Reflections

A trip to the Deep South

As I sit in a hotel room in the Deep South, because it is a Place worthy of a label in and of itself, I ponder. I ponder the differences in locales. Locales all over this nation, one nation under God, yet as diverse and deserving of a country all to themselves. I wonder that I didn’t need a passport to cross some invisible border.

I decide to stop in to a Target store, the first time I have been in one since that store decided to let men into women’s dressing rooms. The first thing I see is a woman’s clothing section and in large letters, that section states the clothing residing within is designed by Black Designers and was a Black Owned Company. I thought to myself that if there was ANY place of business in the whole wide world that advertised anything designed by White Designers and a White Owned Company, there would be hell to pay, boycotts, laws passed, and doors shuttered, while people virtue signaled their heads off. And, heads would roll. Why is this okay here? Frankly, I would be gigantically happy to see American Owned Company by American Designers and Made in America. I do not care about the color of skin, but the content of character. The population of Black folk (and, here they call themselves BLACK Americans, not African Americans) as of 2020 was almost 14% of the population, but here in the Deep South, the ratios change. The music inside Target reflects their “target” customer, that I can tell, as I spend more time browsing the aisles. Just as I am about to let the unfamiliar boom boom of unfamiliar music drive me out of the store, there came what I felt was token “white” music. A song by Tears For Fears and I give in. I stay in the store and end up spending money. Did they know I was on the verge of walking out? Was I “targeted”? Could they read my mind? Ah, the tales my thoughts could tell.

The racks were full of Big Clothes. Big and Large women’s clothing was front and center now. When I was Big and Large, I was shamed into my own section of stores, or forced into stores for Big and Large. Now, here were mannequins that were proudly showing off what I can refer to as “Fat Clothes” because I used to be a “Fat Girl”. Up until 3 years ago. Now, I have to search out M sized clothes. There are plus sized models on every poster and, to tell you the truth, I have never beheld, in my entire life, such BIG big clothes. I think to myself that it is unhealthy to carry all that weight, I know. Here, in the Deep South for a week, I am having a hard time, because the food is wonderful and the weight keeps trying to make an unwanted comeback, like a good time from the night before, appearing, unappreciated on the bathroom floor.

I see here, in The Deep South, how they are playing into the racial division. I see Black and White. Staying in a hotel for a week only amplifies the difference between those who are here for a long stay and those who clean up after them. The carts in the hallways are 99% driven by women of Color. The ones without color are behind the desks, dealing with the publick directly. I have purposefully made eye contact and struck up conversations with everyone, but mainly the women of Color. I must admit that I am fascinated by this lasting racial leftover, where they call me “my baby” and look after me and my room like someone who really cares about me. I have full intention to ask my gal, Lori, about this. But then again, maybe not. Maybe “my baby” means something all together different than I think it does and it might be best left alone.

I will leave here with only good memories of my social interaction with Blacks. All it takes is usually one smile from me first, to initiate contact and they smile back. Otherwise, they seem content to go about with no eye contact at all, like they are unseen. But, they are not invisible to me. I wonder if this action is innately residing in their DNA. Because, I can tell you, I am a California girl. Born and raised. NoCal. My g-g-grandfather was one of the 10K original pioneers of that state and his name is in a book. In my universe there was a Wong. And, I did go to school with a Jewish girl, but back then, we were all just kids. Nobody divided themselves by race. Kids don’t notice race, it is the adults who notice. And divide. Even the dead in the Deep South remain divided, as they were in life, with their own resting places. Southdown Cemetery sits just outside the hotel, and it was the burial place of slaves from Southdown Plantation. It continues to receive only Blacks. I walked through this strange southern cemetery, where the dead reside above the ground, instead of buried quietly unseen below, their presence refusing to be ignored. The layers of dead continue and from my walk through this sacred ground, it seemed to me that a disproportionate amount of resting places were for young men. Boys who had their whole lives ahead of them, their actual photos finding a place in a stone marker. Oh, yes, there were some very old resting here, but more youngsters, born in the years of my children and I had to wonder why they were taken so soon.

Terrebone Parrish boasts it’s very own dialect, a mix of Cajun and Swamp. Even the born Whites of the region have their own way of talking, one that I do best to imitate with gusto while understanding not a whit. I have a knack, what can I say? I can certainly see why there is a show called Swamp People. I see houses with the plantation shutters and houses decorated with fleur-de-lis. I see trailer houses perching upon cement blocks like a man holding up his trousers as he wades through a puddle. I see places with roofs torn off like bits of aluminum foil tossed carelessly in a heap after a hasty cleanup and endless trails of trash along the roads.

Night falls quickly in the Deep South, like a curtain after a play. It is light one minute, then the house lights dim and go out all together. I see the darkness out the window of the hotel, but I feel the noise of the black night as well. It is as if the darkness not only descends from the heavens, but also oozes out into the streets and with it brings seemingly sinister disquiet. The hustly bustly noise of worker bees is replaced by the opportunistic rumblings of those willing to prey on the weak, the small, the vulnerable. The harsh throb of stereos in vehicles, where you feel this invasiveness might actually reset the rhythm of your heart, seems to go on into the wee hours, along with the drone of hovering choppers.

The street light outside our hotel window turns on before dusk, and it is so kindly angled that we can perform a shadow puppet play on the wall above our bed if we so choose. Beyond the light I count 10 blinking towers. The largest is straight out the window and pulses on and off, open and closed, like the fires of Mt. Doom and the eye of Mordor. I can’t help but compare much of what I see with the Lord of The Rings. LOTR, where many clans come together to overcome a giant evil. And the only way it happened was that they all worked together, despite their differences.

There is no silence here. The thrum of all things powered continue on day and night. We had to get our ice chest out and unplug the mini fridge in the room because of it’s non-stop hum. I am a creation of God and the ever-present-never-ending assault on my senses with cell phones, lights, refrigerators, air conditioners, cars, sirens, televisions, fans, motors and everything else that screams for another source to keep it alive, gets to me. I need quiet, I need peace. I need a place where nature can be heard and there is nothing between me and God.

I just now had lunch. It was a taste explosion. A small business they tried to kill with lock-downs, mandates and regulations that defied all logic. Thank God they failed. I ate my first ever fried green tomatoes and they were heavenly. I spoke to the owner/chef and I got the impression that, if anything, government’s interference with his right to make a living and do business has made him ferociously on guard and steadfastly holding the line, never giving them an inch. Ever again. And…it all started with small government on his doorstep doing the dirty work of big government. His friends and neighbors were shutting him down. Shutting down this place they would go for long lunches between stints of pretending to be useful in their cushy county jobs. Their cushy small government jobs that kept on paying them to go to work, or work remotely, while all the so called tax dollars that funded their existence in that government chair dried up overnight. He survived and is now thriving. Score one for the Deep South Little Guy…because, to his one standing up, there are thousands that are still taking this lying down, sitting down, lazing on the couch with their heads in holes. More to come…