Days 3,4 Friday, Saturday - Natchez, Mississipi

(Still working on posting photos -- I've got them, really!)

When talking about the trip with friends, I mused about how, mostly meeting people I would never see again, I could invent new selves – personal background, job, interests, etc. – each time, much like Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser’s characters had done in an episode of “Mad About You” that I had seen years ago. I even said to someone that I could successively “try out” the stereotypically Asian professions: doctor, architect, computer geek…

I should have known that it wouldn’t be necessary to do it myself, that someone would do it for me in a perversion of a line spoken by Malvolio in “Twelfth Night” that goes something like: “Some are born great and some have greatness thrust upon them”. It happened during my tour of “Rosalie”, one of the largest antebellum mansions in Natchez.

We were a group of eleven – nine women and two men – being led through the house by a former bank-clerk, now a house-guide with “3000 women bosses”, as he called working for the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution), who had been given the property in 1938 by the two spinsters sisters from the family that had owned it for seventy years. He was sixty-two (deduced by a side-comment about being a ten year-old in 1962), about my size, and a bit like many characters played by Jimmy Cagney: a feisty bantam-weight with a staccato delivery of information interspersed with corny jokes. (Example: as we were standing on the large second-floor balcony over-looking the lush grounds and a vista of both banks of the Mississsipi, he asked: “What’s the difference a ‘porch’ and a ‘veranda’?” When no one answered, he continued: “If you are drinking coffee, it’s a ‘porch’; if you are having a mint julep, it’s a ‘veranda’. We gave a polite chuckle. Then he said: “And what do you call it if you are having neither?” Two second pause, and he answered himself: “A shame.”)

There was also something slightly belligerent about his manner (maybe from having those “3000 women bosses”?) He had asked questions when we had gathered as his tour group – where we were from, where we were going -- but his tone had been inquisitional, not conversational, and lacking in warmth: the questions felt perfunctory and not stemming from genuine curiosity. We were huddled together in the small open area of the dining-room when he asked me what I did, which is never a short answer since “HR Consultant” usually requires an explanation. But, it’s what I told him, though the more accurate answer would have been “Unemployed”. However, that wouldn’t have been “Southern”, i.e., polite, to say. He walked away without comment or a follow-up, but thirty-seconds later, as we were leaving the room, he turned to me and said, with something like the disappointment of a parent at how their child has turned out: “I had you figured for a doctor, a surgeon.” Ah well. I did that to my parents too.

It was also the second time today when my ethnicity led to a false assumption. Ironically, it was also at this mansion, though it was the counter-lady at the ubiquitous gift-shop. I had walked in just behind two clearly Japanese men. They were impecabbly dressed -- fine-knit polo shirts, perfectly combed hair, Summer-weight wool trousers, very nice loafers – AND I had overheard them speaking in Japanese. (I, on the other hand, was wearing cargo shorts, had keys, cell-phone, and a baseball cap dangling from my belt, sockless sneakers, and bad hat-hair.) Ascertaining that I was forty minutes early for the next tour, I left for a walk of the grounds and then for a drive to the post-office to mail postcards.

When I returned, thirty minutes later, the counter-lady – who bore an uncanny resemblance, in voice and shape, to the anthropomorphic (chicken) widow in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons – greeted me with: “Oh, if you hurry you can catch up with your buddies!"” Ah well… Again. (Note: if you want to test YOUR ability to tell Asians apart – at least Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese – from each other, there is a very funny website with 18 photos for which that’s the task. It’s: www.alllooksame.com . I scored seven (7) right.

(Another note: the above experiences were entertaining and not offensive. I didn’t make the people uncomfortable about their mistakes/assumptions, though I could have, nor did I use them as the “teachable moments” that they were. I’m either getting lazier or nicer.)

The rest of the afternoon was great. The casino – on a river-boat moored in town – (indirectly) bought me dinner (catfish almondine, hush-puppies, and a strawberry julep at the “Cock of the Walk”, the seafood place where I also had dinner last night) and a movie. It would also have (almost) paid for the tickets ($21) to the three houses I toured today, but I played roulette and lost $20 of my $50 winnings at black-jack. (Actually, dinner and the movie was $30.25, so I did spend a quarter.)

All in all, Natchez is worth a detour to visit, particularly if the stay is at one of the many fancy B+Bs (vs. my $34.95/night handicap-rate (?!) room at the Econolodge at the edge of town) and during one of the two house-tour festivals called “The Pilgrimage”. I’m told it has great pageantry, complete with a Queen and a King (who wears a Civil Was officer’s uniform!). The city is banking on tourism to replace the lost industrial jobs – tourism employs about 2,500 from a population of around 20,000. The downtown area is a mix of finely restored and dilapidated houses and walkable in two hours, and you can buy a fine, restored Victorian with 6 bedrooms for $325,000 – I saw one for sale at that price.

I’ll be heading to Dallas in seven hours (Sunday morning), with more thunderstorms on the way. Oh, and the low-beam bulb on the front left-headlight burned out, so it’s either high-beams or not driving at night until I can gtet a replacement. (I’m opting for daylight travel, as I may not have a chance to explain before being shot, especially in Texas, by the irate driver in front of me.)