A Year in Mississippi

Introduction

Judy H. Tucker and Charline R. McCord

The group of essays in this book is meant to show the sunny side of our state, introducing you, season by season, to some of the cultural experiences available to all Mississippians.

The state, as you well know, is not monolithic by any stretch. Differences are part of our strength as a state and a nation. The state is now populated by citizens from the entire world. Newcomers bring their own customs, celebrations, religions—their own culture—with them. Some are slow to blend with this new world society, some are eager. Through their religions, arts, festivals and cultural events, they introduce themselves and share the roots of their homeland as they observe and absorb Mississippi’s roots.

This book will take you season by season into the diverse groups as they celebrate the culture they bring with them from their homes and homelands, including the natives, which we call anyone who was born here. These events allow us to throw away our separateness, throw off our differences, learn a thing or two, and at the same time let our hair down and have a really good time together.

Time and space limitations make it impossible to explore all of the special occasions offered around our great state. We salute those whose history and staying power we believe are important to acknowledge. Some we use because they are ubiquitous, some because they are exotic. We encourage you to seek out other equally interesting treasures that abound throughout Mississippi.

In his foreword Malcolm White takes us on a tour showing us the beauty of our state from the Mississippi River and its delta, across to the foothills of the Appalachians, to the Tombigbee, then down through the bluff hills, and on through the piney woods to the shores of the Mississippi Sound.

The editors started with the winter season since it happens to be both the first and the last season of the year. Here in the Deep South we don’t exactly follow the calendar on the start of the seasons; rather, we follow Mother Nature. Up north, they’re shoveling snow while we’re still picking roses from the front yard and gathering tomatoes from the garden. Winter begins for us when road crews have to spread sand and salt over the ice on bridges, when deer season opens, when debutantes, dressed in their finest, take a bow to society on the arms of their proud fathers.

From fall through winter, football—high school, college and professional football season—demands our attention with a grand exhibition of prowess on the field, the excitement and pageantry of cheerleaders and bands. Tailgating picnics in the Grove at Ole Miss before a game are a fascinating and extravagant occasion. Friday night football, when high schools play each other, is the growing field for the greatest glory of the game: the Super Bowl. Willie Morris masterfully explains the roots of this great sport of powerful and determined men; he shows how a great athlete is born, shaped, challenged, protected and cherished by the small town he comes from.

Perhaps after football, hunting is Mississippi’s second most engaging sport. It allows the sportsman to take to the fields and woods and enjoy solitude with nature, companionship with fellow enthusiasts, and the bounty of the hunt. The Chula Homa (red fox in Choctaw) Hunt Club in Madison County revives the fox hunt for the pure pleasure of the baying pursuit. Nobody, not even a hound, gets to capture or eat a fox.

The rites of Christmas, our most anticipated holiday, are performed in homes, churches, schools, courthouse squares, and yes, shopping malls. Pass Christian, that brave, beautiful little town, heroically picked up the pieces after its battering by Hurricane Katrina, and continues its annual Christmas in the Pass, as described by Margaret McMullan. Moreover, Patti Carr Black remembers Whiskey Christmases in her teetotaling childhood home. She generously shares recipes that will heighten the joy of any soul at yuletide.

Toward the end of winter, as Easter approaches, the Gulf Coast goes all out for Mardi Gras. The French brought it to the coast in 1677 and the many folks at our water’s edge have made it their own in a glorious and madcap way.

Spring pilgrimages bring troops of tourists and natives alike to visit the state’s antebellum past. Conversely, as an antidote to the wealth of the few, the Juke Joint Festival and a tour of the Blues Trail is a reminder of the origin of America’s singular musical form and an affirmation of the civil rights movement.

