembered that its vulnerable in other places besides the battlefield.

Politics and the Media, Left and Right

2010-06-18T15:01:00.006-05:00

Some of you out there may recall the Sunday alcohol debate in Starkville that began many decades ago and finally resulted in the city's government changing the law to allow businesses to sell it during hours allowed by state law.

The coverage by local media helped create an environment for more people in the area to support ending this dated blue law in a newly progressive Mississippi college town. Until recent years, Starkville's leaders would tar and feather supporters of Sunday alcohol in anti-Christian rhetoric with any mention of a push to change the law. Even during the public hearings shortly before the law changed here, one angry alderman said he would like to pass an ordinance requiring everyone in the city to attend church instead of supporting "this whiskey bill."

This summer I will take one of my remaining three graduate courses before graduating in December with my master's in public policy and administration from Mississippi State University. This summer course, "mass communication and politics," should make for a very interesting discussion on the intermingled connection between politics and media.

As a "recovering" journalist, I always find the interaction between media and politics fascinating. One of my right-wing friends, also a colleague at work and a lawyer, is a trusted devotee to Fox News personalities such as Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly. While I appreciate his insistence to stay informed in national events, I always get a kick out of him discussing with me what "your media hides." I readily admit that right-leaning media puts a different focus on news than some of the traditional news organizations. Different perspectives can help provide a more nuanced and broader perspective to our world. While I may have my own perspective on issues, I've always welcomed different viewpoints to help gain insight into what others think.

Locally, left and right politics often blur and media can help shade them often as much as national stories can shape public opinion. Case in point, my right-wing buddy and I joined forces a few years ago to lead the grassroots effort to change Starkville's law related to alcohol. While changing the law was the right thing to do in Starkville, arguably it still may not have passed without favorable news coverage.

This article helped contextualize the Sunday alcohol debate and was picked up by national media, including Forbes.com. It's written from my perspective, a rational-minded fellow who wanted to bring his city out of the Sunday prohibition era.
Here's another piece about Starkville Sunday alcohol that aired on Mississippi public radio.

As informed citizens, it's our job to view everything we see through a critical lens. But in a world of constant tweets and information overload, who has time to actually think?

How can this not put a smile on your face?

2010-05-19T16:06:00.001-05:00

A 5-year-old kid performs his version of "Folsom Prison Blues."
I think Johnny would be proud.

My hero, my mom

2010-05-09T08:44:00.000-05:00

On this Mother's Day, I appreciate all all women who make the world a better place in their roles as mothers, whether biological, adopted or otherwise.
For my mom this year, it's a been a real struggle, nearly dying from pulmonary embolisms (blood clots in her lungs) and struggling to regain strength, physical and otherwise, to keep moving forward. Earlier this year, I sat in the room with in her Vicksburg hospital room telling me that she couldn't move her legs. Moving to a hospital in Yazoo City, I remember the joy of seeing her lying in a hospital bed slightly moving her legs. Weeks later, she could raise herself up using a bar posted above her bed.

To honor mothers who are heroes on Mother's Day, Clarion Ledger (Jackson, Miss.) reporter Kathleen Baydala wrote a piece about mothers who are heroes, which included my mom. Check it out here. Also, the photo to the right was taken by Clarion Ledger photographer Rick Guy.

As I get ready to drive to Yazoo City to spend time with Mama and Granny on Mother's Day, I think about how special mothers are in this world. Even if I didn't always agree with my mom growing up, I've seen through the years what a special person she is, how much fight she has inside her. Often when things get really tough for me, I think about my mom finding strength to walk again and find strength to keep going. Even when she doesn't always know it, she inspires me everyday, not just Mother's Day.

More color in the room, God bless

2010-03-16T14:21:00.025-05:00

She needed something to brighten the room.
After visiting with Mama for a few minutes I noticed the dead flowers and asked her about them. She informed me that she sent them to herself.
"I felt like I deserved some flowers," she said. "When they moved me in here it didn't have enough color."
The bouquet of dead flowers had a card attached in Mama's handwriting that read "God Bless."
After continuous in-patient time in five hospitals in Yazoo City, Jackson and Vicksburg, Mama showed she's a trooper. She went from an unconscious state, unable to breathe alone and later not wanting to continue living to a woman determined to leave the hospital and find her outside of an institution.
She wants color in her life now.

I took the vase and dumped the flowers in the trash. The next day I had a fresh arrangement of flowers delivered to her room. Even when I can't visit, may be she'll look at the flowers and think of me.

After spending a little time with her recently, I could tell how much she has improved based on her snippy comments about me not visiting in a while.

She has made tremendous progress in recent weeks. She can stand on her own now using a walker.
"I thought they were crazy when they first brought it in here," she said. "I surprised myself."
She said she feels like a new person. She recalls telling me in a different hospital that she no longer wanted to live and shook her head from side to side.
"Everything looks so much better now," she said. "I'll be able to go back to Wal-Mart again."

Everybody's making it big but me...

2010-02-28T19:10:00.001-06:00

While I sit here tonight in my office working on essay questions for my take-home midterm exam in one of my graduate classes, I can't help but think about all the things besides collective action problems and excludable, rivalrous goods.

One of those many things that crossed my mind is Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show's great song, "Everybody's making it big but me." The great writer, cartoonist, performer and all-around awesome guy Shel Silverstein wrote it.

God bless Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show and Shel Silverstein.

Just for fun, here's another classic written by Shel and performed by Dr. Hook and crew, "Cover of the Rolling Stone."

And for those of you who don't know, this song did get them on the cover of March 29, 1973, issue of "Rolling Stone." Read the background of the story here.

And after all of this fun, time to write what I know about "mechanisms that exist to address collective action..."

Searching for David Keith Reamer Jr.

2010-02-27T07:15:00.014-06:00

My last conversation with David Reamer was more than a decade ago, maybe longer. He told me a little about getting married to his girlfriend’s best friend.

Months later, I called his mother trying to reconnect with him. “I talked to him once since he got married,” I told her.

After a pause, she said “David got married?”

After his stint at Ole Miss, he rarely communicated with his mother. I called her trying to find something out as a long-shot chance. I didn’t have any other leads.

David Keith Reamer Jr.—born on November 19, 1976—was one of my closest friends at T. L. Weston High School. We played chess together, discussed Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and lived out our own form of subversive ways in Greenville, Mississippi. And then he graduated as a national merit scholar and went to Ole Miss, he acquired the nickname “The Shadow,” found espresso, and disregarded classes. His college experience ended with his scholarships revoked and him slicing his wrists in the Ole Miss honors house. Before he died, a custodian found him.

The following year, I went off The University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, and he moved to McGehee, Arkansas, where his then-girlfriend lived. Throughout my college experience, David and I would exchange letters and the occasional phone call. While I continued to live in Hattiesburg, he moved to New Mexico where his girlfriend attended college. He also attended Eastern New Mexico University for a while, even won a photography award.

And one day I realized months, maybe years had passed without us speaking to each other. I no longer had a way to find him. I always wondered what David would do with his life.

He was one of the most creative people I have met. I kept letters in a shoebox and forgot about them.
He always had an interesting story to tell, whether about himself or the music and books he was into at the moment. I kept the bundle of letters he sent me over a two year period, beginning in 1997.

At my house in Starkville, I recently looked inside a cedar chest where I keep memories, I found those letters David wrote. Reading them aloud to a friend made us laugh at the incredible stream of conscious tone in which he wrote. He included poetry and Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, along with advice and updates about his personal life.

I remembered his e-mail address, which no longer exists, president_kafka@yahoo.com. It appears that David has lived much of his life in a Kafkaesque way and remained true to his nickname of “the Shadow.”

Realizing I hadn’t tried to look for David in years, I decided to give it another try. With MySpace a few years back and now Facebook, I thought he would emerge in the digital university. With social media and Google, it seems that everyone is online in some form or another. But I still couldn’t find David.

He left traces from his past—music and book reviews he wrote for different online sites—but not David. However, I found a person on MySpace from his past who still had a connection with him—his wife he mentioned marrying years ago. Imagine my surprise when I learned that I had written Alicia Reamer the day before their 10th wedding anniversary.

Imagine further surprise when she responded with the following message: “Sorry Robbie I don't know where he is. I have been trying to find him too.”

I wrote her again, explaining little more in detail how David and I knew each other. This time, the response was more than a couple of sentences. She wrote that she married David on February 15, 2000, but that she wasn’t seen him since October 2004 and hasn’t spoken with him since February 2005.

“I knew that he moved to Austin (actually Round Rock) with his girlfriend sometime that year and then to Amarillo about two years ago,” she wrote. “I cannot find him either.”

