BigEarl and Bill - Day 15

BigEarl took me on a couple of tours of the Ole Miss campus as well as the town of Oxford, MS. Faulkner lived there; Grisham lived there; a literary town. The town was named Oxford after the town in England with the hope of developing it as a center for higher education.


On last evening's tour, we ate at City Grocery in Courthouse Square. While BigEarl had a big steak, I had the shrimp and grits specialty of the house. The shrimp were just fine, but the orange, sauteed mushroom infused tureen of grits was the star. I almost even finished it all. We also stopped in on the local bookstore where we were "treated" to author Angela McGowan discussing her new book "Bamboozled". We liberals stayed just long enough to be disgusted - about 5 minutes. Stupid republican dittohead.


The morning tour took us back to the Square. After picking up a bagel and Sunday NY Times, we sat on a bench to pass time. Oxford is filled with the most beautiful young women, and on this morning, they were all in their Sunday best for services. BigEarl's loquaciousness coupled with his hometown renown put "interacting with the locals" at full tilt. During one conversation, I almost added another rider to the Road Trip. We followed breakfast with a stop at Ronzo's place, a true throwback to the hippie generation. BigEarl and I parted ways each with a chicken-on-a-stick from the corner service station.

Thank you BigEarl! Thank you for the tours, the hospitality, the local knowledge, and for making me feel at home. And best wishes to your mother in-law...may she recover quickly.

With no real timetable or required destination until I reach Phoenix, I took to the road for the first time unencumbered. I threw a dart, and ended up heading for Little Rock, AR. Nothing of particular interest along the way, but I did withstand 5 more minutes of McGowan pumping her drivel on the Memphis right-wing talk radio. In Little Rock, I went straight to the William Clinton Presidential Library. It was 2 hours til closing, so after watching their movie, I moved through the rest pretty quickly. Very interesting stuff, but I don't think I could have spent too much more time there than that.

I tried to find the engraved donation brick that Mom bought for Dad and is placed in Celebration Circle leading to the Library. The kind, matronly Clintonites at the Information booth proudly informed me that it is brick number 4248 and is found near the Rock Island Railroad Bridge. After craining my neck for 20 minutes, it was still lost; and there were too many other bricks; and the Library was closed. And I was gone.