You can't go home again

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Yakov Smirnoff said that. Really, I'm pretty sure it was him. Our first step was getting the rental car from the airport. Once we made it clear it was our intention that we travel across the country IN A COMPACT, the attendant gave us a pity upgrade at no charge. Hello, Chevy Cobalt LT! And then we were off. We stopped to take pictures at the Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi welcome centers. Georgia had the best one, by far. The folks in Mississippi were super aggressive about getting us to sign the register, which leads me to believe their funding must be dependent on it.

Once we made it to Oxford, the first thing we did was go by the elementary, middle, high school complex for the county of Lafayette (pronounced la-fett in Mississippi). Lots had changed, of course, but the kudzu remained, like those penguins in Happy Feet when the sun disappears. Then we drove to the Oxford square in search of an authentic Oxford dining experience. We settled on the Ajax Diner, a very 'Vista like' restaurant and bar with 300 or so sandwich toothpicks stuck in the ceiling tile over the entire dining area. Apparently, patrons order sandwiches and get these toothpicks with colorful tops stuck in them. So they take the toothpicks, load them in a regulation drinking straw, and fire them into the ceiling. It was charming. We ordered some entrees and as an afterthought we ordered some cheese fries.

And now comes the part of the blog where I pull out the soapbox and stand confidently upon it. Today's mainstream eating establishments have ruined the legacy of the cheese fries. Imagine, if you will, a golden potato fry. It's hot, it looks a little wet from the grease it was fried in, and it BEGS to be dipped in something. Now, envision some shredded cheese. Notice this cheese is a solid at room temperature. If you were at home and wanted to make a cheese dip for your delicious french fries, would you think it a good idea to fill a cup with shredded cheese, toss it in the microwave and heat it until the cheese is melted? Of course you wouldn't, and do you know why? If you said it was because once the cheese cooled it would retake its solid shape, thus making it an impossible dipping substance, you would be correct. Why does this simple physical property of cheese escape the restaurant business? One must use a cheese that is not a solid at room temperature for cheese fries!

So the cheese fries were awful. But the rest of dinner was pretty good. We ordered the fried eggplant as a side and discovered this uncomfortable truth - just because something is fried doesn't mean it's delicious. After dinner, we went and checked out the house I grew up in. On the way, we found the very first baptist church I ever attended. It is standing and still in use, and looks exactly the same...only smaller. Time, apparently, has a way of shrinking things. Everything around the area where my childhood home stood has been developed. The Country mouse is now a City mouse by proxy. But, unbelievably enough, our old driveway is still there and it leads to the old house, which has all but been swallowed by the ONLY undeveloped land left in the area. It makes one wonder what kind of stuff must be going on behind the scenes here in Oxford to leave this 2 acres of land undeveloped for all these years. I did it, I found the old house, and after looking upon its ruin, I came to one conclusion - You can't go home again. Bono said that. Really, I'm pretty sure it was him.