A Little Heat Doesn’t Stop The Weed Eater Symphony Across The Valley
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Hill Country Living
By Coulter Fussell
They say that if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Well, this doesn’t account for areas of the world where the kitchen is an all-encompassing reality of existence on the level of the whole universe itself. By this I mean, there are no other “rooms” to which we can retreat, much less cooler ones. The entirety of Mississippi in August is nothing but a kitchen — a one room house with a fiery stove right in the middle. Cruelly, the only place left to go is outside on the porch which, in a lucky twist of fate, is an excellent and most ideal place to eat a watermelon!
And just as sure as the sun rises in the east, it will also choose to be 99 degrees on the day of our most beloved Watermelon Carnival. We know this. We must accept it and move on. I find it much easier to face unimaginable circumstances such as scorching heat and suffocating humidity when I fully surrender to it. I don’t try to fight it. I know that I will spend all day looking, feeling and most likely smelling like a wet dog.
To cope, I repeat to myself, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” Then I drink a watermelon margarita. It helps.
One can always tell that it’s the week before Watermelon Carnival because the whole town revs up their weed-eaters en masse in an effort to spruce up the streets for all the visitors coming to Water Valley on Saturday. It’s like a weed eater symphony out there this week and I do think our town, without much extra effort at all, could pull off a defacto Weed-eater Carnival in the days leading up to the Watermelon Carnival.
Monday morning at about 6:45 at Crawford Sports Complex I saw a lone little lady with a plastic bag picking up other people’s trash from the parking lot. And there was plenty of trash. She didn’t work for the city. She was just cleaning up after other people in an effort to make our town look, feel and be better. I imagine her efforts didn’t have much to do with the Carnival but more to do with a constant and consistent standard. I guess what I’m saying is, in terms of town upkeep, let’s try – as individual citizens — to live every day like Watermelon Carnival is only two days away!
Speaking of citizenship, the primary elections are Tuesday, August 8. Y’all go out and vote! I believe that local elections directly affect us much more than national elections so the “smaller” elections are always my favorite. It’s also fun to strategize your vote in narrowing-down elections leading up to the main event.
Remember, this is the primary so it’s about Democrats and Republicans. If the candidate you want to vote for is running as an independent, they will not be on these ballots. But no worries, that person will be on the big ballot in November.
See y’all on Saturday at the Watermelon Carnival and then again on Tuesday at the polls!
