David Michael Burrow
University of Southern Mississippi (Part 4)
The worst thing about walking is that the people in Hattiesburg are downright rude to pedestrians. If I walk out to K-Mart in Algona, I will invariably see people waving and smiling at me. Many of these people know me ..., but even those who don't know me aren't rude--they just politely ignore me. In Hattiesburg it was not uncommon to hear people in passing cars yelling vulgarities. One kid on a bicycle tried to knock a grocery bag out of my arms; I was proud of myself that he failed. It's almost like molesting pedestrians is a local sport. It was really annoying. ...
One other annoyance was that Hattiesburg (and the South as a whole) has virtually no sidewalks. They pride themselves on low taxes in Dixie, and there is a correspondingly low level of community services. That gave me the choice between trampling people's lawns or walking in the street. Since the motorists were so rude, I invariably chose the grass.
In addition to the walks, my afternoons were usually spent studying Number Theory. Most often I would sit out in the sun in front of the library and watch people go by as I worked. Again, the locals thought I was a madman to brave the heat, but to my way of thinking, that was far more enjoyable than being cramped in a little cubicle in the library. What's more, for the first time in years I was able to get a decent tan.
More frequently than I cared to, I would wash clothes in the huge "Panhellenic Laundry" behind the dorm. I've never been a fan of sweaty clothes, so I typically went through more than one outfit in a day. When I went to the laundry, I pretended to play "slot machine"--putting a $5 bill into their money changer and getting $4.95 in quarters and dimes. Then came the real gamble: trying to find washers and dryers that were actually in working order. The laundry was enormous, but (as with so many things at USM), everything seemed to be in disrepair.
I had supper any of a wide variety of times--from 4:30 (when they first opened) to 6:30 (when they closed). There tended to be far less of a crowd (and a more interesting mixture, heavy on foreign students) at these times. ... Occasionally I would skip supper because lunch was more than filling enough for the day. Almost every day there would be a thunderstorm around dinner time.
On Monday and Wednesday nights I had classes. The other nights I normally did homework in my room. I would usually work at the computer with the TV or music on in the background. When I would reach a mental block, I would take a break to either read the Hattiesburg American ... or to work out with some weights I had brought with me. I usually stayed up until around midnight--later if I seemed to be making real progress with my studies. The routine was basically the same after I got back from my Monday night class. Wednesdays I would either go out somewhere with Sandra (and sometimes Roy) after class, or I would hurriedly finish up my Number Theory assignment that was due the following morning.
Entertainment
Theatre was the biggest form of entertainment this summer. I saw more plays this summer than I've seen in ages. The trio of us bought season tickets for the Southern Arena Theatre's three shows, and Sandra and I went to a couple of other shows around town besides.
... We saw "Bus Stop", "The Importance of Being Earnest", and "An Inspector Calls"--all of which were excellent. In addition to being well acted, they had elaborate sets designed for theatre in the round. There were some interesting tricks to make the shows work in a tiny theatre, like seating part of the audience in the diner for "Bus Stop".
Sandra and I also went to what I felt was a rather weak production of "Pirates of Penzance" at USM and an excellent musical revue at William Carey College, a small Baptist college at the south end of Hattiesburg. ...
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In addition to the theatre, I also went out on the town a few times--either as a couple with Sandra, as a threesome with her and Roy, or with various larger combinations of friends. Here we learned just how conservative of a place Mississippi is. I was rather shocked when I (of legal age for ten years now, and balding) was carded when ordering a rum and coke. We were also amused that the bars close here at midnight, and they literally take away your drinks at that point--finished or not. That's how it works in the Bible Belt, though--and even at that Hattiesburg is locally considered an utter den of iniquity since it chose to make alcohol legal at all. All of the neighboring communities are dry.
Without meaning to dwell on alcohol, the difference in cultures was also clear at a dorm-sponsored mixer. I had been an undergrad at what was then proud to be Iowa's biggest party school (back before UNI decided to try for an academic reputation), where booze (and invariably other drugs) flowed freely--even at official university functions. Coming from this background, it was a bit of a shock to attend what came across as a grade school birthday party--with cookies, lemonade, and quiet party games. The guys back in Bartlett at UNI would have laughed hysterically at such an event, and I must say that even in Hattiesburg it was far from a "happening" party. The real problem, of course, is that UNI and USM went overboard in opposite directions. At UNI even the college administration seemed to think that it was impossible to have a good time without booze; at Southern they appear to ban not only alcohol, but also that sense of letting loose and being a bit wild that I expect at a college gathering. ...
Related to this, there were two main groups among the graduate studentsand I wasnt in either of them. The majority were deadly serious about their studies. They never left campus and generally spent their days in the library and their nights and weekends at their computers. The idea of enjoying themselves seemed alien to them; they would never have thought of treating summer school like a vacation. For all the work these people did, though, they seemed overall to get significantly lower grades than I got.
