I have had an interesting life, known interesting people, seen interesting times. I laughed and cried and ran amok like a hoodlum. I generally had a colorful childhood. McComb, Mississippi is simply an interesting place to be from. Having lived all over the country I’ve always been proud to call McComb home.
I was born on June 1, 1968. There is a funny story attributed to my birth one that my mama used to tell about Dr. Boyd, the veterinarian-obstetrician or general practitioner at the hospital who On my expected due date apparently had a vacation planned, and decided that I’d need to vacate the premises so his plans could be kept I was therefore induced a day early so that he could get to Florida for happy hour. Therefore I was born at 12:05 June 1, 1968 — it was a hell of a day in history. It is also the day Helen Keller died, I didn’t have a damn thing to do with that, no matter what you might hear.
My daddy went to Ole Miss in Oxford and became a civil engineer. We moved from Pike County, to Oxford, Mississippi and then to Ocean Springs . That was in the heyday of the fella named Jimmy Buffett. I can still remember us having that “carnivorous habit. “Life in the early 70’s was very different than now, at least in the Deep South. Ocean Springs, a few miles from Biloxi, was a wonderful place. It was different than any other place we’d lived. It has a military presence as well as a NASA presence, which made it a very diverse place for Mississippi.
We next moved on to New Orleans, which is where my folks finally divorced. I guess I should’ve mentioned that I have a sister, Charma,who is one year my elder, 3 younger brothers – Drew two years younger, as well as Brandon, and Jamie my youngest brother who is no longer with us.
In 1974 Charma and I moved to McComb to live with my grandparents, Grandmae and PawPaw Charlie, it was really one of the best times of my life and by far the most profoundly stable.On January 11, 1975 , I was six when a tornado came and hit the school I was in Mccomb Mississippi.I don’t remember it being terribly cold but I do remember the rain. I remember PawPaw Charlie driving down in his truck and having me and Charma bundle up next to him to wait for the bus. The sky would change a great many colors that day and I still remember it vividly. I remember the classroom like it was a dream. The surreal feeling of little ghost children now. The role being called. The teacher sent us to get the milk boxes for the class. I remember sitting and looking out that window and seeing that black funnel and that beautiful blue sky, and that was art. Hearing my classmates yell and my teacher scream for us to get in the hallway, watching as she tried to open the windows and they slammed shut like they were being sucked out, that too was art. She would open them and they would slam, I remember seeing them behave like rubber it looked as though they were vibrating fully opened and again we had art. Those vibrations and reverberations were magnificent, that sky humming and howling and I was witnessing the finest performance of art I would see until I’d visit the Grand Canyon twelve years later,
I remember the teacher finally giving up on the windows and giving her full attention to the few enamored idiots still remaining as she immediately began corralling us into the hall. We occupied space that would almost instantly change, fluctuating with the pressure. I remember the textures in the sounds and thinking my big head was going to burst open. I remember feeling cool, then warm, then lighter. We forget that life, weather, even public education, could have so much texture, but by god it does.
And so is art. We walked into a school and walked out of ruins. I remember sitting in front of our lockers with the silent moan of children trying to control their crying and the loud roar of a tornado that seemed oblivious to the demands. It was fascinating and determined and quick. It seemed as though at one end of the school the building started popping like bubbles all the way down the hall – 1,2,3,4 pop, pop, pop, pop, and looking through it all you could see the darkness of storm and water and then quite suddenly clear blue skies.. the euphonious wails of a child’s cry telling us we were alive, walking out of there was harmonic,bucolic,even cathartic that was math, music and again Art