She continued to say that his mother contacted her a few years ago but also had no luck with finding him. However, she provided David’s last known address:

3631 Brennan Blvd
Apt. 21A
Amarillo, TX 79121

She also told me about his last known place of employment, the corporate office of Hastings. I called the manager of the apartment complex for the Amarillo address she gave, Windtree Apartments, and didn’t get much help. The manager said she couldn’t provide any details about anyone who may or may not have lived at that address. At her advice, I mailed a letter to the address and wrote “please forward” on the front of the envelope, although I’m sure David didn’t forward his mail if he has moved.

I also learned from Hastings that he no longer works there either, but did find a photo of him (standing to the right in this photo) taken during an event for comic book writer David Hopkins.

So, after a decade, I have learned more about a man known as “President Kafka” and “The Shadow,” but still haven't found him, just like a lot of other people who have sought him out.

Based on his elusive nature, I have a feeling he might prefer it that way.

UPDATE: 4:12 p.m. February 27, 2010

Since this blog was posted this morning, I have spoken to a number of people five different states. I appreciate everyone's efforts to assist my search with finding my friend.

Remember, sometimes people choose not to reconnect friends from their for many different reasons.
I feel comfortable that he is alive and enjoying life as only he can.

Sam Hamilton: Conservationist and patriot

2010-02-21T12:08:00.004-06:00

I visited Sam Hamilton in his office at the Department of the Interior in October to interview him for a story for Mississippi State's Alumnus magazine. Sitting in the magazine's planning meeting, I didn’t know much about him besides his recent nomination by President Obama to serve as director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and that he was a MSU alumnus.

After interviews with his family, colleagues, government officials and others affected by this man's work, I felt honored to write a story about Mr. Hamilton, an American patriot who dedicated his life to improving our nation’s natural resources.

From his childhood growing up in Starkville, he developed a love for the outdoors, spending time at the nearby Noxubee Wildlife Refuge. He learned that we must appreciate and conserve the wilderness if we want generations after us to experience this part of the American experience.

From his office high in the Department of the Interior, Mr. Hamilton never forgot the mission of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the impact it has on families and communities.

Mr. Hamilton inspired people all across the nation to be a part of something larger than himself. His life was proof that someone from Starkville, Mississippi, can make a difference on local, regional and national policy issues. After leaving his office, I wandered through Washington, D.C., for a while, on my way to meet a friend in the Capitol. As I walked I kept thinking about Hamilton’s path in life. His is one of those stories that helps all of us realize we can achieve our dreams if we set our sites high and stay focuses.

Last night I saw a tweet last night with news of Mr. Hamilton’s death. He was skiing in Colorado when he felt chest pains. Read the Associated Press' obituary for him here.

Just two weeks ago, I mailed a package of copies of the Mississippi State Alumnus magazine with his article in it. I wrote him a short letter thanking him for taking time to visit with me in Washington, D.C. I thanked him for sharing experiences from his life and informing me about his goals for the Fish and Wildlife Service. I ended by thanking him for his service to our nation.

His sister works at MSU in the College of Veterinary Medicine and one of his sons is a student at the university. Sam’s mother died just before Sam was confirmed to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

God bless you Mr. Sam Hamilton.

Below is the article from the Winter 2010 Alumnus magazine, which begins in page 10:

Protecting and preserving our natural resources

By Robbie S. Ward

Walk into Sam Hamilton’s office inside the U.S. Department of the Interior and you’ll see a carving of a maroon bulldog sitting on his coffee table. The small statue rests beside a book about Mississippi State—a place Hamilton calls home.

The maroon bulldog reminds the Starkville native of family and opportunities. His father, a World War II fighter pilot, was commander of the Air Force ROTC program at MSU. Growing up in Starkville, Hamilton spent lots of time in the outdoors, particularly at the Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge a few miles south of the city and university.

His family is filled with Bulldogs. His two brothers and sister all graduated from MSU, and one of his sons attends the university now. At Starkville and Mississippi State, Hamilton discovered his love for the outdoors and everything it offers. He has spent much of his life enjoying the outdoors and three decades working to preserve and enhance it so the rest of the nation can have opportunities as rich as his.

Hamilton recalls catching his first fish. He was five years old and with his dad at Noxubee Refuge. He spent much time there during his teenage years, learning to band wood ducks and Canada geese, build waterfowl pens, and to understand the importance of wildlife management. More than four decades later, he still loves to fish and spend time at the nation’s wildlife refuges.

“Our national refuges provide some of the richest experiences this country has to offer,” he said. “Some of my best memories of growing up are fishing and hunting with friends.”

Hamilton will continue to devote his life to making sure wildlife continues to be a part of the American experience. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama nominated the 1977 Mississippi State graduate to serve as director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, a key office in the Department of the Interior. In this position, Hamilton has administrative duties over the National Wildlife Refuge system, the Migratory Birds Program, National Fish Hatchery System, Endangered Species Program, and the service’s Office of Law Enforcement.

“Visionary” and “innovative” are words that have been used to describe his leadership at the Fish and Wildlife Service. Elected officials on both sides of the partisan aisle agree that Hamilton brings experiences, judgment and vision to his position. He is known for the use of sound science and collaborative efforts to solve challenges.

U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., said during testimony for Hamilton’s confirmation hearing during this past summer that Hamilton understands the role of states working with the federal government in conserving the nation’s wildlife resources. Cochran pointed to Hamilton’s experience for more than a decade as the Southeast regional director of the FWS. During that time, he handled some of the toughest and most significant conservation challenges, including the restoration of the Florida Everglades and coastal Louisiana.

“Mr. Hamilton and I both believe that abundant wildlife and healthy outdoor environments are very important resources to our nation,” Cochran said. “We must coordinate government activities with private landowners to preserve lands managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service for the benefit of future generations.”

Respect for Hamilton’s background and career in the FWS also spreads throughout the organization. Hamilton said that a background as a career service employee with the FWS helps him understand the caliber of biologists, researchers and other wildlife professionals involved in the service. Cindy Dohner, now director for the Southeast region, said Hamilton’s approach to working on key issues, innovative conservation partnerships and leadership style make him the right choice to lead the FWS.

“His conservation policy is that the service must work with partners,” Dohner said. “It’s not the service dictating—it’s a shared partnership.”

One key point that Hamilton emphasizes is his commitment to using the best science available to make decisions related to the FWS, from determining when to place animals on or remove them from the endangered species list.

“This science-driven, strategic, big-picture approach implies partnership and is particularly important since it takes into account the dimensions of the threats that now exist to the sustainability of our fish and wildlife resources,” Hamilton said.

Climate change is the transformational conservation challenge of our time, Hamilton said, “not only because of its direct effects, but also because of its influence on all of the other stressors of our wildlife resources,” he said.

In the spirit of collaboration and partnership, Hamilton also has worked with energy companies and NGOs on issues related to climate change. He has worked on carbon sequestration programs, among others, to help limit global warming that affects habitats. During his tenure as the director for FWS’s Southeast region, Hamilton helped lead efforts to restore more than 80,000 acres of bottomland hardwood forests, much of it on National Wildlife Refuge System lands. These techniques, which will sequester an estimated 33 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere during the next decade, restore or improve habitat, directly benefiting fish and wildlife.

While Hamilton enjoys discussing the value of nature, he has found himself in difficult situations in his job. While state administrator in Texas for the FWS, he worked to protect habitat for the golden-cheeked warbler, a bird listed on the federal Endangered Species Act.

“Sometimes, people can get really emotional about these kinds of issues,” Hamilton said. “But, usually, when you bring everyone to the table, people want to work together.”

Hamilton’s belief in having everyone work together helped change the tone of discussion in Florida when he encouraged greater partnerships and information sharing with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and other conservation partners interested in helping save manatees, which were decreasing in numbers and habitat in Florida. People involved in the discussions said the tone and tenor of the conversation changed when Hamilton spearheaded efforts for collaboration.

Now, back to Hamilton’s office at the Department of the Interior. Perched at one of his windows, a couple of redcockaded woodpecker carvings enjoy the view. Hamilton’s work affects the entire nation through policies of the FWS, but he only has to look at the painted woodpeckers to know that the decisions made in his office will determine the quality of our natural resources for future generations.

“This is as much of the American experience as anything I can think of,” he said.

WILD9 - Sam Hamilton (English) from The WILD Foundation on Vimeo.

Not dead yet

2010-02-09T09:57:00.009-06:00

I called the office of my mom’s Yazoo City doctor and heard something that stung.

“We thought she was dead,” the woman at the office told me.

Waiting a few seconds to let her sentence process, I cleared up her misinformation.

“She’s definitely alive,” I said. “I’ll give her phone number and you can discuss this with her.”

