Mystery Mix #5 has come to a conclusion. As such, I can now reveal the solution and announce the winner. This year’s contest had a lackluster start—only one submission came in before Christmas. I was beginning to wonder if anyone was playing, but a spate of entries came in during the week after, and we wound up with an exciting finish and our first repeat winner. Given that no correct answers were received before the deadline of Dec. 29, I was allowed, as per my rules, to issue a hint (another first) to those who had previously submitted guesses. That hint, and a few minutes more of thought, was all that my friend, Dan Browning, needed to discern the mystery commonality. Congratulations, Dan! This year’s trophy mug will look mighty impressive sitting in your office next to last year’s.

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Here it is, just in time for Christmas, my annual installment of the mystery mix. Long-time readers know the drill, but for others here’s a quick rundown. What follows is a playlist of 10 songs that appear to be randomly thrown together, however, each conforms to a specific commonality. After listening to the music and studying the lyrics, the titles, and artists, you are invited to guess the playlist’s mystery theme, then submit your answer. Even if you don’t solve it or choose not to enter the contest, I hope you will enjoy the eclectic mix of songs. Many of these songs were hits back in the day, but there may be a few you haven’t heard before.

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In my last post, I wrote about what my friend, Paul Laughlin, calls the most surprising coincidence that he’s ever personally experienced. It was something that he and I experienced together, and I tend to agree, it was quite amazing when you come to think about it. It concerned a question Paul had regarding a brief passage in John Grisham’s third novel, The Pelican Brief, and how I was able to quickly supply the answer to that question by consulting my copy of Grisham’s pre-publication manuscript of the book. What Paul found so surprising was that he just happened to mention this obscure, over-30-year-old bit of trivia to me, the one person in the world who had in his possession the definitive resource to resolve the question and that I was then able to do so in a matter of minutes. Now, the question that many of you have been asking, just how did I come to possess that manuscript? The story here may not be based on a surprising coincidence; however, it has some pretty surprising elements to it. I think it’s even more amazing.

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My friend, Paul Laughlin, asked if I was familiar with the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash that our mutual friend and fellow church member, Clark Hicks, had recently written about in the local newspaper. That crash, which killed several members of the Lynyrd Skynyrd rock band, happened here in South Mississippi, about 85 miles west of where Paul and I were sitting in the fellowship hall of University Baptist Church in Hattiesburg. I told Paul that while I didn’t know many of the details of the crash, I had actually known one the band’s backup singers, and, coincidentally, she was the only band member who was not on that fateful flight. That vocalist was the sister of one of the first friends Gena and I made after we moved to Senatobia in 1976. Paul commented that this was, indeed, an interesting coincidence, but it still didn’t top the strangeness of the John Grisham/Pelican Brief/bagel-beignet coincidence that he and I together experienced a few years earlier. Paul contends that was the oddest coincidence he’s ever personally experienced.

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I’m sure this image will resonate with several readers of My Back Pages, particularly those who are of my generation and with roots in Stone County, Mississippi. It depicts the two-topped pine tree that once stood as a well-known landmark east of Big Level, along Highway 26 between Black Creek and Benndale. As a kid, the sight of this tree always heightened my level of excitement. It meant only one thing: my family and I were on a car trip and Big Level was now several miles behind us. Only adventure lay ahead.

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As most readers of My Back Pages know, I was born in the South Mississippi community of Big Level in the early 1950s. I spent my first nineteen years there in Stone County before marrying and moving off to finish college and make my home and career upstate. Frequent readers will also know that my Lott, Bond, and Breland great-great-grandparents were among the earliest white settlers who migrated to Big Level in the 1820s and ’30s, but this article is not about those pioneers. Rather, it’s about a relative late-comer who established in 1917 one of Big Level’s most impressive institutions: the King Bee Ranch.

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My wife, Gena, and I had lunch a couple of days ago with our friends, Dick and Mo. I’m not sure now how it came up, but during our conversation 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. To which I responded, “Well, back when I was in school, we had high school boys driving our buses." Mo was aghast at the thought. I went on to mention, "I even had a '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, they 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.”

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It’s that time of year again—time for the annual installment of my mystery mix. 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 old 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, but 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 my wife, Gena, and I took it as a challenge to decipher it. 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, so much so that I’ve neglected my blog. As my long-time friend Martha, put it in a recent Facebook post, “Where you at??? You are not writing enough!” Well, I have to confess that I’ve been digging through the old Mississippi Gulf Coast newspapers on a quest to find the earliest mention of the term “Big Level” in print. And now, at long last, I think I’ve finally found it.

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Diggings through the old newspapers of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I came across a brief item in the Biloxi-Gulfport Daily Herald. It stated: “John L. Bond, the notorious chicken and egg peddler, has gone to Biloxi. . . If Biloxi folks fail to have eggnog and turkey for Christmas it will not be John's fault.” This captured my attention for two reasons. For one, John Lampkin Bond (1862-1938) was the man who homesteaded the land in upper Big Level upon which I was raised. The other reason is that my granddaddy was also had an egg farm, and he, too, had a regular egg route to Biloxi, though he traveled it in a pickup truck, rather than a 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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