David Michael Burrow
University of Southern Mississippi (Part 2)
SUNDAY, JUNE 2, 1991
Meridian to Hattiesburg, Mississippi
I got up very early this morning and then proceeded to move in slow motion. I had been told that my dorm at USM would not be open until noon, so there was no point in hurrying to leave the motel. So I decided to have a leisuely sit-down breakfast.
First, however, I had to become re-acquainted with the Southern weather. When I opened the door at around 7:30 ..., it was like a steam-bath. By the time I walked just a couple of blocks to the interchange, I was dripping with sweat. I discovered over the summer that the biggest difference in the weather between Iowa and Mississippi isn't the temperature, or even really the humidity (although it is slightly more humid in Mississippi). What makes the South truly unbearable (at least for someone who likes winter) is that it doesn't really cool off at night. The high each day is rarely much above 90 (which is cooler, if anything, than it is up here), but it also doesn't get much below 75 at night.
* * * * *
... Back at the motel I watched "Mass for Shut-Ins" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" on TV (What a combination!) and eventually figured out it was late enough to start packing my stuff into the car. ...
There are two ways of driving the hundred miles from Meridian to HattiesburgInterstate 59 and old U.S. 11. Since I was trying to kill time, I chose the old road, which was dull, but not terribly unpleasant. This region is called the Pine Belt, and Hattiesburg is its main town. It is utterly flat land covered with dense, if scraggly, woods. Theres no cotton or tobacco here. In fact, it looks more like northern Minnesota than what my brain still thinks the South should look like. There are many kinds of trees in this forest, but by far the most common are "flash pines". These are very tall and straight (the size and shape of lodgepoles) and on the surface they have that Scotch pine look you see in artificial Christmas trees. When you look again, though, you see that the needles and cones are abnormally large. In fact, they are downright huge. It almost looks as if they've been deformed by some kind of tree cancer. I saw these in the Florida panhandle last summer and was puzzled by them there. This summer I never did really get used to them. It's disturbing to see trees that look so unusual.
I found out later that almost all of this forest has been planted. Mississippi was nearly deforested in the late 1800s to supply lumber for Midwestern cities. [Two different professors talked about how Mississippi lumber built Chicago twice--both before and after the fire.] Apparently there was originally a much more mixed forest that tended heavily toward oak. This was replanted primarily in pine, which today is used mainly for paper products. The paper companies appear to use better forestry management here than in some other places I have been. I didnt see the kind of clear-cutting I saw in British Columbia and Ontario. It may be that our government forbids it, or it may just be that new planting grows more quickly down here.
Theres not much to see besides the forest. In fact, this has to be one of the dullest drives anywhere in America. (Later in the summer I took the interstate over the same route, and it's not much more interesting.) Any towns I went through had dried up decades ago. What was left of them was absolutely silent on Sunday morning. Here and there people had carved out a bit of woods to make a home. The homes did not look poverty-stricken, but they did come across as rough and trashy.
Eventually I made it to Laurel, the only place of size (25,000) between Meridian and Hattiesburg. ... South of Laurel is the state reform school, which stretches for over a mile along Highway 11. It intrigued me that they still call it "reform school" in Mississippi. I'm not even sure where the reform school is in Iowa, but I'm willing to bet that Human Services has invented a more pleasant name for it than that.
Before long I reached my destination: Hattiesburg, Mississippi, the self-proclaimed "hub of the Pine Belt". In case anyone reading this should entertain thoughts of visiting Hattiesburg, let me at least advise you against entering town on U.S. 11. After skirting two different refineries, Highway 11 dumps out on what is definitely the wrong side of the tracks. Hattiesburg has about 50,000 people, and from the highway youd swear they all live in either shacks or public housing. The whole east side of Hattiesburg contains some of the oldest, most run-down housing projects I've seen anywhere. ...
It became clear as I was driving along why this neighborhood is so run down. Thick in the ari was that paper mill smell that my mind associates with small towns in Canada. Scott makes paper towels and toilet tissue in Hattiesburg, and the scent of rotting pulp literally chokes this slum. Compounding the mill odor is a chemical plant that literally backs up against some of the apartments. I was never certain what they made there (I heard both gasoline additives and pesticides). It doesnt matter, though; I still wouldn't want a chemical plant literally in my back yard. I became thankful later that what little wind there is in Hattiesburg invariably blows from the west. USM was at the west end of town, so most of the time we had relatively fresh air.
Most of the local people don't really seem to mind these highly polluting industries. If you press them, they'll point out that Hattiesburg (and south Mississippi in general) is far more prosperous than the rest of the state. They see the mills and refineries as goldmines for the local economy. I can't say I agree, but then again if Mississippi actually wants this kind of industry, I suppose that's probably good for the rest of us. The publishing, insurance, and food processing we have in Iowa seem a lot tamer to me. I must avoid being too judgmental or hypocritical, though. After all, it's not like Iowa doesn't have more than our share of problems with pesticides.
