Hill Country Living
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Hill Country Living
By Coulter Fussell
This week I’m writing my column from a mountaintop resort in the Blue Ridge and as I sit here on a balcony in the cool morning watching the early sunlight dapple its way through the laurel leaves, a thought occurs to me: Water Valley needs a mountain! We have a valley already so we’re basically half-way there. We just need the top part.
I know my 11-year-old kid would claim that Water Valley already has a mountain but, personally, I don’t count the random, giant pile of gravel in the old historical elementary school lot on Wagner Street as a mountain. Maybe we can use that $100,000 Main Street grant for this Water Mountain project. So, Main Street Association people, consider this idea officially proposed.
In all seriousness, it’s really terrific that our town received that grant money and much thanks to all the people who put in effort to get it. I do hope that a chunk of it goes to some landscaping on Main Street. I’m sure it will and if not this grant, then the next. Establishing needs, setting goals, making a plan and checking off the list goes a long way in terms of making lasting and needed changes. A big chunk of change doesn’t hurt either. I’m glad we’re getting all these things, in some form or another.
I’m big on aesthetics as a life-need and landscaping is part of that. The Garden Club does an excellent job with the planters and parks and the difference those women make in the quality of our town is palpable. The last couple of weeks at the garden bump-out on front of Mechanics Bank has been my favorite so far. I obsessively keep up with it, noticing every little change of plant, as I pass by it several times a day on my walking routine. I wish we had several more bump-outs on Main Street and some with trees! I’m sure the Garden Club appreciates me suggesting even more work for them.
Also of note this past week was that our county made it into last Friday’s episode of Jeopardy! The category was “Let’s County Up That State” and the clue was “Itawamba, Yazoo & Yalobusha, but not Yoknapatawpha.”
My friend Claire of Wood Street noticed it when her husband Sean suddenly yelled “YALOBUSHA!” at the tv screen (not as an answer but in a moment of plain recognition at seeing the word “Yalobusha” on a national level.) I personally had a fun time coming up with alternate answers to the Itawamba/Yazoo/Yalobusha clue starting with “What are counties that…”
But, as expected, the contestants on Jeopardy! weren’t nearly as smart as we all are here and couldn’t guess the correct answer: Mississippi. It’s also the most Yalobusha thing ever that we were on Jeopardy! and almost nobody in Yalobusha County noticed.
Lastly, big shout out to my oldest kid who broke his hand on Memorial Day by “accidentally punching wall” at his friend’s house in the middle of the night while goofing off with four other high school boys. They apparently tried to use a bag of frozen okra to stop the swelling as the friend’s mom found it thawed out on the kitchen floor the next morning and realized something was amiss. Summer in Yalobusha County has begun!
