Stella's Southern Soujourn* (and the North!)

(If you look at nothing else from this post, search "Mississippi River" on this page and scroll down to those photos.)

I'll open with this beautiful sunset shot from my favorite place in Jackson. Its location is a secret divulged only to those who make the trek down here to visit! (I'm looking at you, Anna Rubin!)

A few weeks ago I received a very special letter from my 8-year-old cousin, Isabel. Her third grade class was beginning a Flat Stanley/Flat Stella project, and Isabel had sent me her Flat Stella to take around with me on my travels to help her and her classmates learn about other parts of the country. I got the letter right on time to bring Flat Stella with on my weekend visit to the Jewish community in Shreveport, Louisiana!

It turns out that B'nai Zion, the congregation I work with in Shreveport, livestreams all of its services so that those who are unable to attend are still able to be a part of a Shabbat (and other) service. That means that, unbeknownst to me at the time, my d'var Torah ("sermon") was actually recorded, and is now available on YouTube! Skip ahead to 1:03:18 to get to me (I speak for about 5 minutes).

The ISJL staff have a bit of an obsession with strawberry pie from Strawn's Eat Shop, and whenever someone passes through Shreveport they're supposed to bring back (at least) one for the office. Stella and I had no choice but to oblige!

There's a beautiful, privately-funded "garden" (nature preserve? It's much bigger than a garden...) at the Norton Art Gallery in Shreveport. There are succulents and flowers and sculptures and bushes, and a faint smell of Etrog that I couldn't shake (one day, cameras will capture smell. Wait, apparently there's already one that can?). It was amazing. I'll definitely be back at this garden on my next visit. 

Obligatory "Welcome to Mississippi" photo with Stella.

I happened to be crossing the Mississippi River at the Louisiana-Mississippi border right at sunset, so obviously I had to stop at the state welcome center. I stayed to watch the sun go all the way down, and then continued back to Jackson.

When in the capital, one should see the Capitol! 

With the State Seal at the Department of Transportation. I'd be prouder of this photo if the Department of Transportation were a bit, shall I say, better at its job. The potholes here are worse year-round than they are in Chicago after a bad storm; and although I've seen buses and people waiting at bus stops (often sitting on milk-crates, since many bus-stops don't have shelters or benches, despite the Mississippi sun), I've never actually seen a bus stop to pick up passengers at one of the aforementioned bus stops. Oh, and sidewalks are severely lacking (the intersection referenced in that article is right near my house).

Stella learned a little history on her visit, too--we made a stop to the placard marking the site of the Greyhound bus station where a busload of Freedom Riders attempted to integrate the station. Needless to say, they were jailed. (Actually, I wrote a term paper last spring about failure to enforce court-legislated integration in various arenas of public transportation)

More State Seal

With the Confederate-inspired flag of Mississippi. (Oh, jeez.)

The art museum was closed, but the outside is still pretty cool, so it was worth a visit to show Stella.

One of my favorite parts of showing Flat Stella around town was that I got to explore places I'd never been before, too! I hadn't even known where City Hall was, but because I was just wandering around downtown, we stumbled across it (and the statue of Andrew Jackson, for whom Jackson is named).

The painted traffic/utility boxes downtown are one example of the cool art stuff that's beginning to go on in Jackson.

At the Governor's Mansion

I just liked this one :) Thought I was annoyed to find out that my new phone takes photos with a funky aspect ratio, and it's impossible to print this scaled to 4:6 without lopping off either Stella or the "I" at the end.

Then I went home to Chicago for Rosh Hashanah and got to hand-deliver Stella (and printed photos of our adventures) to Isabel. It was great to be home: I went straight from the airport with all of my stuff to Wrigley to watch the Cubs beat the Cardinals in extra-innings at the second-to-last game in Wrigley before they mess it up; I got to spend time with two close friends I hadn't seen in a while; I went out for drinks with high school friends and our calculus teacher (highly recommended!); had a delicious and raucous birthday/Rosh Hashanah afternoon with my grandma, aunt, uncle, and cousins (and librarian!); spent time at the Lake; and went to loud sing-a-long Hadar-y Rosh Hashanah services at Hillel. 

My transit route was kind of wacky: I drove to Memphis to fly to Chicago, since I'd racked up lots of miles on Southwest but they stopped flying to Jackson in June. It was a nice drive, though, and it meant that I was conscious of the geography of where I was flying--right over the Mississippi River, at sunset!

And on the way back, same thing--flew right over the Mississippi River. Absolutely stunning to look at from above. 