A smaller group (almost all of whom were men) totally blew off school. They reveled in the fact that booze was legal in Hattiesburg, and they spent the summer in a drunken haze. After the bars closed, they went back to their dorm rooms, watched TV, drank beer (the university has no policy against legal adults drinking in private), and swore until the wee hours. These people, most of whom were in their thirties, didn't seem to have grown up much since high school. It bothered me that most of these guys were married, yet they always seemed to be trying to pick up girls. I wondered just how much they planned to tell their families about the way they spent their summer. I also wondered if these people (all of whom were in education) felt any responsibility at all to be role models for the kids they teach. ...
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Day Trips
While the rest of campus spent their weekends buried in either books or booze, for me Saturday and Sunday were a time to get away. Sometimes by myself, sometimes with Sandra and/or Roy, and sometimes (twice to be exact) with larger groups, I explored the countryside of Mississippi and Louisiana. Hattiesburg is conveniently located a hundred miles or so from the Gulf Coast, New Orleans, and Jackson. I put literally thousands of miles on my car, mostly driving in two-hour spurts to and from those places. En route I saw virtually everything there was to see in the area.
The Gulf Coast was one of the highlights of my vacation a year ago, and Hattiesburg's proximity to the coast was one of the things that made me come here for school. As the summer progressed, I decided that I would make a pretty good beach bum. I used to laugh at John and Janet for taking those "sun and fun" tours to places like Fiji, but it really is a wonderful escape to just walk along the shore or sit in the sun reading. I sometimes fantasized about having a nice low-pressure job like picking up the trash that washes up along the beach.
I often went to the beach to study. No one in the dorms seemed to understand this, but warm white sand seemed a far more pleasant setting for reading hundreds of pages of educational psychology than the USM library or my dorm room. Dull reading is just more pleasant in the sun, with girls in thong bikinis frolicking in the background.
Other times I would just spend the day beachcombing. No place was better for that than Ship Island, an especially beautiful stretch of sand just south of Gulfport. I spent a full day there, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. All the Mississippi barrier islands are part of a national park, so they have no commercial development. Ship Island is the only one you can get to easily, and even that's no small task. It's a 90-minute ferry ride, and there are only two ferries a day. The good part about that is that it means there's only a couple hundred people on the entire island at any one time. There's a lovely "classic beach" on the island, complete with umbrellas and all. There are also seven miles of virtually deserted beaches where I spent the entire day wandering. I saw enormous turtles and all kinds of other foreign animals. The middle of the island ... is a dense swamp with some of the most gorgeous wildflowers I've seen anywhere. The only bad thing about visiting Ship Island is that my feet, of all things, managed to get a wicked sunburn over the course of the day. The rest of me was fine, but my feet were literally blistered by the sun. It took over two weeks for them to heal--and trust me, theres nowhere more painful to have a sunburn than on your feet.
Every town along the coast has its own stretch of beach, and each has its own personality. Over the course of the summer I spent time on almost every beach on the coast. Aside from Ship Island, I liked the beaches at Pass Christian (pronounced Chris-CHAN) best, because they were quieter and less full of litter than the others. I also liked Long Beach, where the beach is lined with mansions that are called "summer cottages" by their millionaire owners. The travel books say the best beach is in Waveland, home of NASA's rocket engine test center. The beach there is OK, but a major problem is that there is no legal parking along the beach in Waveland--so you can't really enjoy it unless youre a local. Gulfport, the largest place on the coast, is industrial and doesn't lend itself well to tourists. Biloxi, the traditional center of the coast, is overdeveloped and a bit seedy. The place is a big hang-out for high school and college students, and it was a bit too rowdy for me. The travel books don't even mention the area east of Biloxi (near Pascagoula and Ocean Springs). I went there once and found out why. The coast is swampy and infested with mosquitoes and flies; after spending an hour there I was surprised I didn't come down with malaria.
The biggest problem on any of the beaches is trash. Ship Island was the only place that wasnt polluted by an incredible amount of litter, and even it had lots of trash that had washed up after boaters had dumped it. It's incredible what you find along a beach. One day toward the end of summer I spent an afternoon just picking up trash along an empty stretch of beach in Pass Christian, and I was amazed with its variety. There are the requisite pop and beer cans and cigarette butts, of course, but I also found lots and lots of perfectly decent clothing that people had abandoned. ... I also found lots and lots of plastic bottles (from detergent, motor oil, etc.) that boaters had dumped. Then there were the fireworks. The whole Coast seemed to have gone wild on the Fourth of July, and there was fireworks litter strewn everywhere.
* * * * *
I spent the better part of an afternoon (at least four straight hours) working on picking up trash on one little stretch of beach. I can't even imagine what a task it would be to clean up the whole coast.
Aside from the beach, the main place I spent my time was in New Orleans. Early in the summer the college sponsored a group excursion to New Orleans, and I went back there eight or nine times over the course of the summer. New Orleans is just about the most fun place I've ever been to, and I enjoyed almost every minute I was there. I became very familiar with the city and was quite comfortable driving there. I found New Orleans surprisingly easy to get around in--far easier than Minneapolis, for instance. The people seem to drive politely and at reasonable speeds, and there are either expressways or major streets leading to every point of interest.
