Vicksburg to Starkville

This morning I have to make a choice as to where to go next. I had originally thought I would go up to Clarksdale, which is straight North on RT 61. I was not really expecting to find Clarksdale to be a great town to live in but it is supposedly the home of the blues. They have a museum and a lot of blues clubs according to what I read. I’d like to see those but I am feeling like I may be falling behind. I decide to head across the state to Starkville.
I will pass through a number of towns on the way that I wanted to look at.

As soon as I can I get off the highway and on to the backroads. I wind my way North of Jackson. Here the backroads are all great. 55mph is no problem and they are practically empty. My perception of Mississippi was that it was an extremely poor state. I suppose it is on a scale measured against Connecticut or California, however it seems like it would be quite cheap to live here so that scale is a bit scewed. The homes out here are modest, and yes there are junky trailers and shot gun shacks sometimes, but frankly it looks pretty similar to a lot of Vermont. Just very rural. A person could do a lot worse then living in rural Mississippi. I feel comfortable here very much like home. The first town I get to is Canton. A sign proclaims “ home of Nissan” I didn’t actually see where the plant is. The main sprawl area is busy and nasty. I press forward to the downtown area and park. Unlike the other towns this is built in a perfect square. In the center is a huge municipal building and then a street ringing it with buildings on all 4 sides facing in. I go for a walk around town. There are a number of large Antique stores and I poke through them. My wife and I collect art glass so I am pretty well versed in what the prices are in the Northeast. I was hoping to find bargains galore down here. This is not the case. If anything the prices were somewhat higher. E-Bay has become the great equalizer in collectibles. I can’t go anywhere anymore and find under priced stuff. The central town is OK but it is clearly struggling. There is no vibrancy to it. Some businesses are closed. They only open 4 days a week. I look for a place to grab lunch and there is only one place on the square. There is a bar in there, but it is not really a bar. Doesn’t look like they really cater to that. I pull up a seat anyway as opposed to getting a table. If you’re alone and you want to talk to someone or meet people you have to go to the bar. At the very least you have the bartender to talk with. Within a second I get the usual “where you from” Turns out Dad is behind the bar helping out. His son has just opened the place several months ago. Kid went to culinary school so this is his shot. This guy is friendly likes to talk. We chat about the area while I eat “the hammer” which is what the chef’s specialty sandwich was called. I am not positive what type of meat it was exactly. Perhaps a pork and ground beef mix. It was a huge ball of greasy meat covered in some cheese sauce and onions. Also came with oil soaked fries. The hammer totally hammered me for the next 8 hours. Anyway, Dad told me I should go to the town of Oxford, said it was very nice.
With a belly full of “the hammer” I continued up the road. The next stop was a town called Kosciusko. The old town sits quite a ways from the sprawl part. This I have found can be good or bad. In this case it was bad. Kosciusko is built on the same circle the municipal building idea. The buildings are all still standing but frankly the main town is dead. Numerous vacant stores. Again many simply not opened 5 days a week. I saw a drugstore and went in to buy some toothpaste. The shelves were bare. They had one of everything. Not like one of everything in the world. I mean literally one item. Like if you wanted a toothbrush they had one toothbrush, if you needed another for your kid? Sorry that will be in next week. I am sure everyone buys all their toiletries down at the 24hr CVS wedged between the truck stop and Applebee’s. Oh well you can’t fight progress. I am out of here.
Starkville is the home to Mississippi State University. As such I was hoping to find a young intellectual vibe there. The town is set up as one long main street. I pulled in and tried to get a hotel room right on main street but it was $110 a night and I just couldn’t justify it. I found another really sketchy place a couple streets back called the Regal. It was probably built in the 1950’s had a total dive bar next to it. Now normally I would think this the perfect spot, but I have this rental car and my computer. I thought I should pass. I wandered around town for a while. Things looked OK but there was really nothing that indicated anything cool in this town…where are the students? I popped into a number of outwardly nice looking second story bars. They were fairly empty. Big college sports bar things inside. The bar was sticky if you leaned on it. The bathrooms had holes punched in the Sheetrock. Happy hours were drink till you puke prices. I never really liked this scene even when I was 20 but seeing as it was the only game in town I sat down and tried to look youthful. After failing at that, I got talking to the guy next to me. Now you should never judge a place just speaking to one person, but he loved the town. Said it was growing at leaps and bounds. He told me they were all very excited about this new huge mall going in out by the highway. We watched some sports for a while. I asked him if he had ever been to Oxford. Yes he said, he hated it very haughty. Hmmm….that makes two recommendations. I finished up and headed for the “real? town to get a hotel. It was right next to CVS so I could get that extra toothbrush and across the street from some faux Irish Pub. The food was good. The young ladies at the bar kept me entertained. If you can’t beat them……