The Road Trip starts here! (Click on the photos to see them full-sized)
Right when we get on 49 South outside of Jackson you’ll meet mama, a whole lotta different Mamas, Mothers and Sisters named Anna and Ruth and Rose and Mary and Ester… all giving advice just like you’d get at home.
For our beans and peas and peanuts it’s Donna’s #6 produce stand - boilt green peanuts for the drive, butterbeans to have with Pompano filet once we get to Perdido.
49 Highway Road Trip
David Alan Coe sez the perfect country/western song has to include mama, trains, trucks, prison, and getting’ drunk. Remember?
”And I’ll hang around as long as you will let me and I never minded standin’ in the rain.
But you don’t have to call me darlin’, darlin’,
you never even called me by my name… “
As I set out down Mississippi 49 last week toward Perdido Key and a much-needed Florida vacation I had in mind to take you with me, gentle readers, on the perfect Mississippi road trip.I thought about David’s list as I pulled off I-20 and onto 49 South, and gradually a list of must-haves surfaced.
The perfect 49 Highway road trip would have to include mama alright, and boilt peanuts, and fireworks, Jesus, and drinkin’, and real old trucks, and some butterbeans. That’s the easy stuff. But I knew we’d need redneck politicians and that before that part was done I knew we’d need some catfish filets too and when we got to Perdido we’d need a dozen oysters fresh-shucked by a pretty lil’ gal with one of ‘em ere belly-button studs, just to cool things off.
I about got it all for us and made pictures of all of it, where I could get away with that. C’mon with me – click here for as much downhome roadside as I could fit in the trunk.
”Well it was all that I could do to keep from cryin’. Sometimes it seemed so useless to remain. But you don’t have to call me darlin’, darlin’, You never even call me by my name….”
Don’t call ‘em "limas"! These are pale yellow and taste way better. We can’t forget ’cause while they’re big on fish down on Perdido, they don’t know jack about beans…
Fireworks are big here at Christmas and New Year’s of course but we shoot-‘em-up on July 4th, too.I want some for the beach in Floreeda – make pretty sparkles over the Gulf when you get right at night in the sand… Hell, load up the trunk with ‘em!
I had to climb down a ditchbank to get close to this poster - got bitten by no-see-ums and itched for the next 200 miles. At least I think that's what made me itchy.
You see these all over the South and I read once in Reader’s Digest some billionaire got right with God and paid to have them put up every-dad-gum-where. Sometimes they scare folks not from here but I believe they’re meant right.
When it gets about time for dinner (lunch you might call it, depending on where you live)...
...we can do some window shopping for trucks while we wait on the fish.
Right about when we've had enough of this Mississippi...
...we can starting dreaming about the Florida line where stands, friends, the world’s single best remaining old-school 'tonk, the world-famous Flora-Bama Lounge...
...where the band is still asked to unload at the dumpsters.
And after some music and beer with the bikers it’s time for the only fitting end to this kinda drive – a dozen oysters hand-handled by one of the prettiest belly-button gals you ever saw.