Here's a closer shot of Mississippi River. Since I landed back in Memphis at 11am, I spent the rest of the day wandering around the city, which obviously included 2 hours walking along the river. About two weeks ago they finished putting in a "pop-up fitness park," financed by the Memphis Grizzlies, along the riverwalk. It's a really cool idea, and people were using all of the equipment as I walked by--it's just a little disappointing to learn that it's only temporary, because so far it seems pretty successful. 

After my river stroll, I headed to the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 (click that link. Seriously). The docent told me that "it's self-guided, but mostly people spend around 2 hours at the museum." Four hours later, I was scrambling to get through the last few rooms of the first of two buildings. It's an incredibly well-done museum--thorough, engaging, interactive--and I'd highly recommend it to anyone planning to be in Memphis.

I mentioned earlier the term paper I wrote about legislation to desegregation public transportation--that was for a seminar on the Civil Rights Movement I took with Prof. Joshua Guild (the books from that course are among the ones shredded/recycled by the USPS). In any case, one of the things I remember most prominently from the class was the Doll Test that helped convince the Supreme Court in its Brown v. Board decision in 1954. These are the dolls that were used in some of Kenneth and Mamie Clark's experiments.

And now I'm in town for half a second before heading to New Orleans for Yom Kippur and Williamsburg (VA) for Sukkot and Hot Springs (AR) for post-Simchat Torah hiking!

*Shoutout to Beth Kander for putting up a Stella post on the ISJL's Facebook page!

Moving to Jackson, MS

A few people have requested that I take up the Blog Formerly Known as the Prague Blague, since I am once again in a new place doing new things with with new people and will be traveling quite a bit. I can't promise that I'll be as diligent about this as I have been in the past, but I'll try, at least for a bit. And at the very least, just as a good way of saying bringing family and friends up to speed with what I'm doing now.

A few words of introduction: Exactly one month and one day ago I became a resident of Mississippi, or "The Hospitality State," as my new driver's license proudly advertises. I moved here (specifically, to Jackson) to begin a two-year fellowship with the education department of the Institute of Southern Jewish Life. Yes, the very same place where I interned in the summer of 2012. Essentially, the ISJL works with Jewish communities all over the south, from Texas to Virginia, to help document their histories, preserve their communities, and enhance their Jewish educational opportunities and religious experiences. As a Fellow, I'll be "attached" to 6-7 specific communities and make visits to each 3 times a year running programming, coordinating services, teaching classes, and really whatever it is I'm asked to do. Our big conference is this weekend, and shortly after I'll find out which communities I'll be assigned to for the upcoming year!

But I've gotten ahead of myself. I'll give a brief outline of what has happened in the past months since I became a Mississippi resident:

 As soon as I was done with finals, I met my dad in Jackson to set up logistics for my move. We got everything done (got a license, registered a car, got license plates, set up water for my apartment, got car insurance, and visited the state capitol!)

I flew back to campus, and a couple days later, drove up to Maine to go hiking with friends. We spent a couple days in the White Mountains (on the Maine side of the border) and a couple in Acadia National Park (in eastern Maine). Both of these photos were taken in Acadia, on one of the most beautiful hikes I've done. The colors and textures were so vibrant! It was a wonderful week, and exactly where I wanted to be and what I wanted to be doing with some great people. 

I arrived back on campus the night Reunions (capital R, plural) began. The absolute highlight for me was getting to (re)introduce to each other two men who hadn't seen each other in 75 years, both of whom I interviewed for my senior thesis on the development of Jewish student life at Princeton, between 1915-1972. On the left is Henry Morgenthau III '39 (97 years old) and on the right is Joseph Schein '37 (99 years old). As a student in the 1930s, Joseph Schein led the Jewish services for the (very small) population of Jewish students on campus. I was fortunate to have the honor of walking with Henry Morgenthau in the P-Rade alumni parade, at his 75th reunion.

And then I graduated!

And a few hours later I was on my way to the airport to start the next two years of my life! Except the airport gods had other plans that involved "sleeping" overnight in the Atlanta airport. It was Shavuot (a Jewish holiday celebrating the receiving of the Torah), so I downloaded a sound file of the book of Ruth (the book traditionally read on the holiday) and celebrated that way. I finally made it to Jackson on the first flight the next morning.

There have been some incredibly beautiful sky things happening since I've been down here:

My fourth night down here there was an incredible lightning storm. It was almost midnight and I was heading to bed when I saw huge flashes coming from outside and immediately grabbed my camera and headed out to watch. 

Two nights later I was at Shabbat dinner at a friend and coworker's house (I have coworkers!) and stepped outside to grab something from my car when I looked up and saw this. The contrast is not as stark here as it was in real life, but on the right (south) side, looking west, there was a light, fluffy-looking pink cloud taking up most of the sky and the light blue strip right next door made it look like cotton candy. But to the north was an incredibly ominous dark grey rain cloud. (I also saw a rainbow that day!)

