Y'all come back now

So I'm sitting our favorite bar last night (doesn't that just sound like I get to go out all the time?! I wish. It is too rare these days!) waiting for the opening acts to move out of the way for the Heartless Bastards to take the stage. Now, I do a fair amount of people watching and if you are talking close to me, I'm listening. And my ears tend to perk up when I hear certain words. One of those words is Mississippi. I can hear that from across the room.

Now, I'm not from there but I spent a good bit of my formable years there (No, not growing up. The real formable years of college and life just post-college when you try to figure out who you are and do a lot of stumbling.) Mississippi has a special place in my heart, stumbling and all. And the hubby is from there so we're still connected.

So ... back to sitting at the bar. I hear the couple next to me talking to the bartender about Oxford. And Jackson. Of course, I butt in. Turns out these folks are from Philadelphia and are on a driving tour of the South. They are wondering how they should get to Memphis from Birmingham ... if they should go a more direct route with a stop in Oxford or head west to Jackson and then up. My suggestion was to head to Jackson but then get off the interstate and wander through the Mississippi Delta to find the birthplace of the blues before heading into Memphis, home of the blues and birthplace of rock n' roll. They already had plans to visit the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute before leaving town and Graceland when they got to Memphis.

I gave them plenty of suggestions on where to eat, places to go. I gave them my

e-mail address with the hope that they will write and share what they thought of their trip. And I gave them my phone number, in case they get lost.

If the worst thing they think after the trip is "dang, them Southern folks are a little bit too friendly," well then me and the other folks they meet along the way have done our job. Feel free to visit us anytime. I'll be glad to give you directions.