Oxford Mississippi

Well, I have been away for a few days. I went over to Mississippi to help my brother move into a new house. He bought a nice one. After the heavy lifting was done we wandered about doing a little sight seeing. We saw the Tupelo Buffalo Park, which was interesting as far as the buffalo go. They also have a small tourist zoo type thing that would send my sister the biologist and former zoo worked into apoplectic fits. Rather old fashioned. At least the cages were fairly large and clean. The animals looked like they were well cared for. I did enjoy the story told by the guide of why the monkey in the cage next to the cougar only had 1 arm. (Actually, she had he only had three arms which seemed pretty exotic to me till I realized she just meant three limbs.) It seems when they first put the cougar cage in next to the monkey’s cage the monkey could reach through the chain link and touch the cougar. It seems the cougar got tired of this and had a monkey arm snack. Now the boundary is plexiglassed up.
Another sight (which will date me fairly well) was the Tallahatchie Bridge.

Yes the same one that Billy Joe McAlister jumped off in that strange old song by Bobbie Gentry. (If this doesn’t ring any bells for you feel free to Google the bridge or the name and you will soon be in the know.)
Oxford Mississippi where my brother lives is an interesting old town. It is a combination of old south and new economy that seem to be rather uneasily mixing. It is a major retirement center and has one of the highest concentrations of lawyers in the country. It is 0f course also a college town. They have condos downtown that cost between 500K and a Million each and are occupied five or six weekends a year during home football games. I wonder if they need house sitters during the rest of they year????

It is now the fourth of July, three years ago today I was running a 10k road race around the perimeter of Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan. On the one hand it doesn't seem at all like three years. On the other hand it seems like it was another lifetime.

The fencing National Championships are going on this week in Atlanta so I am off to do some coaching and to fence in one event. (In which I expect to get crushed like a bug)
I’ll be back next week.
Expect a recipe, it has been too long since I have done any blog cooking…….