1000 LITTLE FLAGS

The wide open stillness of the Gulf of Mexico was ahead of me. A rise over the railroad tracks and I could see it pour forth into foreverness, an affect amplified by the haze that hung over the water. Not still early but feeing that way as the sun is still enveloped in it. I’m set on finding a place to pull over along the beach. To drink this coffee. To look. To breathe in the morning. 

In an instant I wonder if the people that live here ever stop and look and notice the sand. The birds. The one small dolphin right out past the poles. Poles put there to remind people that the water goes from 1 ft to 6ft deep. Do they stop and notice the three lone oyster shells that somehow made their way 75 yds from the water. Someone walked these here right? Or was the hurricane water high enough to carry them? Probably that. 

I looked to the right as I crossed the railroad tracks. The coliseum of my youth that housed Styx, KISS, Tears for Fears and all the other bands I saw there. Careful to not park in the back lot because that’s where the drinking and druggin was going on. I still remember the uneasiness. The fear of getting your ass kicked by a bunch of rednecks for “no good reason”. Rednecks always fought that way. This truth I knew universally. All of this fear was wasted energy as the punches never rained forth on me. Best to be careful though I guess. 

All of this is crashing through my brain in a rush of a mere second. Through one of those lobes.  Through that space that feels at once minuscule and expansive all at once. I am quietly content that I am aware of it all. 

As the wheels aim down the railroad hill I glance to my left. Towards the “Last home of Jefferson Davis,” the Last President of the Confederacy and I see them. It jars me straight from the ZZ Top laser light show on the inside wall of the coliseum some 35 years ago. It’s jarring because there are 1000 or so little Confederate flags stuck by 1000 little headstones. I immediately think “1000 little dead racists”. Is this what social media has done?  I stop and recalibrate. It’s 1000 dead guys, Southerners. Who fought for what they thought was their cause. I wonder how many were sold a false bill of sale?  That this was a fight for their heritage and not to preserve slavery?  I ended up here 113 years after the war was over, and you can be sure that the South still was looking to rise again. Clearly even today. Remembrance matters to someone. 

Mississippi. Hospitable and welcoming. Still. A little stuck. 

I hit the light at the beach, take a left and drive a few miles until I find the right place to stop. And think. And enjoy my coffee. 

#hugsandhi5s