Cross-Country

Friday morning started early, the way many Fridays have recently, so that I could get to WTUL for the 8am News & Views show. This time, however, I was going in a car packed to the gills with stuff instead of on my bicycle, sweating up Baronne from the Bywater. As I pulled away from Tulane after the show, I pointed the car North towards St. Francisville, LA. I'm working on a story about prison gerrymandering for New America Media, so I wanted to go check out the town that I would be talking about in this piece. The whole population of the place is about 1500 people, and it's not far from an enormous prison, Angola, which raises questions about representation for the prisoners as well as the distribution of state and federal resources.
I decided to interview the woman who runs the town's Main Street organization, that is, the entity that works to promote business and economic development. It was a good conversation that went on for a fair bit after the interview ended. She understood the implications of the questions, and this prompted a talk about larger economic and political issues.
Prior to leaving the house in the morning, I'd finished packing up the car, and I'd taken 2 strands of glass mardi gras beads off a peg in the wall where they'd been hanging since I caught them at Krewe de Vieux last year. It was sunny and hot in St. Francisville, and I didn't want to wear the beads since they just felt heavy, so they are now dangling from my car's rearview mirror.
From St. Francisville, I followed the town's tourist map and my own common sense to Tunica Falls or The Clark Creek Natural Area, passing on my way the "World Famous Pond Store," named for the town of Pond, MS. In the store I asked how to get to Tuscaloosa, AL, and the woman I presume to be the owner laughed at how I could manage to get so lost. Still, one of the guys who was fixing her refrigerated display case gave me good directions, and got me on my way again.
As I sped towards Tuscaloosa, my goal stopping place for the first night, I realized as I left the Bienville Forest that I was on empty, and I pulled into the next town, Lake, MS. Hard as this may be to believe, I was not actually trying to hop scotch my way across Mississippi from one water-named town to another.
Anyway, I pulled over as soon as I got off the highway hoping that I would be able to get directions to the closest gas station. A white pickup truck was pulling up to a gate, and a little, blonde girl rolled down the passenger window when I walked up. The family in the truck went above the call of duty to help me find it by leading the way for me. And in the gas station, people were helpful again when I asked how far it was to Tuscaloosa.
In Tuscaloosa, my journey introduced me to another good person. I had dinner in a chain restaurant, and the manager happened to bring out my main course. We ended up striking up a conversation, and Harvey sat down to join me. The topics ranged from the existential issues that prevent people from finding love to the lack of African-American history taught in school. I feel like I made another friend, and it was another pleasant meeting in an unexpected situation.

My second day of driving took me from Alabama and to the Northeastern edge of Tennessee, and let me just say that, at least from the highway, Chattanooga is gorgeous. The highlight of this day was meeting my friend, Ben Varadi, for lunch in a little town called Loudon, TN. Ben is running his own law practice, so we haven't seen much of each other in New Orleans, and it's funny that we were able to meet for a leisurely lunch as we drove in opposite directions between NOLA and DC. Loudon was intriguing to me because it very clearly had a Latino population, and while I know that there are immigrant communities across the country, it was still interesting to me to see that in this tiny Tennessee town.
Ben lent me his tent so that I could camp out that second night, and sent me off up highway 75.
Yesterday morning, after a reasonable night in a state park, I was on the road before 8:30am. Shortly after crossing the border into Virginia, Smooth by Carlos Santana came on the radio and had me rocking out. Not so much that I didn't notice the pale blue cornflowers lining the road, though. And when I finally arrived in Annapolis much later that day, I was just in time to help my brother and sister-in-law move some of the last stuff out of their old house and into their new one.