{"id":1063,"date":"2024-06-26T01:35:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-26T01:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=1063"},"modified":"2024-05-05T14:13:29","modified_gmt":"2024-05-05T14:13:29","slug":"the-next-few-hours-second-daily-dose-of-the-mississippi-south-of-winona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=1063","title":{"rendered":"The Next Few Hours [second daily dose of The Mississippi south of Winona]"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/span><\/p>\n

The Next Few Hours<\/span>  [second daily dose of The Mississippi South of Winona]<\/i><\/p>\n

Back in the safety of our motel a couple hours later, after Rich took a short nap and I took a short drive around town, I tell Rich of having met this pretty young Black woman who asked me to be her boyfriend for the night \u2013 but I\u2019d said no, and instead bought her son a 3 piece Church\u2019s fried chicken dinner.  \u201cOh well, there\u2019s always tonight,\u201d I say to Rich.<\/p>\n

Most of what I told Rich was true \u2013 and certainly in keeping with the theme of our trip.<\/p>\n

My drive in town had led to the mostly-all-Black public high school as well as the all-White-looking private academy just outside of town, but I hadn\u2019t met anyone until I ended up at the grand opening of a new Church\u2019s Fried Chicken restaurant out at The Crossroads with a blues band playing in the parking lot.  \u201cHow great is that \u2013 you should have been with me,\u201d and I go on to tell Rich when it started to rain a little, I lifted the tailgate of our Odyssey Van, making a nice canopy and a place to enjoy the music.  That\u2019s when she looked in my direction and asked if there was room for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course,\u201d I said, with a little bit of a look.  But when it was clear she really needed a friend more than a lover, I told her I needed to get back to the place we were staying \u2013 \u201cYes, that one, the only place in town.\u201d<\/p>\n

We had been talking about her lousy life in general, and she\u2019d asked if I\u2019d ever had a black girlfriend before – would I be her boyfriend for the night?  But before departing I asked if I could buy her kid a meal.  The kid, who I hadn\u2019t noticed at first, had come to join us and was complaining about how hungry he was \u2013 not surprising in a country where 1 in 6 kids is hungry and, at the moment, being in the poorest county in the poorest state in the deep South.<\/p>\n

Well, because it fits so well with why we made this trip, I\u2019m very excited telling Rich about my adventure \u2013 emphasizing a couple times how young and pretty she was.   \u201cOh well, there\u2019s always tonight,\u201d I concluded.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, we were keeping the motel room door open (with its warmer-than-Minnesota in November type-breezes), when all of the sudden there\u2019s a commotion outside our door.  There were no other guests staying that night \u2013 and nary a passer-by until this moment.  A car has pulled-up and this woman\u2019s voice is all excited about something.  Then she bursts into our room, full-featured, saying \u201cGod, am I glad I found you!  My purse is in the back of your car.\u201d  And of course I immediately realized who she was, so I leap up and go open the tailgate; she grabs her purse; then jumps in the waiting car exclaiming once again (to her driver, not to me) how grateful she was that she\u2019d recovered her purse; and takes off.  Whew, no more boyfriend overtures, but . . . .<\/p>\n

. . . . but now I have to face Rich who could hardly contain himself laughing at my embellished story — she was neither young nor pretty . . . oh well . . . there\u2019s always tonight.<\/p>\n

\"Most<\/a>

The Most Beautiful Woman in the World<\/p><\/div>\n

Tomorrow:  That Night at Red\u2019s Juke Joint<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The Next Few Hours  [second daily dose of The Mississippi South of Winona] Back in the safety of our motel a couple hours later, after Rich took a short nap and I took a short drive around town, I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1063"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1898,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions\/1898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}