Spring through summer and fall, festivals all over the state celebrate everything from catfish to storytelling. Churches hold their annual revivals and camp meetings. French Camp, nestled on the beautiful Natchez Trace, holds its annual Grand Auction at "The Lord’s Acre Harvest Festival. Peggy Gilmer Piasecki explains how picking cotton on her father’s farm created a wonderful childhood memory of golden autumn days, and Seetha Srinivasan provides a vivid description of the Indian celebration Diwali: Hindu Festival of Lights as it is re-created here in America. There are reunions of all sorts which bring together folks from schools, churches, and families for sharing great memories and treasured family recipes handed down from previous generations. Celtic clans in their plaid kilts, marching with bagpipes, bring a breath of the old country to their new communities. Ronnie Riggs describes a boy’s rite of passage—the first haircut in a real barbershop—while David Creel offers a look at the standing appointments faithfully kept by the ladies of the community at their local beauty shop. Johnnie Maberry outlines how Tougaloo College opens its art colony to the public for study and enjoyment, while Mary Sue Slagle stresses the importance of coming together in remembrance of the war veterans who make our nation safe. In a similar vein, Ann Hebert recalls a time when a funeral was a community affair, uniting friends, neighbors, and family for a memorial service to remember, celebrate, and share in mourning the loss of a community member. In the waters of sea and river and lake, once a year fishermen and their townsmen gather for The Blessing of the Fleet" honoring all who toil on the sea and those who died in their efforts.

Summer, the long and the hot of it, the sound and the fury: it is the growing season and it is also the hurricane season. Cheri McHugh’s tale of two hurricanes, Camille and Katrina—such lovely names—gives us an account of her personal experience surviving these monsters—the heartbreak of loss, the backbreak of rebuilding.

There is the disaster of the weather and the miracle of the ballet. Brenda Trigg reminds us that Jackson is known as the only host city outside of the eastern block of nations for the International Ballet Competition (IBC), a grand and ambitious endeavor that brings enormous pride, status and positive press coverage to our state.

Oxford hosts the annual international Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, conference, drawing academics, students, fans, and writers from across the world. The programs discuss Faulkner, his work, his history, his temperament, and the many shades of meaning behind the language and style employed by our Nobel Prize–winning author.

The Neshoba County Fair, as introduced to us by Sid Salter, a lifelong participant and historian of the event, is truly a unique experience, mixing many of our traditions during a two-week house party held in Philadelphia.

This book takes the reader on a festive, year-long journey around the state to explore events that keep Mississippians entertained, informed, and in touch with their roots, their friends, their families, and their communities. There is so much more diversity and so many more activities that deserve our attention; too many were not used simply because of the lack of time and space, and because a book must always make its way to an end. But we leave the pages open in the hope that you will be inspired by this collection to go out and investigate more fully our state’s bounty of activities, looking at our past, examining our present, and imagining our future.

WINTER

Opening hunt with master of fox hounds Sue Skipper and huntsman Beattie Williams.

Huntsman Beattie Williams during informal season.

Chula Homa Hunt

Janice M. Kraft

Mounted foxhunting has been documented in Mississippi as far back as 1798, when the Mississippi Territory opened up. On March 5, 1881, Chicago Field Magazine published an account of a foxhunting party at a Major Young’s home in the winter of 1836/1837. The party took place in the Maryland Settlement, Jefferson County, which is now present-day Church Hill, Mississippi. Mention is made of the accommodations, the sumptuous meals served and the drink imbibed. A large, silver bowl of mulled wine was served on the hunt board, surrounded by various dishes of the day including turkey, ham, yams, biscuits and mixed greens.

Back in the early years of foxhunting, the foxes were considered varmints and there was even a bounty on their heads. The point of foxhunting, however, has always been the sport of chasing the prey with scent hounds and following the action by horseback since the hunt can get very fast-paced. Only the best riders and horses could keep up with the hounds, and obstacles presented both a challenge and a thrill. Today, if the fox, coyote or bobcat gets away, retreating up a tree or down into a den, it is simply left to hunt on another day. The sport is all about the chase and the challenge of hunting a pack of eager hounds that use only scent to follow their wiley and lively prey.

Attire remains largely unchanged, with the masters and staff wearing pink coats (which are actually red), britches, vests, and long, black helmets, white ties called stock ties, which can double as a much-needed sling or bandage, and tall boots. The horse attire, or tack, used is English rather than large western saddles. When the hounds are released the riders follow in flights according to riding ability, experience, and stamina. Various rules of protocol apply to the riders. For example, the huntsman and staff always have the right-of-way. The huntsman follows close behind the hounds and directs them. The whips (or staff) ride the perimeters of the property to keep the hounds in sight and prevent them from going onto land not belonging to the hunt. Modern-day mobile whips stay in touch by radio to stop the hounds or assist as directed by the huntsman.

The Chula Homa Hunt, whose name is Choctaw for red fox, began in 1980 as the private pack of the late Mrs. Alex S. Payne, Jr., Master of Fox Hounds (MFH), who was affectionately known as Whitty. The first formal opening hunt was held in 1984. Chula Homa became a subscription hunt in 1991 and was recognized by the Masters of Foxhounds Association in 1994.

