My wife, Gena, and I had lunch a couple of days ago with our friends, Dick and Mo. When we get together, our lunch conversations always cover a wide range of topics, and this day was no different. I’m not sure now how it came up, but someone mentioned an incident in the news involving a school bus. Mo commented that it must be awfully hard for school districts these days to get competent drivers. She said that she couldn’t imagine who would want to take on such a responsibility. At which I responded, “Well, back when I was in school, we had high school boys driving our buses." Mo was aghast at the thought and had never heard of such. However, she had grown up in town—over in Dothan, Alabama—and had never had the privilege of riding a rural school bus. I then recounted a few of the memories I had of riding the bus to Home School in Big Level back in the late ’50s and early ’60s. That was when the idea for this article was hatched. Thank you, Mo. I didn’t mention it at lunch that day, but one of my most vivid memories is of our “singing” bus driver.

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Mystery Mix #4 is now in the book. As such, I can now reveal the solution and announce the winner. But before I do, I have to report that I’m a little disappointed that I only received a handful of submissions and only one correct response. While several people told me they liked the playlist and were thinking about the possible commonalities, most of those comments where from readers who chose not to submit a guess. Oh, well, c'est la vie. But I thank all of you, regardless. Now for the solution. With apologies to NPR, I’ve called this year’s mystery mix “Small Things Considered,” as the playlist is comprised of songs whose titles and artists’ names contain a synonym for the word “small.”

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It’s that time of year again—time for the annual installment of my mystery mix. Last year, in #3, I received more entries than in both of the previous years combined, with several solving the puzzle. I was greatly pleased at that. And now, just in the last two weeks, I’ve been asked by more than one loyal reader if I’ll be doing another one this year. Well, here is my answer. What follows is a playlist of 11 rather random-appearing songs, each of which conforms to a specific commonality. You are invited to listen to the music, study the lyrics, the titles and artists and then submit your answer for the playlist’s mystery theme. Even if you don’t solve it, I hope you enjoy the eclectic mix of songs; there may be a few you haven’t heard before.

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Recently, my brother, John, reposted on his Facebook page an item from a group devoted to old Mississippi photos. It consisted of a Hattiesburg postcard from 1907 that pictured a Lindsey logging wagon pulled by four teams of oxen and loaded with a single log of virgin pine. I was awed by the size of that lone piece of timber—the tree from which it was cut would have been a magnificent sight. Imagine the vast forests of comparably-sized timber that was to be found scarcely a hundred years ago here in the pine belt of Southeastern Mississippi. After marveling for a moment at this log, what actually piqued my interest was the handwritten message below the photograph. It was hard to read at first, given the old-style cursive writing and the poor spelling, but as my wife, Gena, and I sat on the patio with our morning coffee, we took it as a challenge to decipher this caption. After debating this and that word for a few minutes, we were both aghast when we finally realized its full meaning.

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While most of my blog pieces have been about my growing up in Big Level in the 1950s and ’60s, it is the community’s earlier history that has occupied most of my attention of late. In fact, I’ve recently spent so much of my spare time in my quest to learn as much as I can about Big Level’s early years that I’ve neglected my blog. So few have been my postings in these past several months that some of you have been asking what’s wrong. As Martha, a long-time friend and loyal reader, put it in a recent Facebook post, “Where you at??? You are not writing enough!” I took that to mean that she was not only concerned about the dearth of my postings, but she was wondering where my head has been lately. Both takes are fair enough. Well, Martha and other dear readers, I have to confess that for well over a year now my head has been buried in the newspaperarchive.com website, as I’ve been digging through the old newspapers that were published on the Mississippi Gulf Coast back 120, 130, and 140 years ago, on a quest to find the earliest mention of the term “Big Level” in print. And now, I think I’ve finally found it.

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In my continuing search through the old newspapers of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, my attention was heightened considerably when I came across a brief item in the December 22, 1898, issue of the Biloxi-Gulfport Daily Herald. This 125-year-old newspaper account stated: “John L. Bond, the notorious chicken and egg peddler, has gone to Biloxi with a load of produce. If Biloxi folks fail to have eggnog and turkey for Christmas it will not be John's fault.” This statement captured my attention for two reasons. For one, John Lampkin Bond (1862-1938) was the man who homesteaded the 160 acres in upper Big Level from which was taken the 40-acre parcel my parents purchased in 1953, the farm where I was raised. The other reason I was so enthralled by this item—the main reason, really—is that my Granddaddy Lott was also a noted egg man. He, too, owned and operated a thriving egg farm, and he also had a regular egg route to Biloxi and Gulfport, though he traveled it in a pickup truck, rather than a horse- or mule-drawn wagon.

