From the Beltway to the Deep South, diving into Mississippi

For his first column at Magnolia Tribune, nationally acknowledged well being care skilled Bob Graboyes dives deep into his Mississippi expertise.

For my first Magnolia Tribune column, right here’s why I’m delighted to jot down for individuals whose state I’ve visited exactly thrice. As an economist, my columns will focus closely on healthcare and coverage. However historical past, music, science, and literature can even determine in my writings.

My story begins in 1954 in Petersburg, Virginia, the place the Civil Struggle floor to its finish. As youngsters, we performed on eroding entrenchments that weren’t but a century outdated. Brown v. Board of Schooling adopted me by 4 months, and, borrowing phrases from William Faulkner, “my very own little postage stamp of native soil” was, like Mississippi, roiled by the wrestle for civil rights.

Petersburg’s wounds haven’t absolutely healed, recalling one other quote from the Bard of Oxford: “The previous isn’t lifeless. It’s not even previous.”As an English main on the College of Virginia, I learn practically the whole lot Mr. Faulkner wrote.

Fifteen years earlier, Faulkner had spent two years on the College, and his presence was nonetheless palpable. Professor Douglas Day had simply restored Faulkner’s long-lost novel, Flags within the Mud and, to help me in my analysis, he organized for me to spend an entire morning alone in a room, thumbing page-by-page by means of the unique handwritten manuscript of The Sound and the Fury. The pages in my fingers felt as fragile and sacred because the Useless Sea Scrolls.

My curiosity in Mississippi didn’t start and finish with Faulkner—or Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, Shelby Foote, or Tennessee Williams. Love of historical past led me to Mississippi’s Spanish connections, Aaron Burr’s schemes, Vicksburg, the Free State of Jones, and the Nice Flood of 1927.

In 1810, Fulwar Skipwith, who grew up outdoors of my hometown, turned governor (president) of the short-lived Republic of West Florida (now jap Louisiana), which hoped to overcome Southern Mississippi.

In August 1969, we Virginians watched Hurricane Camille ravage your coast, by no means suspecting that the storm would quickly disguise itself, sneak throughout the Appalachians, and devastate our personal state.

Even my timber have had Mississippi connections. Probably the most distinguished tree in my dad and mom’ entrance yard was a beautiful tupelo. Every autumn, although, my mom cursed the tree, as its purple berries coated the soles of our sneakers and menaced her golden carpeting. As we speak, my very own entrance yard is dominated by a powerful magnolia that I curse every summer time because it showers my yard with a thick, unceasing rain of hand grenades and leathery leaves.

I’m a musician, awestruck by Mississippi’s contributions—Robert Johnson, Sam Cooke, B.B. King, Charley Satisfaction, Bobbie Gentrie, Jimmie Rodgers, Elvis Presley, numerous others. My beloved Virginia by no means produced something comparable, save for a number of top-tier bluegrass and nation artists from our Appalachian counties. A while, I’ll share my principle as to why your state so outdistanced mine in music and literature.

As for these three visits …

In September 2010, after a speech in Memphis, I drove south, touring the architectural gems of Holly Springs, the place Robert Altman had filmed Cookie’s Fortune. I spent hours on the Marshall County Historic Museum—probably the most fantastic native museum I’ve ever visited. I knocked on the door of the enduring Graceland Too; sadly, it was closed and is now gone without end.

Farther south, I made my decades-overdue pilgrimage to Faulkner’s Rowan Oak, visited Ole Miss, and savored my first Mississippi tamales.

In April 2012, after talking in New Orleans, I took my son for a highway journey alongside the Gulf to Alabama. We have been struck by the fantastic thing about Mississippi’s shoreline. Regrettably, we couldn’t get into the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Artwork, the place I had hoped to see the ceramics of the Mad Potter of Biloxi. (A pal owned not less than one, and I used to be dazzled by Ohr’s work.)

In September 2019, after publishing articles on Mississippi’s medical licensure and telemedicine, I spoke in Jackson, toured your Capitol, met with healthcare suppliers, and had positive barbecue. An emergency room nurse practitioner informed me a narrative that has haunted me since: A person got here in in the future from a distant county. He had a treatable situation that was painful, harmful, and grotesque. However over 15-20 years, he had by no means had it examined.

“Why,” the nurse requested, “did you lastly are available immediately?” He answered, “As a result of immediately was the primary time I used to be ever in a position to get a experience into city.” In Washington, DC, the place I’ve lengthy labored, policymakers dream up costly, advanced fixes for healthcare—hardly ever pondering of issues so simple as getting a affected person a experience.

Lastly, writing for the Magnolia Tribune is one thing of a homecoming for me. Within the late Nineteen Seventies,between Faulkner and economics, I used to be a small-town newspaper reporter, taking pleasure in writing about strangers with stunning tales. It pleases me to revisit that work in a state I’ve watched from afar.

Thanks for welcoming me.