I had become so confident in driving in the Big Easy that I sent a letter to Paul and Margaret saying that I actually enjoyed it. No sooner has I sent off the letter than I proceeded to go down to New Orleans and get involved in an accident. Fortunately there was no real damage (to either the car or me), but it certainly gave me quite a scare. I was stopped at a red light on U.S. 90 when a Chevy Suburban behind me didn't stop. I felt a strong impact (in fact, I hit the steering wheel--which bothered me; I thought those flexible seatbelts were supposed to tighten up on impact), but this happened in a neighborhood where I didn't really feel I could get out of my car to check what happened. (In fact, I didn't feel all that safe inside my car.) The car worked, so I kept going when the light changed. The Suburban instantly turned (in front of oncoming traffic) and was lost in the side streets. I tried to look for a license number, but they don't have front plates in the South, and I couldn't catch the rear plate as they were turning.
It was over an hour later before I finally got to a place where I felt safe pulling off--at a Dairy Queen just beyond the endless shacks and housing projects, just over the line into Mississippi. (In case you ever happen to be in New Orleans, don't leave the interstate anywhere east of the French Quarter; there's nothing to see, and it's not a nice place.) To my surprise and relief I could find absolutely nothing wrong with the car when I looked around. I was preparing for a long battle with the insurance company, but I've driven thousands of miles since ... without problem. Thank God for good bumpers!
Even the accident didn't spoil the fun of New Orleans, though. I went back there the very next weekend, and before long I was driving around with the same confidence as before--as if nothing had ever happened.
My favorite thing in New Orleans was the zoo. I don't really care much for animals, but I like zoos, and New Orleans has just about the nicest zoo I've seen anywhere. It's enormous, and all the animals are free to roam over acres of land. Most of Louisiana looks like a jungle, and it's fun to see wild animals in a place that really does look wild. They also have a huge swamp area in the zoo, with alligators and such like. I took to parking at the zoo (which was easy to get to and had free parking) and taking the streetcar to other parts of the city.
I also visited Chalmette National Park (where the Battle of New Orleans took place), wandered all over the French Quarter, strolled through Audubon Park and the campuses of Loyola and Tulane Universities, saw the elegant homes of the Garden District, crossed Lake Ponchitrain on the longest bridge in the world (29 miles), and crossed the Mississippi on the Canal Street Ferry (a trip I do not recommend). Another interesting attraction was the "Mardi Gras City Grand Prix", which the city was hosting the first time I was there this summer. I wasn't about to pay $35 to see it from a grandstand seat, but it was fun to catch glimpses of it as I walked around.
... One excursion was particularly interesting. Sandra and I spent an entire day visiting art galleries along Royal Street. It was especially interesting to see these with Sandra, as she personally knew several of the artists and was at least familiar with almost all of them. I had never heard of any of these people, but she was able to tell me small tidbits about their personal lives, which made their work much more interesting.
* * * * *
I was in awe of how much professional artists charge for their work. We saw paintings and sculptures ranging from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. ... Almost everything we saw was excellently done, but it's hard for me to even conceive of spending so much money. I could almost imagine paying such prices for a Picasso or a Rembrandt (though Lord knows I'd never be able to do that myself), but it seems absurd to spend that kind of money for the work of a living artist I've never heard of. Sandra told me that New Orleans really wasn't a good place to judge prices. According to her, artists will sell similar work in different places at vastly different prices. ... She said you could purchase similar work in less touristed places for about a third the price they charge in New Orleans. Even those prices would seem horrible to me, though.
While the art was expensive, the galleries themselves were free. The same cannot be said of the Louisiana State Museum--one of the stupidest things I have ever wasted my money on. The thing that attracted us there was a special exhibit entitled "The Social History of the American Alligator", which turned out to mostly be hall after hall of stuffed gators. The only thing of much interest was a wing depicting the history of Mardi Gras. Aside from that, there were a bunch of horrible portraits and busts of people who weren't even locally important and some scratched up antique furniture.
Food is another important reason for visiting New Orleans. Among the places I ate were the Hard Rock Cafe (which surprised me by serving excellent food at comparatively cheap prices), an exquisite little bistro on Royal Street [the Royal Cafe], a combination hot dog and praline emporium, and a wonderfully fun little bar and grill whose entire floor was covered with the shells of free salted peanuts they serve all their patrons. I also patronized countless street vendors and fast food places, including the "Pizooria" at the zoo.
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One final note on New Orleansa little bit of trivia I found out while I was there. Did you know that, as the Mississippi flows past Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter, it is flowing due north? Once it finally gets itself straightened out, it then flows pretty much east from New Orleans to the Gulf. The eastward flow didn't surprise me, but for a southbound river to be turned around 180 degrees that close to the end seemed quite an oddity.
CONTINUED IN PART FIVE
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