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In my last post, I presented, for the third year running, a mystery mix, a selection of songs in which my puzzle-minded readers could attempt to guess the hidden commonality. And with the deadline for entries having expired I can now reveal the solution and announce the winner. But before I do, I want to report that I received more entries this year than in both of the previous years combined, plus there were several correct submissions among them. This pleases me greatly. And from the comments I received, I could tell that many of you had fun with it even if you didn’t solve it. That pleases me even more.

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It’s that time of year again! Just in time for Christmas, it’s the third installment of my annual mystery mix. What follows is a playlist of ten songs—all of which are some of my favorites from the 1960s and early ’70s, but there’s no mystery in that, that just happens to be my favorite musical era. Each of these songs conforms to a very specific commonality. So, listen to the music, study the list, and try to decode the mystery theme. Even if you don’t solve it, I hope you enjoy the eclectic mix of songs and artists; there might be a few you haven’t heard in years.

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Have you ever heard of Jesse James and the James Gang? Of course, you have. They are household names by virtue of countless dime novels, western movies and TV shows. But what about James Copeland and the Copeland Gang? I suspect that many of you have not heard of this notorious gang of Mississippi outlaws that originated in Jackson County in the 1820s, near where Stone County’s southeastern border now lies, and who for three decades terrorized the frontier families between Mobile and New Orleans and parts farther afield with their thieving and murderous ways.

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It was June—heck, it could’ve been the third of June. Whether it was or not, it was just another sleepy, dusty Big Level day. . . until . . . I don’t know who saw it first, probably Daddy. To the southeast, in the direction of Uncle Bruner’s and Granddaddy’s places, there was dark smoke billowing above the trees. It had come up fast and was getting larger.

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Back in the late 1950s, when I was 5 or 6 years old, Mama walked with my two brothers and me down to the spring in the hollow behind our house. We were going to fetch some water for the house as a summer storm a couple of days earlier had knocked the power out and consequently our pump wasn’t running. Mama also had a bar of soap and a rag so that we all could wash up. That was the first time I recall having to bathe down there, but wasn’t the only time. We again depended on the clear, cold water from that spring during the two weeks we were without electricity in the aftermath of Hurricane Camille in ’69. As we were taking our turns with the wash rag, Mama began to sing the strangest and most delightful tune my young ears had ever heard.

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The three students I was assigned to work with were all perplexed when I walked up. They were not puzzled about me, they were in the middle of decorating one of the school’s display booths in the Ladies Home Demonstration Building for the upcoming 1967 Stone County fair and had encountered a problem. They were covering the last side panel of the booth with wide, white butcher block paper and had just come to the end of their allotted roll. It appeared they were going to be about three feet shy of what was needed to finish the job. As quickly as I saw the problem the solution to their predicament popped into my head.

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In my last post, for the second year in a row, I presented a selection of songs in which my puzzle-minded readers could attempt to guess the hidden commonality. This game is patterned after what has become a longstanding Lott family tradition. Now, having done it two years running, this blog version could potentially become a similar annual tradition. And with the deadline for entries having expired, I can reveal the solution and announce this year’s winner.

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It’s back! By popular demand! Well, “demand” might be overstating it a bit, though I have heard from a couple of loyal readers asking if I was going to present another mystery mix puzzle this year. So here it is, just in time for Christmas, my puzzle gift to you, dear readers. I know this is not everyone’s cup of tea, but if you’re so inclined, I’d love for you to give it a go. Have fun with it. Even if you don’t solve it, I hope you’ll enjoy the eclectic mix of songs and artists.

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I don’t have to tell you, life is not always tidy. Stuff happens. It’s a simple existential observation, similar to c'est la vie: life is full of unpredictable events. Incidents and accidents sneak up on the best of us, particularly when we least expect it. The worst of these events can leave permanent scars or long-lasting trauma. But if you’re lucky, they won’t be that serious and the grief and anguish will be short-lived, leaving you with interesting stories to tell. Like the time when I was 11 and Daddy, Keith, and I and JoJo, Daddy’s best bird dog, were in the cab of our pickup riding down an old road—an overgrown path, really—a couple of miles from our home in Big Level.