The woman didn’t apologize for telling me on the phone that she thought my mom was dead. What if I hadn’t spoken with my mom in recently? What if she really was dead?

I called Mama at her hospital room in Vicksburg a few minutes later just to make sure she wasn’t dead and didn’t get an answer. I waited about an hour and called back. It turns out she went to have a CAT Scan. I asked how she was doing.

“I have a headache and my back hurts,” she said.

“You’re not dead, are you?” I said, telling her about the conversation with the woman at her doctor’s office.

“I’ve got a long ways to go, but I’m far from dead,” she said.

Sometimes when we get into a rut in life, we might get depressed and feel like we might as well be dead. However, the greatest thing about life is the ability to find redemption and crawl out of our self-inflicted graves and show the world how alive we are.

My mom isn’t dead. I can tell she’s doing much better since she has started arguing with me again.

Running five miles yesterday made me feel alive again too. Through the years, I’ve been in situations where it seemed like people thought I wouldn’t keep going. After a car wreck where I almost lost my life to a mobile home hauled by an 18-wheeler slicing through my driver’s side of my car, I took note of how easily life can slip through our hands. I dropped out of college for a little while to regroup, get my life together. I remember a few people telling me that I wouldn’t finish school after taking a break.

Last year, Starkville’s chief “economic development” official told me multiple times that I “wasn’t competent” to put together the third annual Johnny Cash Flower Pickin’ Festival, never mind the two prior successful years under my leadership. He didn’t commit staff or encourage volunteers to help with the event or even attend any part of it.

I felt a little redemption when the preacher for the Sunday Redemption Service asked where Starkville was during the festival celebrating the pardoning of Johnny Cash, the pardoning of Starkville, forgiveness.

We all need a pardon every now and then.

Just to clear the record, my mama ain’t dead yet, and neither am I. We have a lot of fight left in us.

Mr. Ring of Fire

2010-01-26T07:30:00.002-06:00

Michael Patrick helped start the Johnny Cash Flower Pickin’ Festival in Starkville with his Man in Black tribute band, Ring of Fire.

He and I have become compadres during the last four years. Back in October he and I had a system going at the Starkville City Jail. He and his band mates set up their equipment and performed outside the jail while I gave tours of the “Johnny Cash Suite,” as the sheriff likes to call it.

All festival attendees who enjoyed Justin Townes Earle’s performance owe Mr. Patrick for his willingness to be a part of this event that involves a lot of work but has a huge reward (and I ain’t talking about financial, jeez don’t I know it).

Recently, Michael recorded an album has made it available to download for free. Click here or visit http://www.michael-patrick.net/cd-promo.html to download his album and enjoy his original song, “Cash in the Attic,” along with plenty of other music he has put together for us. On a side note, Mr. Patrick may be from the New Jersey, but we’ll save a place for him in the Starkville City Jail any day.

One apple at a time

2010-01-25T20:56:00.008-06:00

Sitting in the ICU waiting rooms during recent months in Jackson waiting to see Mama for the next visitation, my life slowed down more than I can remember in recent memory. I had a lot of time to think about what I have done with my life. Many things that seemed important at the time all of sudden seemed trivial. I realized how much my life had gotten out of control. I wasn’t a drug addict or alcoholic, but I had wasted many opportunities.

Sitting in the hospitals, I met parents whose children would probably die soon. I met a woman whose husband was close to dying but made sure she spent every moment with him. I met families gathered during hard times. In some of worst possible situations, I saw how much love these people had in their hearts for people close to them.

Sometimes between the visitation periods, I realized I won’t ever accomplish what I want in life if I don’t change course. I have tried to do everything at full throttle at the same time, often losing focus on what really mattered. Focusing on too many projects at one time worked for a while but things seemed to break down a little at a time.

I realized the importance of priorities. For years, I thought I didn’t have to worry about time and priorities as long as I had plenty of coffee and enthusiasm.

I went from running a marathon in 2005 to allowing my body to get out of shape more than ever. I had a girlfriend I thought I might marry a year ago, but she ran away one of the last times I saw her. I created a festival about redemption, rebellion, good-spirited fun and watched an anemic economy and other factors bully it from Main Street to a local bar. I went from enjoying my job to struggling at things I usually shined doing. I went from taking graduate classes to realizing I'd taken about three years since I completed more than one course.

Some things I have wanted won't happen because of actions and decisions I’ve made. I can't undo the past, wouldn’t want to if I could. Some relationships won't be rebuilt. One person I cared deeply about told me recently that things I’d said about our future together were just part of my imagination.

Watching Mama breathe with a respirator, I learned we have to prioritize. Beyond everything else, we need to breathe—that’s most important. We also need to make those breaths count. Since we can't do everything all at once, we need to prioritize.

I want to live in the present and focus making the imagination in my head a reality. That means not getting bogged down with too many projects at the same time. On of my favorite editors told me before I left the Vicksburg Post to try to think about eating apples.

"If you try to eat seven apples at one time, they all turn nasty and you don't enjoy any of them," she said.

A person like me tries to do it all at once. That is why prioritizing has been such a hard lesson. Not prioritizing has left me alone, out of shape and uncertain about things and relationships I value. Some of my apples rotted before I could eat them.

Experience has taught me to decide which apples mean the most, make them my top priories and enjoy each bite like it's the last.

Man in Black Fanzine: Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival

2010-01-22T16:37:00.008-06:00

I wrote the following article for the winter issue of the British fanzine Johnny Cash: the Man In Black about the Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival. If you've spent time with us in the Starkville City Jail, some of this might sound familiar.

Starkville, Miss., – Standing inside the Starkville City Jail, in October, visitors to the Southern United States city stood inside a small cell on a Saturday morning and wondered what it might feel like confined against their will in such a small space.

A few visitors inside the jail kicked the cell for fun.

When Johnny Cash kicked the steel door inside the cell known as the ‘drunk tank’ in 1965, he didn’t see much humor about his situation at the time. Local authorities arrested him for public drunkenness, didn’t take his name and left him in the jail for the night. He kicked the steel door so hard he broke one of his toes. Cash wrote the song Starkville City Jail about the experience and told his side of the story, saying he was arrested for picking flowers.

For the third year, Starkville hosted one of the world’s best celebrations of Cash’s life – the ‘Johnny Cash Flower Pickin’ Festival.’ Along with fans from Germany, France, England and throughout the United States, members of Cash’s family visited the small town of about 26,000 people to celebrate the Man in Black’s spirit of rebellion and redemption.

Rosanne Cash has said events associated with Starkville embody her father’s life – good natured fun, a few mistakes, a lot of music, redemption.

Of the seven times Cash was arrested, he wrote a song about one of those experiences – Starkville.

After a night of partying in 1965 after performing the concert at Mississippi State University, Cash wandered through the small Southern U.S. city to see what he might find. He found a few parties at the university and another at a private residence nearby. After a few locals dropped him off at the University Motel, they thought he planned to sleep a few hours before leaving the city to perform another concert the next evening. In the same motel, Luther Perkins and June Carter, not yet his wife, slept in their own rooms. Marshall Grant decided to drive to Memphis after the show to spend the night with his wife, Etta.

Restless and not ready for sleep, Cash went for a late-night stroll to buy a pack of cigarettes. It’s too bad he didn’t know the local convenience stores were closed for the night. He stopped at a private residence along the way when he noticed the yard covered with flowers. Someone called the local authorities, who later arrested him, not believing he was who he claimed to be.

A gaunt, thin man at the time, Cash found himself in the middle of his amphetamine addiction during his Starkville visit. Local police thought he was a vagrant.

“Come over here,” one of the officers yelled at Cash.
“Hold on a second. I’m Johnny Cash,” Johnny yelled back.
“Yeah. And I’m Dwight D. Eisenhower,” the officer said. “Get the hell over here. You’re going to jail.”
And so he did… And so he wrote about the experience in his song.

I was whistlin’, pickin’ flowers, swayin’ in the southern breeze.
I found myself surrounded; one policeman said: “That’s him.
Come along, wild flower child. Don’t you know that it’s two a.m.”
They’re bound to get you.
‘Cause they got a curfew.
And you go to the Starkville City Jail.

When Cash performed the song to the prisoners at San Quentin State Prison in 1969, the song was his way of showing the inmates that he might not have served any time in a penitentiary, but he could understand how they felt. The song is of the same spirit of many of his other humorous songs, such as Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog and A Boy Named Sue.

However, more than 40 years after the arrest and four years after Cash died, a preacher, a bar owner, and a few other Cash fans in the city thought it might be a good idea to convince the city to ‘pardon’ Cash. After all, his life represents the idea of redemption to fans throughout the world, and his offense was ‘pickin’ flowers,’ not murder.

