Mississippi
Learning names and adopting dogs
People here grow up with names like Azalea, Snookie, Easter, and Lurlene—even the sheriff answers to “Moose.” Some go by a merged first-and-last-name. Bobby Lowe becomes “BobbyLowe,” and Martha Hill, “MarthaHill.” When I lean in to ask a woman at a holiday party to repeat her name, she doesn’t simply say Kay, she says Kay…. (The party is loud, and she speaks softly, so I never actually catch her second name, but I like this woman and in the future will learn her entire merged name.)
For a Yankee like me, the Deep South will always be a foreign land, but the Mississippi I visit is a cherished place, and as much as a New Jersey-native is able, I try to embed myself in local life. I joke that I have two “sons” here, one dark, the other more fair like me. Percy, short and stout, lives to eat. (I know what that’s like.) When not downing his chow, he spends much of the day lounging indoors, resting on his bed under the kitchen table or backed up to the kitchen couch. Sometimes he gnaws on deer antlers scattered about the floor.
During Percy’s mandatory daily outdoor time, you can often find him parked under a shrub in a brick planter next to the back door. His brother William, meanwhile, spends his days patrolling the perimeter of the Drake Hill property. When not barking at the UPS truck and other passersby, William is either stretched out on the front lawn, snout on paw, nosing around for a fallen pecan, seeking shade in a den under a massive shrub, or bedded down by the fence in the heat of the day. No matter the hour or the weather, William adores the outdoor life.
Around six years ago, my friend found a female dog and her litter hidden under an uninhabited house in town. She rescued William and Percy and their siblings— nine puppies in all—placing every one in a good home. This was an act of pure kindness, as plenty of painfully thin strays languish by the roadside here. Still others run in packs in the cemetery, where on my first visit, I would occasionally walk William and Percy.
Tan with white patches, William is now nearly seven and about the height of a small pony. When I visited a couple of years ago we picked pecans together on the front lawn, William nuzzling around in the leaves, crunching the nuts as contentedly as any human.
I like both here—the humans with their quirky names—and the animals with their determined personalities.
Thanks so much for reading Booked. If you enjoyed this essay, I’d be grateful if you pressed the ❤️— it helps the almighty algorithm, as does re-stacking the post. I write essays on many topics, below find links to some published in the last twelve months.
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