The slums of Hattiesburg seem to have big-city problems. I saw prostitutes, drug dealers, and people just standing around with nothing to do. Backwards old me was taken aback to see stuff like that in Barcelona and Atlanta. It was an even greater shock to think of it in a place I was going to spend an entire summer. Anywhere I ever lived before, people kept their illegal stuff indoors, away from where everybody could see. Here crime seems to be treated as just a part of life. The thing I hated most about Hattiesburg was that almost the entire time I was there, I could hear sirens wailing in the background. They were there when I first went out the door in the morning, and they kept up well into the night. The papers and TV talked about gang violence and drive-by shootings--not something I think of worrying about in a place this size.
Eventually the slum apartments gave way to abandoned warehouses and scrap metal dealers. Then I crossed the tracks (literally) and was into downtown. This wasn't much nicer, though. ... Downtown Hattiesburg makes Algona look lively.
I drove west for two miles until I finally came to the University of Southern Mississippi. I easily found Wilber Hall (which overlooks U.S. 49 at the eastern edge of campus), parked in a fire lane (like everyone else seemed to be doing), and went to check in. It didn't take much time at all to go through the paperwork, but it seemed to take forever to unpack my poor, over-loaded car and carry things upstairs.
I was in Room 316 of Wilber Hall. During the year Wilber is called "Panhellenic" and houses the sorority girls of USM. Third floor is the Delta Gamma house, so I guess you could say I was an honorary "D.G. big brother" for the summer. Wilber had to be one of the first high-rise dorms (built in 1961), and it is definitely showing its age. While the custodial staff does an excellent job with day-to-day maintenance, everything looks well-worn. The building itself seems to have some major cracks that made me wonder about its structural integrity, and the furniture was carved with the initials of thirty years worth of people's boyfriends. Then there were the elevators. When they worked they creaked and moaned as if the cable would break any second. Much of the time, though, they were simply out of service. Fortunately, being on the third floor, it was nearly as quick for me to use the stairs. I told Paul it was like living in a Russian building. Everything was acceptable, but it was all in disrepair.
My room was strictly functional--and barely that. It is the only dorm room I've ever seen that didn't have a sink. We not only had to go down the hall to shower or use a toilet; we had to leave our room to get water for any kind of purpose. Beside the door there were two enormous closets with a tiny chest of drawers inside each one. Beyond these were two tiny built-in desks, each with a shelf above and a small bookcase at the side. The desks were so low that I could not sit there without jamming my knees. Behind each desk was a mirror--set an an entirely improbable level. If I stood the mirror was aimed right at my waist; if I sat it was aimed right in the middle of my chest. I know the room was designed for girls, but I can't imagine it being much more convenient for them. There were two extremely soft beds (one of which had a broken frame, and one of which had springs coming out of the mattress), two steel chairs, and a wastebasket. Most of the wood surfaces in the room were covered with flowered contact paper--long since peeling. The tile looked as if it hadn't been waxed in years. The Venetian blinds were stuck open, so I barely felt the whisper of air conditioning that came through my vent. There was also a crack in the plaster beneath my window large enough to let in light and heat. To top things off, two roaches danced across the floor to greet me. I couldn't help but think that Bartlett Hall at UNI, which was built between 1913 and 1921, was still in far better shape than this place.
Rather than pouting about the room, I abandoned it and went to find my orientation session. Here I met Dr. Paul Peddicord, the kindly old man who built the S.P.G.E. (Summer Program in Graduate Education) from nothing to the largest program of its type in America. He greeted us and gave us a few basic instructions on registration. He also told us (and was basically right) that we would probably feel upset and overwhelmed the first couple weeks, but that if we stuck thins out we should all do fine.
After orientation I walked across campus to see Dr. Herschel Peddicord (Dr. Paul's brother, and a gruff old coot), who was my advisor. He couldnt have cared less about advising me, so it's a good thing I already had my schedule pretty well worked out before I took off. He kept repeating over and over again what a hard major math ed. was--as if I was going to change majors on the spot. He also kept stressing that I should be sure to take a class called "Math for Inservice Secondary Teachers"--because, "you'll want it". I had already decided to take the class, but I was tempted to drop, since I don't care much for being told what I want. After pressing him, I think the real reason he was so set on that course is that it is comparatively easy. They like to brag about the success of people in this program, and those of us in majors like math tend to spoil things for them.
Afterwards I went out to explore the area around campus. It's nothing special (basically two rather run-down shopping strips), but it looked like heaven compared to the rest of Hattiesburg. I had lunch/supper, and then went back to try to make my dorm room more appealing. I moved around what furniture would move, re-built the beds (so I had one decent one and one unacceptably bad one), put some posters on the wall (and especially over the crack under the window), fixed the blinds, and doused the place in Raid.
I also set up my computer, tape player, and TV/VCR--perhaps the essentials of the modern college student. I never would have dreamed of needing any of them when I was in school before, but they took up comparatively little of the space among the junk I hauled along. I found out that the dorm had free cable TV, so I hooked things up and flipped through over forty channels--only to find absolutely nothing of interest. ... Eventually I got things arranged the way I wanted and went to bed.