Lou Robin, Johnny Cash’s manger from 1973-2003 wrote a letter to the city about the planned celebration endorsing the event.

“I’m sure that Johnny would have been the first visitor in town… had he been able,” Robin wrote. “Here’s looking forward to what we hope will become a yearly event.”

During the first two years, city and county leaders symbolically issued ‘pardons’ to Cash’s friends and family who attended the festival. Visitors at the festival those years included Marty Stuart, Billy Joe Shaver, Marshall Grant, Rosanne Cash, Joanne Cash, Kathy Cash Tittle and Jimmy Tittle.

But after two years of pardoning Cash, it was time for something different. Carlene Carter and Justin Townes Earle performed at the festival this year, along with Jimmy Tittle and many other musicians. Everyone involved in the festival knows that forgiveness, such that the pardon represented, is a two-way street, so Carlene and Kathy stood on the festival stage and ‘pardoned’ Starkville, each giving the city’s mayor a flower.

The annual festival weekend includes public talks about Cash, jail tours, musical performances throughout the city and ends on Sunday with a ‘redemption’ church service. John Francis, a musician living in Nashville whose music is produced by John Carter Cash, performed at the festival, including at the Sunday gospel service.

Standing in a parking lot near the police department talking about the festival, Francis said he would return to Starkville.

“This is big,” he said. “This is about redemption.”

'Mo' Money' arrives in Starkville

2010-01-21T14:17:00.082-06:00

Mark your calendar for the Greater Starkville Development Partnership's ribbon-cutting at 11:30 a.m. on Friday at 316 Highway 12. Starkville will officially welcome Mo'Money Taxes to the community.

Curious about a company called "Mo' Money," I researched the company and found it has about 30 locations throughout Mississippi and more than 200 offices total. The company claims to have had 35,000 to 40,000 customers.

You may have read the "Starkville Daily News" feature story about the business that opened here in December but didn't mention any of the questionable activities about the company in other locations. A cursory search on Google found these headlines from Louisiana and Missouri locations:

The company's Web site isn't very helpful. After visiting the link to to www.momoneytaxes.com, you'll see that it's "no longer available until further notice."

Here's one of the news reports about the franchise, this one in St. Louis:

Many of these businesses are independently owned and operated, so Starkville's Mo' Money Taxes may be a great place for you to have taxes prepared. However, when deciding where to have your taxes prepared, research the credibility of companies.

To be fair, I was impressed with the "Mo' Community Initiative" that office manager Chibu Akukwe described to help victims of the recent fire. The company says it will donate $20 to a non-profit of a person's choice who has his or her taxes successfully prepared at the business.

While not directly associated, while mentioning this to a couple of people, they told me about the Starkville Board of Alderman's recent action to prohibit "car title for loans" businesses from opening in Starkville for a year. For those of you who haven't seen the beautiful new business on Highway 12 near Piggly Wiggly, consider yourself lucky.

Perhaps you can retrieve your car title after getting one of those 30 second tax refunds at Mo' Money.

Dad's successful heart surgery

2010-01-15T12:37:00.000-06:00

After four hours of surgery this morning, the surgeon who performed surgery on Dad cameout and told us things went as well as we could expect. Within minutes, we should be able to see him in the recovery room at Anderson Hospital in Meridian.
"He should feel much better as soon as he wakes up," the surgeon said.

And now Dad needs a new heart valve

2010-01-13T15:05:00.003-06:00

While I have focused on Mom recovering from her string of problems beginning with pulmonary embolisms about seven weeks ago, Dad has had his share of health issues too.
He was admitted to the hospital in Meridian on Tuesday after tests on his heart showed serve problems. His aortic heart valve is essentially blocked, requiring him to have surgery at 7:30 a.m. on Friday at Jeff Anderson Hospital.
Blood flows into his heart but has problems getting out, his surgeon told him. For months now, problems with routine movements have caused him to stop from dizziness and heavy breathing. When I helped him move recently, I could tell he wasn't operating at full force.
Today I spoke with him by phone from his hospital room learned a few details. Typically aortic valves have openings just smaller than a half-dollar but his doctors had problems passing a small wire into his valve during tests.
During his hospital visit on Tuesday, he learned that many people who do not have their aortic valves replaced often "drop dead" without warning. Given that information, he opted for surgery as soon as possible. His recovery will take a while, just in time for him to retire in July.
I have plenty of faith he'll come out of this just fine. After all, a rattlesnake bit him when he was thirteen and survived that.

As for my mom, she moved to Promise Hospital in Vicksburg on Monday and continues to recover. Speaking to her today, she said she's ready to leave these hospitals behind her as soon as possible. She said her one of her legs aches, but that is much better than her unconscious in the ICU at University Medical Center.
So, let's get this straight: Dad is in the hospital in Meridian on the Alabama side of Interstate 20, and Mama recovers in a Vicksburg hospital on the Louisiana side of I-20. This weekend I will become very familiar with both sides of Mississippi along the interstate.
Here's to a full recovery on both sides of the Magnolia State.

Life from a rattlesnake bite

2010-01-11T18:13:00.011-06:00

It's about time I thank the rattlesnake that bit my father's right hand in 1962. I wouldn't be alive without that happening.

It took me years to figure out how much I a freak accident, an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake coiled in a fallen treetop in Yazoo County nearly a half-century ago. A thirteen-year-old version of my father didn't know what happen while squirrel hunting with his father, a county road foreman in the poor Mississippi county.

This is how the rattlesnake with 12 rattlers almost killed Daddy:

Billy Don Ward, now 64, grew up near a community called Benton. One thing most Mississippi country boys are taught is a love for fishing and hunting. My dad started hunting with Papaw at an early age. Papaw would lecture Daddy when he broke sticks, trying to tiptoe through the woods.

"He said, If you keep stepping on those sticks, we're never going to kill a squirrel,'" Dad recalled his father saying.

But those who knew Papaw before he went to heaven know he peppered his words with cursing.

My future father was a veteran at retrieving squirrels by his early teens. Whenever Papaw shot the squirrel Dad would get it. The day in September 1962 the snake bit Dad, nothing was out of the ordinary. Papaw shot a squirrel and Dad went to fetch it. About 200 yards from home on a steep hill, Dad saw the squirrel's tail, poking out of a broken tree top on the ground.

He didn't know a rattlesnake had claimed the squirrel.

"When I reached down, the squirrel fell out of my hand," Dad said. "When I reached back down the second time, the snake grabbed me."

It turns out "grabbing" him meant that the snake's two venomous fangs pierced into the meat of his right hand between his thumb and index finger. Papaw jerked the snake off of his son's hand when he discovered what happened. He killed the snake before leaving the woods for the hospital. He even took the snake with them.

About a hour later, doctors at the Yazoo City hospital weren't sure Daddy would live through the snake bite. At first, his hand swelled to the size of a basketball, he remembers. Hospital staff even had to restrain his arms and legs to him from "climbing the walls" from delirium.

Spending weeks in the hospital recovering, he heard many diagnoses about his hand and arm.

"They started talking about taking the arm off at my shoulders," Dad said. "But I just came out with a crippled hand."

When the snake dislodged from Dad's hand, some of the venom and blood drained out of his body. Dad survived without needing an arm or hand amputated. The lost blood and venom saved his life and body parts. That hand later healed, all but his trigger finger.

Five years after the snake bite, 1967, the Vietnam War still wagied in southeast Asia. When Dad volunteered for military service, he was disqualified because of his hand injury.

If he'd fought in the military, he may not have married Mom, the former Carol McMichael, on Aug. 28, 1971. If they would have never married, my two sisters and I likely wouldn't have been born.

How different would things be if Billy Ward had stayed home that day?

[A version of the previous column appeared in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal on November 7, 2005.]

Where now?

2010-01-05T11:00:00.004-06:00

I haven't posted in a while since I moved to a new house last week and won't have Internet service for another week.

Mama is still in ICU at the Central Mississippi Medical Center but has recovered from her surgery with a few challenges along the way. After physicians prescribed high doses of steroids, she experienced "steroid psychosis," which affected her thinking due to the chemical reaction between her body and such high amounts of the drugs. After physicians lowered her doses of steroids, her thinking has improved tremendously.

A few minutes ago, one of her doctors called to update me on Mama's condition. He recommend she return to a long-term acute care hospital, similar to the one she was at before she needed to leave for surgery a few days before Christmas.

Specialty Select Hospital, where my mother had unfavorable experiences with before, declined to accept her back at its facility. Recently, the CEO of the hospital sent me a letter following up with my discussion with him about concerns I had with staff at the hospital. Basically, he said he used the experience as a "teaching experience."

As for where Mama will go since Specialty rejected her, another facility in Jackson, Regency Hospital, may be an option. I have learned of a place in Vicksburg and will look for a facility closer to Starkville, possibly in Tupelo.

