Time Travel Isn't Really a Thing
But Mississippi can make you feel like it is.
Let me start with this: I’ve got an amazing group of friends who will do whatever it takes to help me through this season of grief.
Over the Memorial Day Weekend, one of them went above and beyond to do just that. For a long time now – since way before Bruce even got sick – I’ve wanted to take a road trip to all the places I lived growing up. You’ve heard this part before – Baptist preacher’s kid, roots in Mississippi, lived in 11 apartments/houses before I graduated from high school. These were spread across The South – Kentucky, Indiana, Mississippi (two towns), Texas (two houses), and South Carolina (two towns). Since high school I’ve added North Carolina (three towns), Tennessee and Georgia (three times).
I’m not sure WHY visiting each of those places feels important. I am just sure that it does. So, when I spent Thanksgiving in Texas with my brother and his family, I took a day and drove to Weatherford. (I wrote about that here: Weatherford, TX November 2024 ). Earlier this year a group of friends took me with them to Louisville, Kentucky – the place where I was born and where I met and married Bruce. (I wrote about that here: 4 Friends 4 Days)
Later my friend Kym and I went to Charleston, SC and drove by all the places – our house, our church, etc. We even had dinner with my best friend from that season, Deborah. (I wrote about that here: Beautiful Insanity ).
This weekend, Kym and I set out on a road trip through Mississippi. It felt like a voyage back in time in many ways. We rented an AirBNB in Vicksburg. I drove to Birmingham on Friday to spend the night with the Mitchell family. Kym, her husband John and I all went to college and seminary together and have loved each other for a long time. Saturday morning after a lovely pancake breakfast cooked by John, we set out on our way. By the time we arrived back at Kym’s house Monday night, we would have driven more than 900 miles.
900 is a lot of miles. The miles get longer when most of them are driven in the rain – some of it through blinding rain, hail, and gale-force winds. In fact, we are pretty sure we missed a tornado by about 30 seconds. 3 trees fell across the road just before we got there. Still, Kym just kept on driving where-ever my little heart desired.
So, we went to the first house my parents ever owned on Scanlon Drive in Jackson, MS. We went to the elementary school where I went for 1st through 5th grades. We drove the route I used to walk home from school through what is now a crumbling, devastated neighborhood with roads so bad as to be nearly unnavigable. Peggy and Vic bought the house on Scanlon Drive brand new in 1972. Seeing the neighborhood now in this condition feels – well, there really aren’t words to describe how awful it looks and feels. Houses have literally collapsed under the weight of fallen trees, jungle-like weeded yards and poverty.
The next stop was Calvary Baptist Church in the heart of downtown. Although it is just 4.4 miles from my old house, it took nearly 30 minutes to drive due to the horrid conditions of the streets. This big beautiful building has also suffered the ravages of time. It lives in my mind in full color – a tapestry of worship services and summer camps and Bible Drills and family weddings and Vacation Bible School and the view from the baptistry. In 2025’s reality, it lives in the middle of a deteriorating capitol city that no one seems to care about.
Other parts of Jackson were very different. Near the capitol we stopped at a sculpture installation honoring three famous authors who called Jackson home. We found a labyrinth at St. James Episcopal Church. The sacred spaces there were so beautiful that I commented I would join this church without caring about their theology – just to have the chance to spend more time in their garden. We drove a little north to The Chapel of the Cross. (There is a geocache there.) Then we traveled down the Natchez Trace – stopping for every historic marker and also in Clinton to tour my parent’s alma mater, Mississippi College. Ultimately we reached Port Gibson and the Windsor ruins. (Windsor Ruins ) This is a collection of columns – all that is left of a beautiful mansion that survived the Civil War but burned to the ground in the 1890s when a careless guest dropped a lit cigar onto a rug.
The rest of the trip was more of the same – miles of traveling through history – both mine and Mississippi’s. We ventured across the river to get caches in Louisiana and Arkansas. We saw the site of “Grant’s Canal” – what is left of the Union Army’s attempt to bypass Vicksburg and its guns by digging a canal 1.6 miles long, 60 feet across and 6 feet deep. Grant made three attempts which all failed, costing 500 men their lives. We waded through water to retrieve a geocache from the (thanks-be-to-God unused) outhouse at the Louisiana State Cotton Museum.
We stopped in Leland, MS to visit the museum dedicated to Kermit the Frog in the town of his birth. Jim Henson lived there when he was a boy. He loved playing outside and, one assumes, with frogs.( Leland, MS Kermit the Frog Museum ). We saw a Buddhist monastery near Batesville, Parchman State Penitentiary, The Dockery Plantation – widely regarded as the home of Delta Blues, William Faulkner’s house and the campus of Old Miss. At the end of the day we spent an hour at the Birthplace of Elvis Presly in Tupelo. That one is worth your time to check out. They’ve done an amazing job telling the story of his childhood before the family moved to Memphis. (Elvis' Birthplace.)
The last place from my childhood was a tour of Drew, Ms. This is the one town I haven’t been to since the day we left in 1978. The first stop was North Sunflower Academy where my brother and I went for the first two years we lived there. It was a private school established during the days of desegregation of public schools in Mississippi. We were enrolled at the insistence of the local superintendent of schools who was a deacon at the church Dad pastored. He convinced the search committee to include tuition to that school in Dad’s call package. He didn’t think it was safe for us to go to the local public elementary school. Those were two of my worst years. NSA was the place I felt the most “othered” – new kid, too fat, too smart, and preacher’s daughter. I loved my teachers but the kids were just awful. (They told me that “NSA” meant “N**** Stay Away.”) It’s amazing that my 58-year-old self can instantly feel the pain of the 12-year-old who cried every morning before she got on the bus.
The rest of the town didn’t bring any joy either, except for a few minutes sitting in front of 425 Ruby Ave. While most of the town looked shabby and run down, that house – which had been the parsonage when we lived there – was well-kept, sitting on a lovely yard, looking like a shining jewel in the pile of rubble that is its town. I have so many happy memories in that place – playing the piano in the living room, football in the back yard, watching the Hardy Boys in the den. Shaun Cassidy and I were shared a birthday and a destiny – Da Do Run Run. I showed Kym the house where Archie Manning grew up, the roof of the Drew Baptist Church where Parchman escapees would hide and steal Sunday School snacks when no one was looking, and the empty lot where Drew High School used to stand.
As we were driving back toward Birmingham, Kym asked me if I’d gotten what I was looking for on the trip. It is hard to say since I’m not really sure what I am looking for myself. Right now it feels like I am collecting pieces of memories. Eventually I will sit down and try to piece together whatever picture I’m trying to create. It has something to do with knowing my parents better than I do. Then there’s a piece of understanding my roots – including my roots in the Deep South with all its treasures and troubles. More than ever, I love the human I am becoming. She is made up of all the versions of me who came before – the ones who lived in Kentucky and Indiana and Mississippi and Texas and South Carolina. Her tears and her triumphs are the building blocks for my successes – as a wife, a mother, a chaplain and a friend. I think part of the reason for a “pilgrimage to hometowns” is to honor all those versions.
So, while time travel isn’t really a thing (yet), I am grateful for the chance to revisit some old places – maybe even dance with some of the ghosts who live there. I am more aware today than ever of the “Great Cloud of Witnesses” who are always with me – loving me, guiding me, cheering me on. Thanks be to God.
Nakupenda Sana, my Beloveds.
Selah.
Cathy
I’m glad you and Kym could revisit your childhood touchstones together.