Over and over last week the weather person on the television kept reminding everyone that it was hot outside. She was correct. Over and over that same weather person, as well as anyone and everyone else that had anything to do with the weather, kept reminding everyone that we were under an extreme heat advisory. They were all correct.
It was hot! Smothering hot!
Smothering hot, and according to the weather prognosticators on the morning and evening news over the weekend they say it is coming back again this week. How much more can we take?
At least it was a little bit cooler Saturday, and breezy and cooler Sunday. Nice enough that wife, Danny, and I sat out in the back lawn chairs, dozing in and out, and watching the tiny hummingbirds chase each other around over our heads.
I suppose that was just a big trick on Mother Nature’s behalf making us think an early fall might be in the works. Unfortunately, a quick glance at the calendar clears everything up once and for all. The Neshoba County Fair is half over and you can always count on some smothering heat, dust, rain, mud — you name it, a little bit of everything — when it is Neshoba County Fair Week.
We plan to skip the Fair again this year and head south to New Orleans for a long weekend where we can be sure an early fall is not in the works and swelterering heat and humidity is almost always a given this time of year. Hopefully we’ll have a cool as in temperature, and a cool as in atmosphere, courtyard to hang out in and celebrate our 42nd wedding anniversary.
Fair week is also special for us in a different kind of way. We get to experience all the roadblock excitement just about every time we leave the house and come back home.
To law enforcement’s credit, they have moved the Highway 21 “drunk tank check” they host just above Sebastopol a few feet up the highway from our road the last couple of times they have set up.
It used to be that we got our license checked when we turned onto Pine Grove Road to go home, and again when we left Pine Grove Road headed to make a drop off of young people at the fair, and again when we came back home.
On the reverse trip when it was time to head back toward Philadelphia to pick those same young folks up we got checked again....and then again.
Seems like they would get used to us sooner or later.
Somewhere I’ve got a photograph from the fair roadblock several years back where the officers had pulled a fellow over — several fellows if memory serves me correctly — and one of them was leaning up against the patrol car playing the guitar. First roadblock with entertainment I’ve ever been through. Last one too so far!
Danny and I got married during fair week in 1981. The wedding party’s bachelor and bachelorette festivities were at Founder’s Square on Saturday night and come Sunday afternoon we all gathered at Sebastopol Methodist Church before a packed house (it’s a small sanctuary) and said our “I dos” before heading over to the Sebastopol Baptist Church Fellowship Hall for a reception with cake and punch. After that we all headed to my parents house in Newton for a second reception and yard party. Fun times!
We went on our honeymoon to the Smoky Mountains and made it back home just in time for the last night of the fair. That was dedication. Red dirt dedication!
Neshoba, the one word name my daughter and her friends call the Fair, just doesn’t appeal to us like it used too. The last time we actually entered the gates was many years ago. I mean many years, and I think we both agreed then that the air was thicker and hotter than it had ever been.
Now here we are in 2023 with the thickest, hottest, smothering air I think there has ever been and diehard fairgoers will be burning up the highway just to burn up. I hope it is everything they hope it will be for as long as their young bodies will hold out.
I suppose I really shouldn’t say anything about that. We’ll be burning up a whole lot more highway miles to the south and back over the weekend to burn up down in NOLA. Upon our arrival, we’ll have alligator and oysters to munch on instead of corn dogs and corn on the cob, and a cool little pool for cooling off in, in that cool little courtyard in place of hot red dust, and prickly wood chips stuck between our toes.
To each their own. You all enjoy the rest of the Fair and we’ll take care of the French Quarter.
Laissez le bon temps rouler for us, and that would be let the good times roll for all of you Fair goers!