We hope to learn more this weekend.

As always, if you have any comments, questions or advice related to this, feel free to e-mail me here.

Family, love, Christmas

2009-12-25T20:43:00.007-06:00

People I have met in the hospital during the last four weeks have reminded me about more than I can ever thank them for.

The night I arrived at the hospital where Mama is now, I saw one person in the family waiting area, a man asleep in a chair. After two days of passing each other, we had Christmas breakfast together in the hospital's cafeteria since we were the only two people in the ICU waiting area.

Earnest Jones, of Hazlehurst, works as a maintenance worker in Crystal Springs at the Brushy Creek Headstart. He's 48 and has been married for 20 years. He said he and his wife, Lorene, married on his birthday, October 6.

"I don't get in trouble by forgetting that day," he said.

He has spent nights at the hospital with his mother-in-law.

Jones discussed spending time in the hospital with his 80-something-years-old mother-in-law while she is hospitalized in the intensive care unit for congestive heart failure. He said when he married Lorene, it was for sickness and health.The sickness and health part extends for Jones to his extended family. He said he didn't want his wife staying at the hospital all of the time. To give her a break, he spends nights in the hospital.
I asked Ernest what family means to him. His response was the best Christmas present I could have asked for.

Recovering...again

2009-12-25T19:58:00.001-06:00

Even with Mama a few feet away having a morphine Christmas, I see kindness, hope and many reasons for optimism about the future.

Mama's emergency surgery was successful, the surgeon said yesterday. He removed about eight inches of "dead" colon, which will require about five days in the ICU here and more time to recover either here or at another hospital.

She was awake the two times I saw her after the surgery yesterday.

The surgeon said we should think of Mama's recover in terms of weeks and months. She's back to breathing on a ventilator since the doctors wanted to make sure she would have stable breathing during her surgery. She had been through a lot recently. Sunday marks a month since she was rushed by ambulance from Yazoo City to University Medical Center.

This morning Mama was alert and heard me say "Merry Christmas" to her. Even with a lot of tubes in her mouth, she tried to wish me one too.

Will post soon a video from this morning.

More holiday complications

2009-12-24T16:25:00.010-06:00

I drove to Jackson on Wednesday to talk to Mama in person about why she wants to live, only to to learn about the need for emergency surgery today.
It seems to never end.
The CEO of Specialty Select Hospital called me on Wednesday to tell me about Mama saying she no longer wanted to live. He strongly recommended I drive back to the hospital as soon as possible. After speaking to him, I called Mama's room.
"I have thought about it for some time and made up my mind," Mama announced to me. "I want to die--I'm tired of fighting all of this."
She apologized for being a burden.
"I know you'll have to take care of the funeral costs," she said. "I hope you can sell my house and reimburse yourself. I'm sorry I've been so much of a burden."
I told her she wasn't a burden and wasn't going to die anytime soon, that she would continue to regain her strength. On Monday and Tuesday, Mama began physical therapy, showing signs of improvement. However, after nearly a month of hospitalization and complications associated with her condition, she reached a point where she wanted to give up.
One of her physicians later told me steroids she takes makes people more susceptible to depression, which comforted me, knowing chemicals may have encouraged her depression made me feel better.
I drove back to Starkville on Tuesday night to meet with the owner of the house I will move into by the end of the month. Since Thanksgiving, my life has been on hold, including essential duties, such as making arrangements to move. I'm not complaining, just explaining.

"I haven't changed my mind," she said

Walking into Mama's hospital room, I saw a nurse practitioner assigned to make sure she didn't hurt herself.
"I haven't changed my mind," Mama said, looking in my direction and then turning away.
After spending a few minutes discussing with her how "we" would get better, would continue to gain strength and work on standing and moving, she seemed to soften her position.
"You're so close to standing up and walking again," I told her.
She told me that during the previous night that hospital staff "took their time" when she called them for assistance, whether to change her or when machines next to her bed made noise.
"They just keep beeping all night," Mom said.

Another complication

Minutes later, one of her physicians entered the room to tell us that her perforated bowel had worsened to the point of her needing emergency surgery, requiring her to transfer to another hospital.

University Medical Center, where she had been before, didn't have any hospital rooms available. Neither did Baptist Medical Center.

She arrived at Central Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, the hospital's intensive care unit, around 11 p.m. on Wednesday. When I saw her, she complained about intense pain in her stomach. She spent the night in another hospital with more uncertainty.

I spent the night in another waiting room, just waiting.

Lying in feces for an hour and more...

2009-12-21T20:15:00.001-06:00

If you want your vulnerable and weak mother or other loved one to lie in her own feces for more than a hour, I strongly recommend Specialty Select Hospital in Jackson, 5903 Ridgewood Road.

It's a great place for you to leave someone you love if you don't give a damn, based on my experience with Mama since she has been there.

Mama has only recently been able to lift her arms above her head and can't do basic movements we take for granted, such as independent actions like take a bath and go to the bathroom. That's why we entrust so much to so-called health care professionals when we select a facility to care for people we love.

WARNING: Content in this blog posting contains graphic details about what happened to my mother as part of her hospital experience. I write about this to warn others whose family member may spend time at this facility or other long-term acute care hospitals. While issues happen everywhere, medical professionals should pay special attention when working with people we love.

In Jackson, two "long term acute care hospitals" treat patients who need additional time in the hospital but don't necessarily require intensive care. When the social worker at University Medical Center suggested I visit both places, I chose Specialty Select Hospital since it's a larger facility and has physical therapy areas.

During brief tours it's impossible to know which place will provide the best care.

Often you have to rely on good faith efforts of staff and physicians to treat your family like they would treat their own, presuming they love their family.

I have kept a journal of things here Mama arrived. At 9:07 a.m. today, a staff membe entered Mama's room.

"Can you change me," Mama asked the woman.

"Are you soiled?" she asked, watching Mom nod her head.

The woman called someone else into the room, so I left, knowing Mama didn't want me in the room while staff change her bed sheets. I spent time in the waiting room, talking to a woman whose husband had a stroke as a result of gangrene in his gall bladder and another family whose 37-year-old daughter's future looks bleak from kidney failure.

When I entered Mama's room, before I walked by her bed, she said "they still haven't changed me."

I pressed the red button on the remote, hearing someone at the nurses' station just outside the room say "Can I help you?"

"My mom has had a bowel movement and no one has changed her sheets for more than a hour," I said.

"What?" was the response.

After repeating my statement, nurses entered the room within a few minutes to change the linens and clean my mother. Last night, she told me how she felt "humiliated" and "embarrassed" not able to take herself to the bathroom. She said she didn't want to eat food so she could limit her bowel movements. I explained to her how important it is for her to eat so she can gain strength, how "professionals" at the hospital know she and many others there aren't capable of taking care of themselves and help as part of their jobs.

Later today, she said she told the nurse she didn't want to eat lunch. After the nurse left, Mama started crying, saying how depressed she felt.

"I just don't know if I have the strength for this," she said, holding my hand. "I just keep laying in his bed and can't get out of it."

Mama's occupational therapist entered the room about this time. Mom began to lift weights and resistance bands to help strengthen her arms. The therapist said the first step for Mama will be to help her sit in a "stroke bed."

For my 57-year-old mother who has been in the hospital for more than three weeks, recovery seems lifetimes away. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity when they're vulnerable.

This isn't the first issue related to professionalism and competency I've had with the hospital.

A few weeks ago, a staff member called me asking for permission to place a picc line on Mama's arm. Throughout the conversation, I heard the nurse chewing gum.
When Specialty Select Hospital transferred Mama back to UMC after she experienced complications, the disk staff there sent with the CAT scan was blank when UMC physicians tried to view problems in my mom's stomach.
The nurses' station next to Mama's room is so loud that we hear laughter late at night. You might think it's a block party, not a "long-term acute care hospital."
One staff member was so lazy that she didn't want to use the trash container at the nurses' station. Instead, she opened the door to Mama's room without saying a word, tossed trash in it and shut the door. This same woman fifteen minutes later left Mama's room before she checked her vital signs. "Can someone find me a stethoscope for this woman?" we heard her yell as she left the room.
Staff let the door slam as they leave the room.

All of these things may seem small to people like Dr. Greg Oden, medical director at the hospital, but to people experience these things first-hand it means everything. It can hurt a fragile person's recovery after an already devastating experience.

Of all the letters the hospital's marketing department displays of the great care patients received at there, how many others left with psychological scars from mistreatment no person should experience?

Happy holiday, hospital recovery

2009-12-20T14:09:00.002-06:00

Waiting in pain without relief is hell when nights bring more pain and tears in a hospital bed she can't leave.