Mom called me to tell me to go outside and look at the moon, so obviously I did just that. This is what I saw from the street in front of my house. 

And now a little bit about settling in:

This is my house!

And this is my porch swing! The first few
days I ate ever single meal on the swing :)

This is my room. The postcard collection has been
in the works for a long while--one is from a high
school friend, sent to me at camp in 2007!

And these are my Mississippi Frizzies!

There have been two poignant frustrations in the past couple weeks: 1) One of my boxes never arrived! According to the tracking website, it went from New Jersey to..... California, and then to Memphis. And then disappeared. An actual quote of something I said to one of the tens of USPS employees I've spoken to by phone in the past week and a half: "I know it's probably a federal offense for you to open my package, but I can tell you exactly what's in it in case you are allowed..." (I wrote up an incredibly comprehensive list and it's currently circulating in Jackson, Memphis, and (hopefully) the package recovery warehouse in Atlanta. So what's in the box? All my thesis books and all my books on Mississippi and the Civil Rights Movement. Hopefully I'll get it back...

  2) The internet. I didn't have it until two days ago. And then when they finally sent the modem, etc., it turns out that my house is too far from the cable connection point outside, so the signal doesn't work. Probably the funniest thing about the whole mess is every time you call they tell you "you know, you can set this all up online!" Um, the whole point is that I can't, because I don't have internet, which is why I'm trying to get internet. Anyway, after too much hold music and much back-and-forth, the technician finally came out; now it's working, though they still need to tighten up the distances so it's as fast as it's supposed to be. Let me tell you, trying to move and set up all the new things one has to set up when when moves--or trying to deal with a lost package--without internet is a real pain. 

And a bit of civil rights before signing off:

Last Sunday I drove up to Philadelphia, MS for the kickoff of the Freedom Summer 50th Anniversary Commemoration. The ceremony--a memorial/commemoration for James Chaney, Andy Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, three Freedom Summer volunteers murdered by the KKK in Philadelphia, MS that summer because of their work. Some of those in attendance included Bob Moses (third person from left in the chain), Dave Dennis (to Moses' right), Rita Schwerner-Bender (next to Dennis), former Governor William Winter (behind Schwerner-Bender), and Congressman John Lewis (second from right in the row).

This upcoming week is the Mississippi Freedom Summer 50th Anniversary Conference, and the ISJL is helping to coordinate some additional programs, events, and speakers. One of those is a gallery tour of the This Light of Ours photography exhibit currently up at the Mississippi Museum of Art; coincidentally, the curator (and one of the artists whose work is included) is Matt Herron, a Princeton alumnus ('53) featured on the June issue of the alumni magazine. I sent him an email to see if he might be in town for any of the conference, and it turns out he is--and invited me to attend the gallery tour he's giving on Thursday!

Cheap Gas, Deep Fried Oreo, and the Medgar Evers Homecoming Parade

From the past couple days:

This is the cheapest gas we've seen around here--and the cheapest I've seen in many years. 

Catfish (and other, more kosher-friendly delicacies) fry at a coworkers' house yesterday. I had hushpuppies for the first time, and the fried plantain (pictured below) were delicious--as were the deep-fried Oreos.

On Thursday, some of the interns took a field trip to the old headquarters of COFO, the Council of Federated Organizations under which the NAACP, SNCC, SCLC, and CORE were all organized for a few years during the Civil Rights movement. The headquarters are now a mini-museum. After the visit at COFO, we headed out to the former home of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, who was assassinated in his driveway in 1963. The house opened as a quasi-museum only in the last two decades when the movie Ghosts of Mississippi wanted to use the house for some on-sight filming and paid to have it fixed up and furnished. 

Yesterday was the Medgar Evers Homecoming Parade. Diana and I drove out to watch, and got there in time to see the Pocahontas Riding Club go by on their horses. The parade provided an interesting perspective on Jackson demographics; the city is about 79% black, and 18% white--the parade, and its viewers, excluding us, were 100% black. From what we've seen just driving through the city and in the area around work, Jackson is still very segregated. Though by no means unwelcome at the parade, it was very clear that our whiteness indicated that we weren't from Jackson. 

In the Fondren neighborhood, the first Thursday of the month is called Fondren After 5, and business stay open a bit later and there's lots of live music going on everywhere. One of the businesses that stays open late is Silly Billy's the great thrift store we found last week. This was their sidewalk display. 

Some great paint!

The biggest horseradish I ever saw. Bigger than the one from our back yard.

Pretty little birdy.

A fabulous garden.