June 26, 2021
I had a good night’s sleep last night at the Marriott. Not inside, but out in the parking lot. Actually, it was my best urban boondocking experience yet. I may go back again tonight though that breaks urban boondocking protocol. Staying in the same place more than once can attract unwanted attention and I wasn’t being overly discreet this morning. I actually got out my stove and boiled water for tea in my little corner of the lot. At least it was early and there wasn’t much activity.
I’ve been at the Hattiesburg public library most of the day. It’s a new, spacious library. The old brick library downtown is now a museum. Elijah wasn’t allowed in it when he was a kid. He was born in 1956—just nine years before me—but schools and many other public facilities remained segregated in Hattiesburg until 1965 and beyond. Elijah’s library was a small, segregated, non-public room in the African American USO club near his house.
Despite the racism Elijah has witnessed in his many years here (and in Los Angeles) he is one of Hattiesburg’s most vocal supporters. He closely follows local politics and doesn’t vote or advocate voting along race lines. He can pick a no-good con in any shade.
“Hattiesburg has changed Eric. There are a lot of things happening here. This is a progressive little city. We are like what Austin is to Texas,” he said. “We’ve always been ahead of the curve.”
Race defines place for a lot of Americans. Maybe not so much anymore, but certainly when I lived here.
When we moved here from Texas, my parents bought an old home on Main Street, close to downtown. It was the first time they’d bought a house since their first home in Tallahassee. I thought maybe that was a good sign we’d stop moving around so much. And we did. I completed junior and high school here and had my first three semesters at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM).
Main street was the dividing line for blacks and whites then, though there was an apartment building across the street from us that was mostly black. Most whites lived west of Main. The older neighborhoods were closer to downtown and newer developments further out Hardy Street.
Behind Main Street, crossing over the the railroad tracks the land dipped downhill and during heavy, extended rains the Leaf River would rise above its banks and spill across the land.
“What did you do when it flooded,” I asked Elijah.
“We moved out.”
“Would you put your furniture up high?”
“Either that or took it with us. Things like tvs.”
“How long would you be gone,” I asked?
“Maybe two weeks. The smell took a few months to go away,” he said.
Spotty West Goes East 