Piercing stomach pain brought tears to Mama before nurses decided she needed pain medication on Friday night. She spends her time waiting now at a "long term acute care" hospital on Interstate 55 in Jackson. She waits now awake and alert, a contrast to her time in the intensive care unit at a different hospital when she wasn't always aware she was alive. She waits now for nurses to check on the beeping machine hooked to her. She waits to see someone she recognizes to visit, a loved one.

She waits for something better.

Antibiotics pumping through her blood stream counteract the abscess from the perforated bowel doctors discovered a few weeks ago. She waits for the pain to go away. This time around we can see the pain in her. Some of us saw her pain through the years, when she struggled with loneliness and depression of finding herself alone in an isolated house in rural Mississippi for ten years after she couldn't work anymore. She's stubborn and keeps waiting.

Watching Mom struggle in the hospital, it's hard to keep from feeling bitter about the past that led her to this hospital room, but I'll do my best to channel these emotions into something helpful.

Having spent a few weeks waiting in the family waiting area at University Medical Center's intensive medical center, I can understand part of the waiting she has felt through the years. When you wait and wait with little indication of change, you can start to ask why bother to keep going. I'm sure that's what she has felt like for years in that old house in Yazoo County, seven miles from the "city" and a world away from the life she'd hoped for growing up there.

After she fell down outside while leaving the Yazoo City hospital a few months ago, she finally agreed to stay at Granny's house in town. The week of Thanksgiving I didn't speak with her much, but saw she'd had setbacks when I visited on Thanksgiving. As she waits now, I hope she things about the little steps of progress, how far she has come since the pulmonary embolisms cut off her oxygen, making her unconscious.

Helping EMTs move her body to a stretcher inside Granny's house, I didn't know if she would wake up. Before making the 911 call, I rubbed my knuckles against her chest and saw no response aside from breathing.

Bottles of pills scattered on Mama's bed, Granny and I wondered if she overdosed on pain pills. When it hurts so much, it's easy to overdose, especially when she forgets how many pills she took a half-hour earlier.

Mama's rare form of muscular dystrophy, called myastenia gravis, added to her pain and failing. Her blood clots that formed in her legs and wandered up to her lungs would have killed her if hadn't gotten help.
I was in the right place at the right time the morning I called the ambulance. If I hadn't called, Granny would have let her "sleep," since she was used to Mama staying in bed when she didn't feel well.

Entering Mama's hospital room on Friday, her warm smile revealed how much she wanted to get the hell out of that hospital bed.

"It's so good to see you," she said, her voice hoarse and weak.

Seeing my mom breathe without help from a ventilator showed progress. I told her how good it was to see her as we hugged.

Mama called me her "guardian angel" while introducing me to a nurse. Spending weeks inside the ICU family waiting room, I hardly felt like a guardian anything, more like a professional waiter. I spent days and days waiting for good news and finally saw the smile on Mama's face again. Seeing that smile convinced me that stubborn woman would improve.

But it takes time.

Sitting near her, I have seen her cough but unable to break up congestion in her lungs, watched her take small cups of different colored pills. She said she wants to take fewer pills.

"By the time I take all of those pills, I can't eat anything," she whispered. "That's a poor substitute for food."

She won't be home for Christmas. Home will be different for her when she does. She won't ever live in her house again. We hope home health, maybe hospice, and Meals-On-Wheels will allow her to live with Granny for as long as they can take care of each other.

We briefly discussed the future, but Mama focuses on the present when the pain is so close.

"I had planned to feel better today," she said. "But it didn't work out."

It will.

Breathing better than a balloon

2009-12-15T09:08:00.008-06:00

Mama can swallow and breathes on her own now.

A doctor left a message on my voice mail last night about what was happening.

"Mr. Ward, I wanted to let you know we will extabate your mother at 6 o'clock," the doctor said.

I recorded video above on Saturday. Mom's ventilator helping a turquoise balloon breathe while she did the job herself while the machine played with the balloon. Mama found the strength inside to breathe for herself.

Hanging out at Mama with tubes down her throat while pain medicine and a dozen other medications flow through her had given me lots to think about in recent weeks. Speaking with other families staying in the hospital with loved ones, I learned even more about myself. Each breath we take is the most important of our lives.

I know a lot of people in ICU thrilled to breath. Mama is one of them. One breath at a time. Inhale. Exhale.

We make life really complicated more than we should. But remember this--Inhale, exhale. Living in the present can make the difference.

Sitting in the family waiting room, I remembered and realized more than I bargained for. I won't take breathes, actions, words, friends, family and so much more for granted anytime soon.

UPDATE 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday:
Mom will move this morning out of the ICU into a regular room. Another great sign.

Improving at the ICU

2009-12-07T21:01:00.005-06:00

Sitting in her bed this evening at UMC's intensive care unit, Mom waved at her nurse, just like she did last night.Today she has lower blood pressure and a better outlook. That's a lot for a woman who entered the hospital via ambulance from Yazoo City the day after Thanksgiving.
Her blood pressure has dropped to the 160-170 range, much lower than the 190-220 report I heard a day ago. She may still breathe through a ventilator, but she'll come off of it as here breathing strengthens.
After driving back to Starkville to work and wash clothes, I have relied on phone calls for reports on how Mom progresses from the blood clots in her lungs, the likely culprit for her going unconscious and not waking up the morning I called 911 for help. Of course, her myastenia gravis and pneumonia during her hospital visit haven't helped.
All in all, things look brighter.

UPDATE: 9:18 a.m. December 8, 2009

I just spoke to my mom's nurse and learned that Mom's blood pressure has improved and her breathing tests showed lots of promise. We're hopeful her doctors will take her off the ventilator today. Also, the nurse said Mom may leave ICU today for another facility where she will continue to recover from her pulmonary embolisms.
This week's outlook looks so much better.

[Photo taken about a month ago when Mom was in the Yazoo City hospital.]

One stubborn mama

2009-12-05T19:45:00.006-06:00

Mom and I have had a number of conversations during her time at University Medical Center. I use gestures and words. She speaks through her eyes, facial expressions and limited hand motions.

[Photo taken a month ago, just before Mama was released from the Yazoo City hospital. She fell down and hit her head while trying to get into Granny's car but nurses still allowed her to leave.]

Visiting her during the four periods allowed allowed at the ICU, I have seen her humor increase almost as much as her blood pressure. Doctors say their primary concerns about her right now are blood pressure in the 210 to 190 range and her breathing. While her breathing continues to strengthen each day, her blood pressure can't seem to remain consistent at the right levels.

To take get her laughing, I've made a few observations.

Speaking loud enough so Mom could hear me, I told one of her nurses I was used to her high blood pressure. "She's had high blood pressure around me ever since I was a kid," I said, half joking about the days when I aggravated her.
I told a nurse how Mom will go through extreme measures to convince me to spend a week with her.

Last night I took the long way to leave the ICU and saw the sick and hurt people in bed, some had visitors. Some didn't. But of them were hooked up to endless cords, tubes, monitors and other apparatuses. I often feel like I'm hooked up to more than I can handle, but realized how little I had to worry about after seeing their faces. They seemed to wait for something--family, physicians, friends or nurses; good or bad news--something. A few years ago, a woman at work said I seem like I'm still trying to figure out what's out there for me. I guess we're all waiting for something. If I don't find it in the Starkville City Jail, I might discover it while talking to the woman from Crystal Springs who sees hope for her Down Syndrome son who had a stroke at age 4. Life is mysterious and amazing like that.

Hanging out in the ICU reminds me about the small victories that aren't so small. When Mama needs something, she can't tell us. With weak hands, she can't write what she wants, but she can point, nod and mouth words. I've learned to hear her say "help me" without sound from her mouth. I feel helpless when I can't understand. It feels like I've solved an important puzzle when I figure out she wants pillows or needs higher doses of pain medicine.

Nurses have said Mom may breathe on her own if tests go well tomorrow. We're just taking things one breath at a time. Right now, she sounds like a potty mouth comedian when she tries to talk to me. Loud beeps from her respirator overshadow anything she tries to say.

But Mama is stubborn. She'll keep trying to talk, and one day soon the beeps won't distract our conversation.

Sitting here in the family waiting area next to the ICU, I keep thinking about memories from my past (where else?) and thought this John Prine song would be appropriate.

Living one breath at a time

2009-12-02T20:51:00.006-06:00

Chances are you don't remember your first breath and won't think much about your last one. It's what we do with those between those bookends that make the difference to the rest of the world.

Seeing my mom struggle to breathe makes me philosophical about this kind of business. Sitting in a waiting room other people's family members can make think think twice about what you're doing and not doing in life.

