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Mississippi Learning
08/30/06
by Shaw

Warning: if you are from Mississippi and you might be offended by my ignorance about your state, uh... sorry.

So I am going to Mississippi for the second time. The second time, technically, but really for the first time. I drove through there once, 6 years ago, on Route 10 driving from New Orleans to Pensacola, but not only did we not stop in Biloxi, but we actually used the A/C the whole time so I don't even think I breathed in any Mississippi air. Hence, I am calling this my first trip to Mississippi.

You will be hearing more about this soon, but suffice it to say Clay had planned on going to Starkville, MS to see the Mississippi State - Auburn game on September 9, and thought it would be hilarious to get some Northerners to come with him for this ridiculous game. What he got was me (definitely Northern) and our friends Krishna and Shekhar, both Indian, and both Northern. Clay seemed to get unending pleasure thinking about the idea of us all going to this game, because I guess there's this overwhelming belief among Southerners that Northerners don't know how to handle themselves in the South, especially in the real South, like Starkville. Well I decided to prove Clay wrong, and show him what I know about Mississippi. Unfortunately, that turned out to be not very much. In fact, most Northerners, even the ones who religiously follow sports, seem to have a general ignorance about schools in all of the South, and in particular the SEC. We know the names of the schools, but don't know anything about them. Until I was in college, I had no idea what "Ole Miss" was. I thought that was really the name of the school, which seemed ridiculous, but there it was, written directly on the helmets: "Ole Miss." So I thought there was Mississippi State, University of Mississippi, and Ole Miss. And in that kind of Clark Kent/Superman way, it did always seem weird that Ole Miss never played University of Mississippi.

Why would you write that on the helmet if it's not really the name of the school?

Our method of travel to get to Starkville is, fittingly, a road trip. Unfortunately, even google seems to be run by people who are ignorant of the South, and yahoo maps and mapquest, as well... we are all flying into Nashville and meeting up to drive down to Starkville together. When I asked Shekhar how long this would take, he said, "Clay said it would take about three hours." That seemed okay--kind of like New England, I reasoned, everything is within 2-3 hours of each other. Google Maps, however, claims that this trip is 330 miles and would take 6 hours and 19 minutes... yeah right, google... Northern miles, maybe! Ha. Idiots. So I checked yahoo... 320.4 miles, 6 hours, 30 minutes. Huh. Yahoo, I guess, is also run by some idiots. Mapquest? Care to weigh in? 331 miles, 5 hours 19 minutes. Hmm. Everyone else seems to be operating on these Northern miles and time measures. Is there a southernmaps.com? Unfortunately, no. Seems like that would be a good market to tap into. Most Southerners are naturally mistrustful of Northerners in general, but we're especially ignorant about driving in the South, it seems.

I don't know if it was really evident here but I hope it's clear that I was being sarcastic above. I am well aware that Clay either A. never had any idea how long it would take to get there in the first place, or B. was purposefully lying about the time to get there solely to convince us to come with him. That's okay. Northerners are pretty sneaky sometimes too. We've managed to convince the world for years that the Civil War was about slavery.

What else do I know about Mississippi? Well there were two movies with Mississippi in the title, and I've seen those--Mississippi Burning and Ghosts of Mississippi... oh, and MLK mentioned Mississippi in his "I Have a Dream" speech... huh. Does anyone know if they still hate black people down there? That's probably not a good road to go down, but let me take this opportunity to suggest that someone make another movie with Mississippi in the title to help improve their image, maybe call it Mississippi Tolerance?

I also figure that kids in Mississippi are probably really good spellers.

What's the Mississippi State mascot? Isn't it the Bulldog? Wait, no, that wouldn't make sense, Georgia is the Bulldogs. There couldn't be two bulldogs in the same conference, that wouldn't make sense. Oh, and they're playing Auburn--they're the Tigers, right? Wait, no, LSU is the Tigers, and they're in the SEC, so that doesn't make sense. There couldn't be two Tigers in the SEC.

OK. Since it's clear that I didn't know any actual information about Mississippi, figured I might as well just try to guess what some of the state facts are, and then check my answers.

Bird: Something you can make pie out of, I'm guessing. Blackbird. [Answer: mockingbird. I consider myself half right, since they both have "bird" in their name]

Flower: Dandelion? I used to feel pretty Southern when I was forced to drink dandelion milk by my sister when I was a kid. [Answer: magnolia, which is also the state tree. I can't give myself any credit for that.]

Mammal: Potbellied pig? My friend Hunter had a potbellied pig as a pet when he was a kid, he's from Alabama, but from what I understand Alabama and Mississippi are pretty similar. [Answer: white-tailed deer... that one really surprises me, I wouldn't have expected the state mammal to be an animal that is routinely killed for fun by half of the adult male population.]

Fish: Bass? I know I quibbled with the deer thing above, but somehow I feel like the bass is probably one of the only species of fish that even live inside the state. [Answer: Largemouth Bass--good job, Shaw.]

And with that, my education begins. Next step: gear up for the game. The next time you see me, I may just be wearing a Mississippi State jersey (or is it Ole Miss?) in Clay's car on the way to Starkville. You'll spot us easily--we'll be the ones getting gas with the two Indian guys and probably getting harrassed by the locals.

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