Crossing the River with my RC

When I was a young boy, circa six or seven, there were no monstrous interstate highways slashing across the land. The land was beautiful, or as I probably thought, at the time, natural. Interstate highways are about as natural as was Sherman’s march through Georgia. They are federal (Yankee) spending, creating great slashes through private property (eminent domain is Grendel; destroying and destroying and destroying).
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My grandmother and mother were in the front seat of my grandmother’s 1948 Chevrolet with my mother at the wheel while my brother and I were in the back seat. For some reason they had to take a trip to Vicksburg from Jackson, a trip of about 50 miles. It was not my first trip to Vicksburg but one of my most memorable.
With the single two-lane Highway 80 as our track, it was probably something over an hour before we reached our destination, Vicksburg. I have no memory of why we were going, although at my age I only knew we were in fact going and with the windows down due to no air conditioning, it was fun for my brother and me flying along at 60mph.


It was probably the second longest trip I had ever made as far as distance. Other trips had been in the other direction (eastward) from Jackson to Hickory or Meridian, about75- 90 miles from Jackson. But never had I left Mississippi.


As we approached, the view of the city revealed why the people of Mississippi referred to it as the “Hill City.” It was built on a series of bluffs in and around the river. These bluffs were instrumental in Pemberton’s defense in 1863 against the bearded arsonist U.S. Grant. But almost a hundred years later these same bluffs had become lush with the Japanese plant Kudzu (another story for another day) and were shaded and more peaceful. Back in 1942 we had begun celebrating July 4 again, which had been another celebratory and proper move of secession. For any Yankee who reads (or can) Mississippi had more awards per capita for Medals of Honor in WWII than any other state. But back to the trip.


My brother and I sat in the back seat and had fun just observing the countryside or having a counting game we had created: we counted cows as we sped along, he counted the cows on one side and I counted those on the other. I usually won since we were on the honor system. At the end of the trips he would say “I got 78…” or some such number; I would respond with “I got 937.” My mother would give me the look of: Don’t lie even when you are playing.


But today we were going to Vicksburg and whatever reasons my mother and grandmother had, we would get to see the Mississippi River—one of the great wonders of the world—especially the Southern world. You didn’t have to actually cross it to see it from either the Mississippi side or the Louisiana side, as on the Mississippi side there was a road that carried you along and not too far from the east bank. You could, as well, I assumed, get a similar view from the Louisiana side up close to the west bank although there was no sizeable town like Vicksburg just across the river. And I had never been there since I had never left Mississippi.


Whatever year we were in, ’50,’51… was a year where money was valuable enough that people kept coin purses and anybody with a nickel, or dime, quarter or for goodness sakes a fifty cent (half a dollar) piece has some real money. Money was so valuable that we turned the lights out when we left a room (I still do). And you can be sure that my grandmother and mother coming through The Depression, one raising; the other being raised, knew the value of whatever their coin purse held. Financial frivolities were as scarce as three-legged ducks.


On our previous trips to Vicksburg, we had seen the river and one of the main attractions—the Mississippi River Bridge. It was a two-lane toll bridge and the toll in that period was probably around 50 cents. Although I wouldn’t have used the word at the time, it was a MAGNIFICENT sight. The first bridge built across the Mississippi River south of Memphis (eat your heart out New Orleans).


After driving into Vicksburg and getting their business done (whatever it was) My mother and grandmother proceeded to drive along the river road and my brother and I viewed in awe the great river, the Father of Waters, and our home was the single state that carried its name, Mississippi.


When my grandmother turned around to face her two grandsons in the backseat and asked the question: “Would you boys like to drive across the bridge and go into Louisiana?” It was like getting an early invitation to the State Fair or an offer to get a ride with one of the local crop dusters. We both smiled while silently screaming. Crossing the Mississippi River and entering another state for the first time. Somebody was going to have to open their coin purse!


It was the greatest experience I had had up until that moment of my six or seven years (or whatever I was). And as we crossed, I couldn’t help thinking that we would get a second crossing (and second toll of course) since I was sure we weren’t moving to Louisiana anytime soon.


I don’t know how big the town of Mound, Louisiana was back in the early fifties but it dang sure wasn’t as big as Vicksburg. Mound-- the first town in Louisiana after you had crossed the river. Today it is listed in Louisiana as the smallest “village” in Louisiana with a population of 12.


But back then it did have a gas station (filling station) and a small store adjoining it. My mother and grandmother pulled in and bought gasoline (in addition to the toll coming and going, there was additional gas to be paid for by going the extra miles away from Jackson). Suddenly! as by miracle, my brother and I were asked if we wanted to eat some snacks-for-dinner from the wares of the store. Had money become no object? Hardly, but if God had decided to erect a Hog Heaven that day he had made my mother and grandmother the chief engineers.


I don’t recall what? Charlie, my brother, got but I got a Moon Pie and a bag of potato chips. In addition, we both got Royal Crown Colas—RCs. The big bottle drink that had more ounces than a Coca Cola.


What had started as a hour or two trip to and from Vicksburg had become a vacation.


Due to my age and my skills at description, it would have been difficult at the time to be able to describe the view of this greatest of rivers. But the vision I saw that day was wonderous and today I say that, though I have never seen the Nile nor the Amazon nor any of the “great” rivers of our planet, none will ever match the one named for my home. Its width, its dark brown coloring its grand beauty its crowned sovereignty nor what President Jefferson Davis referred to when he had said:


“Vicksburg is the nailhead (sic) that holds the two halves of the South together,” can ever be matched.


As you get older it seems that things do seem smaller as you return to visit them. But as they say, “It is the exception that guarantees the rule.” I have crossed the river many, many times since that day many decades ago and The Mississippi River only grows grander and larger in my eyes.


As we crossed back, I thought of my friends I would see back in Jackson in the neighborhood and in school. To some of them, money was less of an obstacle. Some of them had been to exotic places like Biloxi or even over to Florida and Panama City. I even knew one boy and girl whose family had been to Canada and had seen Niagara Falls.


But I had been out of the state on a trip. I had been across the greatest river in the world. And I had been to Mound, Louisiana. I sat on the back seat and thought about what a great trip I had had and would tell others about. Dang! I was happy.
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And add God’s wisdom: The River always flows South.


I had finished my Moon Pie and potato chips. But I still held my now half-filled R.C. in both hands. I would make it last. And it did.

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