I've spoken with a Crystal Springs woman who has been here for weeks with her down syndrome son who had a stoke when he was four-years-old. I think about the 19-year-old whose father told me about bleeding in his son's liver stopping. He thinks his son caused the wreck after falling asleep while driving.

I think of the things I've been crazy for doing but wouldn't take back--riding my bike into a swimming pool, puncturing my eardrum the second time going into the water; running away from vacation Bible school when I was six-years-old to arrive at my birthday party and hearing Granny tell me I had to sit in a chair for more than an hour for punishment. Honestly, I don't regret punching my dad in the nose when I was in the second grade, but we'll have to discuss that some other time.

I also sit here and think about all of the things I want to do and the things I have yet to realize I want to do. I wrote a newspaper column about four years ago about planning to run the Dublin marathon (Ireland, not Mississippi) and still haven't. I still need to figure out how to change the world for the better.

Mama's body has allowed her to take control of her breathing today. She went from requiring a ventilator to breathe to taking control and only needing assistance breathing. It's a big step closer to her breathing without a machine, adding distance from her last breath. We'll have more chances to do some of the things we've talked about for a while now, like taking a trip somewhere. We'll have to think of somewhere where we can get into lots of trouble.

She will transfer soon to something called a LTAC, a long-term acute care facility, a place to help her recover from her pneumonia and blood clots in her lungs. The case worker at the hospital said the average stay there is about a month.

When I go with Mama to the LTAC tomorrow I'll keep my eyes on her breathing and think about best use of my own breath. It's a shame it takes Mama not waking up the day after Thanksgiving for me to realize this. At least I realize it.

Thankful for an intensive care unit of hope

2009-11-29T13:10:00.009-06:00

UPDATE: 10:44 A.M. December 1, 2009
Attempts were unsuccessful yesterday when Mama tried to breathe without the machine. Doctors said they would try again today.

At her doctor's recommendation, we're exploring opportunities for her to be transferred to a long-term acute care facility. It's an intensive care unit type of place where people stay for 3-4 weeks.

We should know something more today. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

****
UPDATE: 5:50 p.m. Nov. 29, 2009

Mom has regained awareness around her and understands when people speak to her. The nurse said Mom will likely have her breathing tube removed tomorrow since she has shown improvement. Keep her in your thoughts. As I said before, she's stubborn enough, so I expect a full recovery.

****

About a day before she went on the ventilator, doctors asked me if Mama wanted help living if she stopped breathing.
Granny and I suspected something wrong when Mama didn't wake get up Friday morning. After she didn't wake when I yelled her name and shook her, we called 911. The Yazoo City ER doctor thought she had overdosed on her dozen medications, but it appears she went into a myastenia crisis.

And so goes the life of someone living with myastenia gravis, a rare form of muscular dystrophy.

Thinking about the doctor's question, I recalled Mom's for the last 15 years. It began with her voice slurring and having problems moving her arms when she felt tired, stealing the life she knew. I remember how powerless I felt watching her sit in her bedroom floor terrified, searching for her next breath. She would have given anything to have help living. A single parent working 12-hour shifts as a nurse after her husband abandoned her for someone else. She just kept going, doing the best she could with what she had. Now she lies in bed under sedation and leaves us wondering what the next step will be, although her neurologist said her recovery outlook is "good but day-to-day."

I have always known Mom as stubborn, and want to believe she'll keep fighting, even after she leaves the hospital. It takes stubborn attitude to keep going with this kind of disorder.

Sometimes we feel locked into a life we didn't want and can't get out of it. If Mama feels anything lying in a bed at University Medical Center's intensive care unit, she probably feels a desire to escape from her restraints around her wrists, a desire to find a way to breathe without a ventilator pumping 16 artificial breaths per minute. She wants help. She needs help.

Holding my hand in the emergency room two nights ago when we arrived at the University Medical Center here in Jackson, she said "I love you" in a low, ruffled voice to me. I gripped her hand tighter.

As we begin our second full day at this hospital, she continues her stubborn resilience in intensive care. Nurses intensified her sedation but she still opens her eyes and shows signs of awareness. Her neurologist told me that we have to approach her condition as "day to day" but she has a "good" chance of recovering. He also said her breathing has improved.

So we wait longer...While we do, listen to Billy Joe Shaver's incredible song, "Old Chunk of Coal," about turning into the person we all know we can become.

Busting out of our Cells

2009-11-21T10:03:00.010-06:00

Speaking at Toastmasters this week, someone asked me why we might want to celebrate someone getting arrested in our city, even it was a country singer. This question has harassed me ever since I first publicly discussed having the city and county give a symbolic pardons on Johnny Cash's behalf here.

"Some people don't think we need to celebrate a drunk," one city alderman said during a Board meeting a few years ago. He voted against the city of Starkville sponsoring the Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival. That same man was elected justice court judge a few years ago. I suppose I better not find myself in his courtroom accused of late night flower pickin'.

Most people familiar with Johnny Cash know he was more than "a drunk," as the Starkville judge described one of America's cultural icons. First, he was also an addict. His lifelong struggles with amphetamine addiction are well documented. People close to him have told me about their memories of The Man in Black during his amphetamine days. He didn't give a damn about anything or anyone except himself and his next fix. They also told me about their experience with him as one of the greatest people they have ever known. He would give the less fortunate the shirt off his back. Kris Kristofferson's song, "Pilgrim Chapter 33," is said to be about Mr. Cash. The chorus seems to describe him:

He's a poet, he's a picker--
He's a prophet, he's a pusher--
He's a pilgrim and a preacher, and a problem when he's stoned--
He's a walkin' contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction,
Takin' ev'ry wrong direction on his lonely way back home.

Answering the question at Toastmasters, I mentioned how Johnny Cash embodies the idea of redemption for me. He made many mistakes but later did what he could to make things right with people he wronged. I think of mistakes I have made through the years, along with hurt and pain caused by people close to me. I think of the "Starkville City Jail," a place I visit and show to others, and see redemption. I think of people who told me through the years I couldn't succeed at lofty goals I set. I think of growing up in Mississippi poor, unable to have things other kids did. I think of my mother, a woman struck with a rare form of muscular dystrophy when I was in high school. I think of murder trials I have covered as a journalist.

Running the Country Music Marathon four years ago, around mile 20 I started thinking about prisons people experience in life--mental illness, hurtful influences around us, physical prisons, self-doubt. I saw a man earlier in the race moving closer toward the finish, one roll at a time in his wheel chair. Completing that race helped reminded me that we can achieve more than we think possible.

Every day life tries to put us in prisons. Do we accept the sentence of status quo and accept our lot in life or do we look for something more?

Some free spirits in the world remind us it's all right to pick flowers, to live the way we want without fear of what others might think. Some of us know we don't have to live in prisons we build around ourselves.

That's why the Starkville City Jail will always be my favorite places. It represents everything magical and special in the world to me, a jail telling the story of redemption.

We all serve our time on this earth, but what do we do with it?

How to celebrate your local criminals...

2009-11-17T17:46:00.030-06:00

In Starkville, we pardon Johnny Cash.
It makes sense. After all, he was arrested here in 1965 for "pickin' flowers" and recorded his song "Starkville City Jail" at San Quentin Prison.

After writing a story about Cash's experience in the drunk tank and company he had there, I convinced the city to help hold a three-day festival celebrating Cash's life and spirit, which has led to feature stories in The New York Times and many other publications.

Earlier this year, I was invited to speak about "how to create successful festivals" at the Mississippi-Louisiana Regional Tourism Summit. I want to share parts of my talk with you, just in case you're ready to hold a festival in your community.

Here are a few tips that might help.

First Rule in creating a successful festival: Quality doesn’t happen overnight. It can literally take years before your idea is ready to become reality.

It took more than three years of planning before the first Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival. Remember this--if your idea is worth it, keep believing in it no matter how long it takes to make it happen.

Second Rule in creating a successful festival: You need more than a good idea—engage others.

Here are a few factors to consider:

· community buy-in (the city)

· having the right people on board (Johnny cash estate, friends and family)

· permission from governing authorities (to shut down streets, use performers’ names)

· partner with other organizations (sheriff’s department works with us to give tours of the jail, for example)

· logistics—how complicated do you want to make your event.

· promotion/marketing—the more interesting, unique, the easier to promote

· sponsors

· Web site development

· ??? (the unexpected always happens)

Third Rule in creating a successful community festival:

If it was easy, everybody would do it.

Expect challenges.

"A lot of people in Starkville didn’t think we should celebrate the life of some drunk." That was an actual comment from a Starkville alderman in 2007. Whether it's financial constraints or attitudes of locals, you have to find a way to overcome challenges to make your event successful.

Fourth Rule in creating a successful community festival:

Your community has undiscovered, quality potential for community festivals.

