Restore Or Replace?

January 17, 2013

Things move pretty fast here in rural north central Mississippi. Just 446 days after the Courthouse burned, the citizens of my little county are voting-- in a non-binding referendum-- on whether to restore or to replace the crappy old Courthouse.

We've been debating this-- and by "we" I mean the county supervisors and other officials, the mayor of the little village which is the county seat (who just happens to be an architect specializing in old building restoration), Mr. & Mrs. County citizen, and folks who haven't lived here in a coon's age but just happen to have been born here-- for over a year. These discussions (along with my Books Bygone column) have kept the weekly county newspaper in business! Some fellow even wrote poems about the Courthouse that appeared in the newspaper. And a coalition of citizens had machine-made signs made up supporting restoration!

We also are being sued by the company that insured the courthouse. And almost lost our opportunity at a half-million dollar grant for restoration. 

Diddle daddle.

The Supes (as we call our supervisors) finally decided to put the question to the People. 

Today Mr. Big Food and I voted. O'course, we couldn't vote where we usually do because our polling place burned down. I was #56 to vote in our precinct. 

This is such a BIG DEAL the mainstream media out of Tupelo even sent a reporter to cover the event!

I might be on television!!!

Trust

Daughter C and Mr. Bow Tie went to the store this morning. (Yes. The cigarette store was open on Easter.) When they returned, Miss M said to Daughter C, "Where's my dollar?" And Daughter C handed Miss M one United States dollar.

Daughter C asked, "How did you know I had your dollar?"

"Because I knew the girl at the store would give you my dollar."

To which Daughter C replied, "That's why I love this county."

As it turns out, a couple of days ago the lady ahead of Miss M was short $1, so Miss M gave her $1 and the girl at the store told Miss M the lady was good for it and to just collect it next time she-- Miss M-- was in the store. And because Miss M and Daughter C are sisters, the girl at the store gave Miss M's $1 to Daughter C. 

They don't do this sort of thing in Starkvegas. And that's why we love our little county.

The 0.10% Sure are Smart!

This should really surprise regular readers. We are having company!

One of the things I like to do when company's coming is to slightly modify the crappy old book selection in the guest room's colorful library. (Many books were chosen because of the color of the cover or spine-- who can resist a book with orange on the cover or spine?) For this particular guest, I've chosen the crappy old book, A Study of Rural Society Third Edition by J.H. Kolb (College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin) and Edmund de S. Brunner (Teachers College, Columbia University), edited by William F. Ogburn (The University of Chicago) published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1946.

I was perusing Chapter 5, Psychological Characteristics, which begins:

Because of the popular belief, among city people at least, that rural people are in some way inferior to their city cousins, it might not be impertinent to inquire at this point into the matter of rural and urban intelligence and characteristics, and try to analyze first, the scientific data now existing with regard to the question, and secondly, certain matters of common observation.

Let me be the first to tell you that these professors/authors are going to caution you smarty-pants city mice to not rush to any rash conclusions. After all, these country bumpkin rural folks might confuse the theatre (which they pronounce "THEE-A-ter) with a picture show (!), but they can tell you how many pecks are in a bushel!

I've looked through this crappy old book on more than one occasion and I can tell you that, caution aside, the tone does not please me. I had not noticed this table, under the chapter sub-head, Differences in Schooling, before.

Where is that editor from The University of Chicago when you need him?

Let's do some country mouse math!

253 children in one-room schools

0.10% = 0.10/100 = 0.0010

0.0010 X 253 = 1/4 of a student. 

Not 1/4 of the students. A student. (Wouldn't you like to read that methods section?)

Math is hard no matter where you go to school. And fractions are even harder!

STAY IN SKOOL! DONT" BE A DROPOUT! AND FER GAWDS SAKE'S LERN YOU SOME MATH or at least a bit or arithmetic. 

Seriously. Books-- new & old-- are full of typographical errors. But for gawd sakes'! This was the third edition. Wouldn't you have thought someone-- any one-- would have caught this?

~~
For the record (from the infallible source, Wikipedia):

A bushel is an imperial and U.S. customary unit of dry volume, equivalent in each of these systems to 4 pecks or 8 gallons. It is used for volumes of dry commodities (not liquids), most often in agriculture. It is abbreviated as bsh. or bu. In modern usage, the dry volume is usually only nominal, with bushels referring to standard weights instead.

Pecks & Pints below. 

UPDATED. The snow is gone

and so is the Courthouse.

It's a strange sad day here. Heavy snow. No school. Now about 47 degrees. Kids on bikes milling around just beyond the tape. Grownups coming to look and then looking very sad. Rumors... the Grand Jury had just convened for its twice yearly session.

UPDATE: From the local newspaper:

the fire started when a power strip in a first-floor office on the southwest corner shorted out.

UPDATED: A total loss | WHAT THE F67#??

UPDATE from WLOV

Officials had the fire out by 7 a.m., but say the building is a total loss.

The county courthouse was built in 1915.

snip

Supervisors are holding an emergency meeting to discuss how to proceed with county business.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

~~
Mr. Big Food and Miss M left for school minutes ago. Miss M just called and said the Court House is burning down.

And it's snowing. 

The Court House is on fire????? What has happened to all of the platt maps? 

And it's snowing.

What a way to start the day.

The Court House... .

Snow... .

What do you make of this?

We think we have an idea. (How's that for certainty?)

But we're not sure.

The Devil at work / 8%

In Mississippi news

Governor Bryant has signed into law SB 2878 "which raises the alcohol by-weight limit in beer from 5 percent to 8 percent."

[Cartoon by Marshall Ramsey, Mississippi's cartoonist and host of The Marshall Ramsey Show on Supertalk Mississippi Radio.]

The bill will allow more craft beer to be sold in Mississippi. That's the good news. The bad news is that it won't matter for residents of 36 (of 82 total) counties in the state. Those 36 are dry. And when I say dry, I mean desert dry-- 

The country mice visit the city

We have arrived in The Big Sovereign State of Texas.

I was on the patio enjoying coffee and the sounds of a gentle rain when I heard something I'd not heard in a coon's age: sirens.

This, and a lively discussion with suek in the comments on a previous post, reminded me of a little story. I briefly retell the story-- with commentary-- here.

Citation information at the original post