Several shout outs today. The first is to my accountant of three decades, Tony Huffman who ran three races in four days to become a national champion in the USA Track and Field Masters.
In fact, he’s a two-time masters champion now, winning two gold medals in Huntsville, Ala. One gold medal was for the 5,000 meter (3.1) miles. The other gold medal was for the 10,000 meter (6.2 miles.) Tony also placed 7th in the 1,500 meter race, which isn’t even his sweet spot.
Another Northsider Lee Dukes , age 71, won a gold medal in the steeplechase division, which involves running over fixed barriers. As Dukes said, “If you hit them, they don’t fall over. You fall over.”
Tony was a star runner in college, then took a 28-year break for children. He started back running about three years ago, soon after he turned 60 years old.
Having just turned 67, it’s inspiring to see Northsiders like Tony and Lee proving that it's not how old you are, it’s how old you feel. You have to keep moving. Maybe you won’t achieve a national gold medal like Tony and Lee, but you will reap other rewards.
This leads into my second age-related inspirational shout out. This one to music star Rod Stewart, who I saw this week at the Brandon Amphitheater.
I vividly recall going to a Rod Stewart concert in 1971 at age 13 in Houston, Texas. Canadian band The Guess Who opened for him. At the end of the concert, the fans rushed the stage and Stewart sang Maggie May, at the time the number one song in America, surrounded on stage by fans.
Like the entire nation, I loved Maggie May, one of the best pop rock anthems ever performed. I was never a huge Rod Stewart fan, but I was shocked at how many of the 23 songs he played I knew.
It was my friend Northsider Peter Corson, an attorney who lives in Madison, who booked the show for Ginny and me for my birthday. Peter’s fiance Vicky is my wife Ginny’s close friend. As it turns out, Peter and I hit it off as well. So we are couple friends — the best kind.
We took the back route around Patrick Farms to avoid the Brandon amphitheatre incoming traffic. That worked well. But we should have paid to park in the outside lots instead of venturing into the free public parking. The reason being, the outside lots clear out much faster after the show is over. It took us a full 30 minutes just sitting in the car before we could move more than 10 feet.
This is my fifth or sixth concert at the Brandon amphitheatre and I must say, it is a great outdoor venue. It runs like a well oiled machine. The food is decent, the pours are good and the wait was amazingly quick given the packed crowd. We were able to get our food and eat it during the 30 minute break from the first act, Cheap Trick, and the final act, Rod Stewart.
Not surprisingly, it was an elderly, well mannered crowd. I saw dozens of friends at the show. This is what I love about Jackson and Mississippi. Jackson is big enough to have all the amenities but still has that small-town charm.
I was skeptical of Rod Stewart performing at age 80 in the middle of a Mississippi August. Indeed, it didn’t take him long to take off his sparkly show jacket and roll up his sleeves. In fact, we had a break with the weather. Only 79 degrees heat index at 8 p.m.
Turns out, Rod Stewart has always been a big soccer fan and has kept fit over the years participating in his favorite sport. No doubt eight children with five different women, three of whom were his wives, has kept him busy and active.
Stewart came out and started talking in his raspy voice. You wouldn’t think he could sing a note, but when he started singing, he was as good as ever, just like his show I heard 54 years ago.
The 16-person band was tight as a tick. Three women played fiddle and sang backup. The stage was elaborately set. Ten or so huge video screens showed various angles of the stage, overlaid with computer generated graphics displaying themes related to the songs being sung. It was fantastic.
Rod Stewart is Scottish. He started his show with a big bagpipe theme. He ended many of his biggest hits with segues into Celtic music instrumental riffs, linking his pop music to Stewart’s Celtic heritage. Very cool.
Given that Mississippi is dominated by Scotch-Irish ancestry, less so English, it’s easy to understand Rod Stewart’s Rankin County popularity. Looking out over the crowd, it seems like I could easily have been in the Scottish Highlands.
My favorite moment was when Stewart played his hit Ooh La La. The whole audience belted out, “I wish I knew what I know now when I was younger.”
My thoughts rang back to when I was driving down State Street in my convertible with my young boys, age five and six, sitting on the back hood, belting out those same words as Ooh La La played on the car stereo. Caught in traffic, we slowly passed Frank and Jane Yerger, who caught the whole scene and burst out laughing.
My third shout out is to the famous Neshoba County Fair.
I have been to the fair many times over the years. It’s always a blast, but the heat is brutal during the day.
Turns out, for the first time in forever, the fair is changing its dates from late July and August to June 19 to June 26. The reason is to accommodate earlier school schedules. The earlier date will probably knock a few degrees off the fair high temps.
This time around I got a last minute invite from my pal Ashby Foote. The plan was to go up from 6 to 10 p.m. to avoid the midday heat.
Despite being in the middle of a high-stress week, I decided to go. I drove up with Ashby and his son-in-law Ephraim. There’s nothing like a long drive to inspire great conversation.
We quickly found an amazing buffet dinner of fresh fried fish and oyster from a Gulf Coast group. Ran into former Mayor Billy Hewes, who I have known for 30 years, and Madison’s Jim Walker wearing a “Make Seafood Great Again” hat.
After dinner, the temps cooled and we started walking around. “I wonder where we should go,” Ashby said. I told him, “Don’t worry. We’re going cabin hopping. Just keep walking and we’ll run into people we know and get invited to their cabins.”
Sure enough, that’s what happened. From Jim Prince’s cabin to Kent and Sherry Ford’s cabin (where they are celebrating their 50th cabin anniversary). And then finally to Pete Perry’s double wide cabin where they had a bluegrass band playing and a dozen people I knew, including my nextdoor neighbor, Nick Garrard.
I had a long conversation with former Northsider Hunter Carpenter, now a lobbyist in D. C. Hunter has Philadelphia roots but grew up on the Northside. He suffers from perennial Mississippi homesickness. Getting to come to the fair each year was a marriage condition.
Ashby was amazed. “To think I picked you up at your house in Jackson and we drove all the way across Mississippi just for you to hang out with your nextdoor neighbor.”
“You shouldn’t be surprised Ashby,” I said. “Mississippi is not a state. It’s a club.”