Often, this potential stares you in the face, waiting for discovery.

It took Starkville more than 40 years to figure its festival out.

Fifth Rule in creating a successful community festival:

Look to others with experience for assistance and insight.

Many states hold festival workshops.
State Arts Commissions
Community and regional experts

Sixth Rule in creating a successful festival:

Realize annual festivals are a paradox—something that stays the same but must change each year to remain fresh and engaging.

Seventh Rule in creating a successful festival:

Have fun!

If you don’t enjoy your event, no one else will either.

Eighth Rule in creating a successful festival:

Embrace originality.

No one will throw you in the Folsom Prison for trying something new.

Starkville progresses, begins to turn into a real college town

2009-10-26T10:03:00.006-05:00

My article about Starkville in the Gainesville Sun (Florida) paper last week had more than a few people talking about the city with the audacity to throw Johnny Cash in the drunk tank.

Click here to read it. The story also has a cool photo gallery of Starkville too.

Why no, I never was a Boy Scout

2009-08-23T21:45:00.010-05:00

Badges haven't impressed me since I couldn't join the Boy Scouts. I'll take a few beers and good conversation over a dumb badge any day.

My dad told a seven-year-old version of me that he paid the money for me to join, but I don't know if he did. I didn't see him write a check or pull any cash from his wallet. His version of the story is he paid the money but the Scout leader never called to tell us about the meetings. Either Dad lied or the Boy Scout leader pocketed his money, maybe using it to buy firewood at the next camping trip.

Maybe that's why I don't completely trust my dad or really take the Boy Scouts seriously anymore. I'm misjudging dad or the Scouts, but don't know which one.

When I could have been out learning about types of bark on trees and how to survive spending the night in the woods without electricity, I found other ways to spend my time. I sat on a 38-pound catfish in my dad's fishing boat on the way back to the bank. "Sit on it boy," he said to a much shorter version of me. I also managed to allow my older sister record me saying the "f-word" and tried to explain to my mom how it wasn't my voice on the tape recorder.

Surely, joining a group known for building campfires and earning badges for completing projects would have made me a much better man than I turned out. Sadly, I still struggle to start campfires and have yet to whittle my own walking stick.

If I'd been a Boy Scout, maybe I would have had more success. Maybe I wouldn't have failed chemistry my freshmen year of college. Maybe I would have bought a house by now. Maybe I wouldn't have a huge blister on my big toe from waking too briskly in flip flops.

I may not have acquired my morals and values from the Boy Scouts, but I have managed to figure out what I need when the time is right. I can tell stories and sucker friends into helping organize festival celebrating Johnny Cash's experience in the Starkville City Jail. I will soon begin taking guitar lessons, so I may still have time to learn other things too. One day I'll learn how to have a bank account with plenty of money in it.

Thirty-one years into this odd existence, I still wonder what it's all about. What would go into earning the badge for existential wanderings?

Years after my dad may have lied about signing me up for the Boy Scouts, I've earned plenty of badges, just not the kind to iron on some brown vest I'll wear to a meeting. I keep them inside myself and think about them from time to time. Ask the wrong ex-girlfriend or two and she might tell you I earned the "selfish" and "afraid of commitment" badges. If you ask the circulation supervisor at my college work-study job who fired me my freshman year for reading the books instead of shelving them, she might say I earned a "worthless" badge. By taking fourth graders here on a field trip to Mississippi State's campus, I earned the "honorary fourth grader" badge. Ask some of my former editors and they might give me the "tells a hell of a story" badge.

I probably didn't miss much by not joining the Boy Scouts and earning their badges. I have plenty of coasters to sit my beer on already.

Starkville government takes major step toward Sunday Alcohol

2009-08-19T08:24:00.013-05:00

Starkville made a giant leap to toward catching up with the 19th century on Tuesday.

We heard lots of perspectives, including a local minster comparing the sale of beer and wine on Sundays to legalizing people smoking crack in restaurants.

Longtime alderman Roy A. Perkins preached hypocrisy when he stood to discussed the immorality of the "whiskey bill" the Board passed by a vote of 4-3. When Perkins thinks of helping the community, does he consider the logic of his hard-line opposition against city support for community building institutions, organizations and events such as the Starkville Public Library, the local chapter of the Red Cross and the Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival? Perkins challenged Starkville's newly elected mayor, Parker Wiseman, to veto the step forward for the city.

Ward 3 alderman Eric Parker, long considered the swing vote on this policy issue, cast the deciding vote. However, before he voted to support the Devil's brew on the Lord's Day, he voiced nuanced support for it by saying he supports the city revisiting the issue in a year to evaluate the impact on DUIs, city tax revenue, area restaurants, tourism and the quality of life for local residents.

Perhaps, reports in a year will show a dramatic spike in "gang rapes" and "police shootings" as one opponent of the change suggested. It might, but I doubt it.

Starkville needs more than just signs of promises

2009-08-02T15:03:00.010-05:00

Update: Word from a close source to one alderman says some city leaders have already called the Cotton Mills project "dead." I guess we'll wait and see.

Notice when the sign above says the Belfry condominium project will arrive in Starkville. This image wasn't taken a few years ago. Instead it still stands at the corner of Colonel Muldrow and Russell streets.

More than a year has passed from the deadline and we haven't seen any progress besides a few properties demolished and this sign posted. Coincidentally, the Belfry condo project is located right next to previous condo project that decided to take its sign down after finding so little interest in the project.

That brings us to the Cotton Mills project, [see image below] located cross the street from the Belfry sign all the way to Spring Street and Highway 12. We all have a strong interest in the property developing into quality development for the community but still wait for something to happen.

Starkville residents have learned through the years to have lots of patience for promised developments and even more skepticism. We have high hopes for the Cotton Mills project, however. Located next to the western entrance to Misssissippi State, developing this project could transform a vitally important connector between MSU's campus and downown.

The last we heard from news reports was MSU and the developer still had details to work out.
I guess we'll have to wait a little longer to find out if anything will happen. We're used to it.

I used to view journalismjobs.com for possible employment

2009-07-31T17:19:00.013-05:00

Now, when I look at the site, I go more for interest in learning about the latest hemorrhaging in the news industry.

I find myself at a loss, cheering for the Rocky Balboa of an industry that just might not go the distance with brute strength and commitment. It will take innovation and ideas that may remain undiscovered.

Did my degree in journalism lead to a general degree in critical thinking in the context of an industry of buggy whips? Did I need to double major in journalism and English? More each day, I sense anyone majoring in journalism needs to minor in business. Then again, perhaps journalism may return to its roots as a town crier, not making lots of money but getting the news out of the locals. Only now, we find our town criers online blogging to their hearts content.

Friends in the field have looming thoughts about how long they'll keep their jobs before the cancer of financial reality reaches their newsroom. The industry may not be as doom and gloom as discussed in newsrooms and from former reporters.

After all, I would pay for the New York Times online, just as I do when I pick it up in print. I live in a community where only one business sells it, and that's just on Sunday. I see the paper as a great quality of life commodity, maybe as much as some people seek out their Fox News and right wing theatrics of ass-clowns like Glenn Beck and other tea baggers.

It makes sense for the industry to shrink during tough times, like much of the business world.
The long and the short of it may be this: When I want another job I will likely visit Craigslist instead of jouranlismjobs.com, and that is one of the industry's biggest problems.

I just worry that our biggest watchdogs for Democracy may go bankrupt due to an obsolete choice of medium. Will we care if watchdog journalism is reduced to a crippled puppy? Will it be too late?

I'm sure, like most of you, I'll keep checking out the digital version of the New York Times to read "all the news fit to print."

Chasing the news for you

2009-07-11T00:18:00.000-05:00

Give us tips or just let us know what you're interested in reading about here.

Another Starkville news source

2009-07-10T16:58:00.004-05:00

I have lived in Starkville, Mississippi, since 2003 and witnessed many newsworthy things, from the developer who painted one of his buildings bright green and designed a huge eyeball in the center of it to the city just not making up its mind on a new police headquarters. While I covered things here for years for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, it's time to begin writing about it again. Since I no longer write for a newspaper, a Starkville blog seems like the right place.
Look forward to finding my version of the local news, politics, culture and whatever else strikes my fancy.

For those of you unfamiliar with recent news coverage of our local efforts to change the Starkville's blue law on Sunday alcohol sales, Jordan Novet of the Commercial Dispatch wrote a thorough piece that was picked up by the Associated Press and passed along all over the internet.
Click here to read it.

And while I'm at it, here are a few clips from my days at The Vicksburg Post. God bless Karen Gamble. She taught me to fear her more than God and did her best to show me what quality journalism is supposed to look like. Click on each image to read the story.