The CHH hunt is currently led by Sue Skipper (MFH) and Dr. Hildy McCarthy (MFH), with Beattie Williams serving as the current huntsman. An invitation-only Opening Hunt is held yearly on the second Saturday of November, which includes the Blessing of the Hounds, a hat contest, a stirrup cup toast, and a catered breakfast. We invite the landownes over whose land we ride, and honor them as well. The riders are followed by Tally Ho wagons which carry the guests and put them in the midst of all the action and excitement.

Regular hunts are always started with a prayer. The hunts generally last anywhere from two to three hours, and are followed by a tailgate pot luck brunch. These brunches have led to favorite hunt recipes being collected and published in the Opening Hunt booklet. Recipes abound for favorite flask concoctions that will ward off both the hunters’ nerves and their chills. Over the years, the activities and festivities of the Chula Homa Hunt have been featured in various publications, including The Clarion Ledger, Mississippi Magazine and Bluffs and Bayous.

As anyone who has spent time in the South can imagine, an activity that combines people, uncertain terrain, horses, hounds, and lively and unexpected incidents also leads to good stories, good memories, and more than a few tall tales. One of our members was tossed into a pine tree bough, where she hung suspended by her stock tie until she was able to wiggle loose, shimmy down the tree trunk, and throw herself back into the action.

This writer and two other members were once following fast behind our Master of Fox Hounds, Sue Skipper. We were headed toward Love’s Creek at a full gallop when we took a shortcut. The horse in front of me suddenly went down in a kudzu ditch, rider and all. Admittedly, I was following a tad too closely, so I had no choice but to jump over the disheveled horse and rider. The downed rider managed to cover her head, but she reported later that the hooves pawing the air above her were sure to be the stuff of future nightmares. I skidded to a stop on the road and waited for her to untangle herself, remount, and carry on in true foxhunting style.

During one Opening Hunt, a former Miss Vicksburg dismounted from the Tally Ho wagon and politely excused herself into the woods to answer nature’s call. As she was in full squat, the hounds opened (bayed) and chased the game right by her leg. She was immediately surrounded by about twenty friendly hounds sniffing about, wanting to know what was going on and why this human was on foot. Miss Vicksburg gracefully hitched up her pants and strolled out of the woods, all the while flashing a sparkling smile and a beauty queen wave! If it had been a pageant and not a hunt, she surely would’ve placed, and maybe won.

At the places we regularly hunt, various spots are named so we can get our bearings and know where we are; for example, we reference such places as Hildy’s pond, Fontaine’s, the Big House, Oil Tank Road, etc. However, over the years the landscape has changed, but our references have not. This causes great concern and confusion for visitors and new members. The red gate is really a new green gate, the old hay field is now a pine tree woods, and Neil’s house is still called by that name even though it burned to the ground years ago. Moreover, Soule Chapel Road was renamed Truitt Road by the county and then changed back to Soule Chapel for added drama. This leads to some interesting conversations on the radio that are bound to make the foxes laugh:

CAM: I’m on the corner of Old 51 and Soule Chapel. I don’t see any hounds.

KATHY: Is that near Truitt Road?

CAM: The sign says Soule Chapel.

KATHY: Is that near the Blackberry jump?

CAM: I don’t know. It says Soule Chapel.

ME: Soule Chapel used to be Truitt. It’s the same road.

SUE (MFH): Y’all get off the radio and RIDE! It only matters where I am!

We have fallen off our horses and dragged ourselves back on, been body-slammed into trees and ditches, licked our wounds and continued to hunt. We’ve jumped fences, obstacles hiding in the brush, and crumpled riders. We laugh, we cry, and we look after each other and the horses and hounds. There’s not a doubt in our minds that every fox in the woods looks forward to the second Saturday in November and the production put on by the annual Chula Homa Hunt.

The time-honored tradition of foxhunting is alive and well in Mississippi. And, trust me, a good time is had by all. Go in peace and return in safety.

The Battle for the Golden Egg

Bob Carskadon

Growing up in Starkville, I could easily have thought the last line of the national anthem was Go to Hell Ole Miss!

At every football, baseball, or basketball game I went to, someone or someones yelled it out just as the anthem was finishing, timing it perfectly so they could convince themselves the cheering, clapping, and cowbell ringing following the song were all for them. Who knows, maybe a bit of the noise really did come for that reason.