MONDAY, JUNE 4, 1991
Hattiesburg, Mississippi
This is the last day I will have a specific daily diary for a while.
The main event of the day was trying to get myself registered. I say "trying", because it was more of an effort than I had thought it would be. I got up in time to be at the Registration area just shortly after eight. I got the basic paperwork taken care of easily and then went up to the window to have the clerk enter my classes on the computer. She did some magic with her keyboard and then told me to have a seat. Eventually another clerk called my name. When I came to get my registration, she said, "I'm sorry, but you have an academic hold." It seemed hard to believe that I could be on probation when I had no hours at USM (and a 4.00 in all my other graduate hours), so I asked her to look into things. She made it clear that this wasn't her job and that she was doing a special favor, but she did manage to punch about three keys on the computer. That seemed to be of little help, though. Finally she asked me if I had gotten my shots. My reaction was "what shots?", and it soon became clear that this was the problem. The state of Mississippi now requires that new students entering "school" have a measles/mumps/rubella vaccination. This applies to little kids entering kindergarten, but it also applies to children of the '60s entering graduate school. I know I had both measles and mumps in kindergarten in Michigan, and I know I had an MMR vaccination after we moved to Iowa. Unfortunately, the SPGE officials had not told us of this rule, so I had nothing with me to prove that I had been vaccinated. Until I had that proof, I could not register.
The woman referred me to the Student Health Center. There I joined a long line of people in the same position as me. Almost everyone seemed to be in their upper twenties (the rule didnt apply to people born before 1960), and we all joked about how silly it was to be vaccinated against diseases we had all had twenty-five years ago.
Eventually my turn came. I was directed to a closet-sized treatment room, where a nurse read an endless list of diseases or allergies that could good up the vaccination. I don't know what would have happened with the registration if some allergy had prevented me from getting the shot. Fortunately I was able to answer "no" to all her questions, so the shot was safe for me. She rammed the needle in my arm and assured me that it would be stiff and tender for about a week. She didnt lie.
I was grateful to pay the clinic six dollars for the privilege of a certificate stating that I had been properly immunized. I took the certificate to the Office of Graduate Admissions (in yet another building), where they made a notation on my computer record that I had gotten my shots. I then went back to Registration (where there was, by this point, a major line) and eventually managed to register for real.
In addition to registering I got an ID card (a plastic photo card with a magnetic strip on the back that is vital for everything on campus), a meal pass (which simply meant activating the magnetic strip to serve as admission to the cafeteria), a parking permit, a mailbox, a calling permit (which permitted me to dial my life away to make long-distance calls), and books. The books alone skyrocketed the cost of what I thought was going to be a relatively cheap summer. For five classes I ended up spending nearly $300 just for the required materials. Adding a new backpack and a few requisite USM souvenirs instantly sent my credit card soaring into uncharted territory.
* * * * *
TUESDAY, JUNE 5 -- TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1991
Hattiesburg ... and other places in Mississippi and Louisiana
It would be tedious and pointless to try for a day-by-day account of what went on all summer. Instead, let me try a topical description.
The Classes
This was, of course, the main point of the summer. I took fifteen hours of credit in a ten-week summer session. At first school seemed a lot harder than it had been the first time around. I wasnt sure if this was because I was simply out of practice (which is most likely the reason), if it was because this was an honors program, or if it was because in summer everything goes twice as fast. Whatever the reason, Dr. Peddicord was exactly right in saying we would likely feel overwhelmed at first. ...
In the end I got used to the work ... and did fine. In fact, I finished the summer with straight A's. I'm not entirely sure that's deserved. Frankly I did far less work to earn those grades than other people I got to know who received lower marks. It helps that I've always been able to write well. My education courses, especially, required lots of formal writing, and I gave the computer quite a work-out churning out papers for them. I'm also not afraid of difficult math, and that more than anything accounted for my being top of the class in both of my math courses. It's not so much that I got everything right, but I was at least willing to make a stab at even the hardest problems.
The class I cared about most was Number Theory. It was by far the most difficult class, and ... I wanted to do well in it. ... The class met from 8 to 10 every Tuesday and Thursday. It took nearly twice that long, though, for me to re-copy my notes so they made any sense at all. The basic point of the class was to prove rather trivial properties about the natural numbers. (For those of you who don't deal with them everyday, that's the numbers you count with: 1, 2, 3, 4, ...) The properties we worked with were utterly pointless, but I sharpened my skills in mathematical proof immensely. It's been nearly ten years since I had to work a proof that took more than a couple minutes to do. Some of our assignments required three pages just for one problem. (The longest was a five-page proof, with eighteen different sub-cases.) We were told the first day that the grading scale called for 87% and above for an A, and 50% to pass. By the end of the second class, all of us were wondering about just how possible the 50% was. I gave it my best shot, though, and in the end things worked out okay.
CONTINUED IN PART THREE
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