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My vinyl collection has some iconic rock albums (Rubber Soul, Pet Sounds, Highway 61 Revisited), some of which I’ve acquired in recent years. However, my most cherished albums are those that I received in my initial shipment from Columbia House Record Club in the spring of 1970. If you were a music fan in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, then chances are you were a member of Columbia House or one of its rival music clubs at some point. You know, 10 albums for $1. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. After I had some of my own spending money, from summer jobs and after-school work, Mama relented to my persistent requests and allowed me to join. I remember going to the mailbox and finding this good-sized package containing CSNY’s Déjà Vu, James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James, Three Dog Night’s It Ain’t Easy, Santana’s Abraxas, CCR’s Green River and their just released Cosmo’s Factory, Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, and both of Chicago’s first two albums—double albums, at that—Chicago Transit Authority and Chicago II. In large part, those albums defined me at that stage of my life. I spent untold hours sitting or lying on the floor, in front of a cheap portable record player with detachable plastic speakers, taking in the music, studying the album covers, perusing the cover art and artist photos, reading the lyrics and liner notes. I listened to the music intently; I listened to the lyric structure and the intricate rhyming schemes, and marveled at the musicianship, compositions and arrangements.

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One summer night in 1970, I was tooling into town on my new motorcycle, thinking I might head over to the Frosty Mug to see who was hanging out there. Just past the 3-way stop where Clubhouse Drive intersects with Pine Street, I noticed the lights of a car on my tail. Since I wasn't going very fast, I figured that whoever it was needed to get around me. My solution was to speed up and make a quick turn onto a side street. That was a mistake, one of several I made in short order.

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In the summer of ’69, in July, right after I’d gotten back from a week’s trip to a church youth camp in Conway, Arkansas, Mama surprised us by announcing that she was going to Europe. The professor of one of her English classes at USM had invited her to join the two-week educational tour of Europe that he was leading in mid-August. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Well, dang, Mom! What are the rest of us going to do? She had it all worked out. John and Karen and Linda would stay with Judy and Glen; Keith and I would stay at home and hold down the fort. I liked the sound of that. . . in theory. But. . ? Her answers to my concerns were that Keith and I were old enough to fend for ourselves. That was true enough—he’d just turned 18 and I’d be 16 in a few weeks. We both had summer jobs and driver’s licenses. We both knew our way around the kitchen and how to operate the dishwasher and washer and dryer. You’ll be fine, she said. Just don’t burn the house down, she said. What followed were several days during which Keith and I enjoyed a sense of independence and freedom that we’d never experienced before. In truth, we were getting along quite well. He did his thing and I did mine. We saw each other in passing, if at all. So, yeah, we were doing okay—that is until Camille strengthened and drew a bead on the Mississippi coast. Not Mama, not anybody planned on a Cat 5 hurricane barreling down on Big Level.

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I was out for my afternoon walk through the neighborhood a few days ago. As I passed by the small lake at the halfway point of my usual route, I counted the geese (8 that day) and turned to come down Beverly Lane, a street with several families with children. Just past the new house under construction, I spotted a gaggle of young boys with a baseball and gloves. Without breaking stride, I waved and walked on. After I’d gotten 20 yards or so past them, I heard one of the boys say to another, “You go get it.” to which came the reply, “No, you get it. You threw it.” And then at that moment I saw it. The baseball came rolling down the street right between my legs. Without looking back, I hollered, “I’ll get it!” Whereupon I walked on to where the ball came to rest in the gutter another 20 yards farther. I picked it up, turned and threw a fine, low arcing pitch that landed with a pop in the middle of the glove of the youngster who had stepped out in front of the others. “Thanks,” he said. I grinned then turned and continued my walk. I had gone just a few more paces when, another boy from the pack shouted, “Nice throw, Lefty!” Well, that just made my day!

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A little over a year ago I started this blogging website with no clear expectations for what it would become. In my welcome statement on the homepage, I stated my modest reasons for wanting to do this at this stage of my life. I admitted that whether I found an audience didn’t matter, that I was really doing it for myself. While true enough, that statement wasn’t entirely true. Deep down, I knew that the only real meaning for me to come from this endeavor would be if I could somehow reach others, even a handful of readers, who could relate to what I was trying to say by the sharing some of my most precious memories, both the sweet and the bittersweet. Well, I’m here to tell you, that has happened in a way that has been most gratifying and a continual amazement to me. In my very first blog piece, titled “The Burden of Memory,” I said that recent events had changed me in ways I didn’t see coming. And now I have come to find that a new and unexpected set of recent events has again changed me in ways I didn’t see coming.

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