I remember the first time I joined in—11 years old in the farthest left corner of the Left Field Lounge at Dudy Noble Field, home of Mississippi State baseball. My parents were up in the grandstands, else I wouldn’t have dared to yell such a word. But among adults yelling it themselves, amused by the inclusion of a nervous kid, I had all the courage in the world. I laughed as I did it, like most do. Or they smile, at the least. No one really wants Ole Miss to go to, well, down there, as I might have described it to my parents.

But that’s the nature of the rivalry—Bulldogs are supposed to hate Rebels, with the opposite being just as true. Whichever home you grow up in, you are raised to believe the others are the bad guys and yours are the good. Light versus dark, with both sides thinking theirs is the light.

My nature is to embrace anyone from my home state of Mississippi, but nurture often wins out for many of the Magnolia State children. They grow up cheering for, attending and eventually graduating from one of the two schools, never having had a real choice, no genuine opportunity to select their allegiances. Kids in this state are certainly never given an unbiased list of pros and cons so as to make an educated choice.

Mississippi State tight end Trenell Edwards celebrates a 24–9 Egg Bowl win in 1991, the first time the game was back on a college campus after 20 years of being played in Jackson.

You are either Bulldog or Rebel, maroon and white, or red and blue.

And you are taught to detest whatever it is the other prides itself on.

The University of Mississippi boasts of its writers, lawyers, doctors, and influence. Mississippi State University is home to farmers, engineers, architects, and veterinarians. The former maintains an air of exclusivity and status, while the latter calls itself the People’s University.

Yet, there are engineers in the state whose degrees come from Oxford, and there are writers whose metaphoric quills were dipped in the ink of Starkville.

The jabs back and forth, while unrelenting and sometimes personal, are no different from the speeches of politicians as elections approach. The chatter is loud and meaningless, simply a means of passing the time until the matter itself is decided.

Once a year—once every year since 1901—all the talk and fruitlessly expended energy finally comes to a head and a true, incontrovertible champion is crowned. A winner of every verbal bout is decided and one of the estranged stately brothers stands in the middle of the ring with arms raised in the air while the other lies motionless and ashamed on the sweat and blood-stained mat.

The Battle for the Golden Egg

"It’s the biggest athletic event of the year in the state, period."

—Rick Cleveland, Executive Director of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum

A football game to decide in-state supremacy. A 60-minute, head-knocking, gut-crunching clash of athletic dominance between college students, spurred on by raucous and often bloodthirsty crowds, tens of thousands packed and stacked high into the sky around a green and often near-frozen field where 22 young men fight like the gladiators on the floor of the Coliseum of ancient Rome.

Every year, Ole Miss–MSU is the last game of both teams’ regular season. True or not, all other contests often feel as if they are just building to that final climax, the game that matters the most—the Egg Bowl.

In the history of the rivalry, Ole Miss has a distinct lead in wins (aided greatly by a woeful few decades of football by MSU in the mid-to-late century) but the game got its name—and its trophy—after a 13-year win streak by the maroon team was snapped.

As legend has it, 1926 was a particularly hate-fueled year in the rivalry. Thirteen years of losing had festered quite a bit of passion and anger in the Ole Miss side, while the double-digit win streak had inflated the football egos of those at the school which was then called Mississippi A&M.

On Thanksgiving night in Starkville, 1926, while everyone else across the state was enjoying turkey and dressing in their hearth-warmed homes, the Aggies and Rebels battled back-and-forth in a classic defensive contest. As the 22 young men on Scott Field struggled to decide a winner, the thousands watching in the stands began to struggle amongst themselves.

Finally, Ole Miss won 7–6, and the zealous crowd turned on itself, resulting in the biggest—though certainly not first—round of fisticuffs the Magnolia State rivalry had seen. Once the fighting finally stopped and flaring tempers were soothed, it was decided that something must be done to prevent future incidents.

The prevailing sentiment: some type of award given annually to the winner would offer all involved something to focus on and channel their feelings toward, rather than fighting against each other. Truthfully, the creation of such an item ultimately only added fuel to the wintry flames. But it was a good thought.

The first suggestion proposed that the losers must transport the goalposts to the winner’s campus, but such an undertaking was eventually decided to be too cumbersome.

The student associations of each school worked together on a solution, and finally, an idea originally hatched in the Sigma Iota fraternity house at Ole Miss proved to be both reasonable and agreeable.

