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Three photos having little or nothing to do with recent events
This is the general store my grandfather ran in Paulding, Mississippi–population 150 (saaaaa-lut!)–until the day he died. Like most childhood things, I remember it being much bigger and grander and not so run-down. I used to ride my tricycle up and down the main aisle, weigh myself on the public scale, sneak Cokes from the cooler. My brother and I would play in the cotton gin that used to stand behind it, then wander up the hill to visit my grandmother at the courthouse.
As you might guess from the first pic, I come from pretty humble origins. Our family cemetery is situated halfway between Paulding and Vossburg (i.e. truly in the middle of nowhere), about 20 yards off a poorly paved country road. A couple of times a year, my dad and I drive up to clean out the underbrush, and when I went home for my brother’s wedding in October, we did just that.
This gravestone used to be hidden behind a pine tree, but Katrina fixed that. It caught my attention for a couple of reasons–not least of all, its age. For a stone carved in 1862, it’s remarkably well preserved, especially in comparison to the more recent ones around it. I also liked the inscription: “Sonnie Boy and Sweetie died in Jasper county, Miss, November 1862.”
The only troublesome thing is those names: I mean, maybe I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m guessing that “Sonnie Boy” and “Sweetie” weren’t white folks. That, in turn, gives rise to about a billion questions, including, did they die together? How? Assuming they were black, could they have been lynched? Or, since 1862 was mid-Civil War, could they have been slaves who tried to escape northward? And what are they doing buried in my family’s cemetery, when I’ve always been told that our family didn’t own slaves?
On a much lighter note, this is my solution to the age-old dilemma of how to stuff a duvet back in its cover: I hold the duvet by its corners, burrow into the cover, stand up to make sure it’s straight, then flop onto the bed and slink out. Last week, my boyfriend found it amusing enough to photograph.
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