The resolution, courtesy of Mike Nemeth’s MSU Football Vault and as printed in the schools’ student newspapers, called for the creation of a trophy shaped like a football which would be presented to the winner each year.

"We, the Student Bodies of the University of Mississippi, and the Mississippi A. & M. College, in order to effect a better understanding in athletic relations, to foster clean sportsmanship, and to promote a lasting tradition do hereby enter into the following agreement; to wit:

1.  That a gold football of regulation size and mounted on a metal base may be purely jointly owned by the student bodies of the two institutions, the cost to be equally divided.

2.  That the trophy be known as ‘The Golden Egg.’

3.  And that it shall be presented immediately after each football game between the University of Mississippi and Mississippi A. & M. College to the winning team in the following manner:

(a)  Immediately after the game ends the student bodies will rise and sing their alma mater songs, the student body winning team singing first, the second following after the first has finished."

The general goals of the preamble may have been fulfilled mainly in the promotion of a lasting tradition, but in that and in creating the specifics of this tradition, the rival student associations were jointly successful.

Though that idea of joint ownership is not quite so nice as it seems. For a game played annually on Thanksgiving weekend, the thought that such a prize could be shared in any way seems heartwarming, familial even. But this game isn’t played in houses where warmth, food and drink flow easily.

At the end of November every year, the Battle for the Golden Egg takes place on hard, frozen ground. Skies are often gray, even on the best days, or filled with bone-chilling, wind-swept rain on the worst of days; the kind of rain you wish would just turn to snow because that, somehow, would be less miserable and drenching.

Fitting that ownership is won or lost as winter begins. The trophy itself, bearing the engraved marks of nearly a hundred years of battles, is as cold as the air around it.

Those on either side of the rivalry will claim the trophy as ours, whether they have it or not, though the truth is the Golden Egg belongs to no one permanently.

Jointly devised by those students from the state’s two premier universities so many years ago, the trophy is the most neutral of creations, seemingly heartless when it leaves one set of hands for another, literally and symbolically a cold emblem of victory as the bitter winds of winter arrive at the end of each season.

But the knowledge that it can be lost on any November day only makes the passion for it on each side stronger and the pride in having it that much greater.

The Golden Egg has no real owner, save the state of Mississippi, though for the length of each year, the trophy stands as the spoil of victory for whoever wins, a 365-day trump card and year-long symbol of pride and supremacy.

It’s no surprise the battles are so passionate, so meaningful to those involved.

And their impact: as serious as serious can be.

In a foreshadowing of events to come, A&M’s coach lost his job after suffering defeat in that 1926 game which led to the creation of the Golden Egg. It was the start of a 10-year win streak for Ole Miss, one in which A&M went through 6 different head coaches.

From a coach’s standpoint, you know this is a game you can’t lose three or four times in a row and keep your job, Rick Cleveland said. Look it up. It just doesn’t happen.

Sometimes, it doesn’t take that many losses. Not long ago, it was exactly that.

In 2009, then Ole Miss head coach Houston Nutt suffered his first bitter taste of Egg. Mississippi State ran the Rebels up and down the field, turning in a 41–27 victory, despite the Bulldogs finishing with a sub-.500 record and Ole Miss being on its way to the Cotton Bowl. Immediately after the game, as the old agreement dictated, the Golden Egg Trophy was presented to the home team—MSU. State coach Dan Mullen, on a whim, grabbed a microphone and spoke to the crowd, many of whom had found their way onto the field in celebration.

"There’s only one school in this state that’s on the rise!" he yelled, breath visible in the artificially lit air around him.

At the time, it seemed like an upset of significant proportion, though most in the state consider the Egg Bowl to be the most unpredictable game of the year, one where it doesn’t matter how good one team or the other has been all season. The passion of rivalry closes any gaps in talent, it often seems.

"On the contrary, says Cleveland, who has covered sports in Mississippi nearly his entire life. I believe the better team usually wins the game … at least, that’s the way it has looked to me over the years."

Whether he thought MSU was the better team in 2009 or not, the aftermath seemed to indicate his theory may have been right. While Mullen spoke with bravado in heart and trophy in hand immediately afterward, Nutt later conceded he hadn’t realized the rivalry was such a big deal.

Hard to blame him, of course, as the year prior he had blanked the Bulldogs 45–0—yet another career-ending loss for a head coach, Sylvester Croom of MSU