Marshall Ramsey

Watched the Republican debate last night. I listened to the President talk about his Jobs Bill. Much talk is coming from D.C. about fixing the economy. I’m sure eventually a solution will come from Washington. Eventually

But I’m not waiting for it. That’s not the Mississippi way. Did we wait for the cavalry to come after Katrina? No.  We (as the Governor said) “Hitched up our britches.”  We figured out a way. It’s time to do that again. Me?  I’m getting smarter. I’m reading books about new career opportunities.  I’m working harder. I’ve bought a few thousand gallons of midnight oil.

I hope the Federal Government gets their act together and stops making it harder on small business owners. On the people who will start hiring again. But this recovery isn’t coming from D.C.  It’s coming from us. It’s coming from the innovators. The creative people. And Mississippi is full of creative people.

Things will turn around. And it’s up to us to make it happen.

That’s the Mississippi way.

There was no rush-hour in the Town.  It had a rush-ten minutes. Automatic opening doors opened slower. People from the City were forever walking into them.  People just walked slower in the Town. They talked slower, too.  The heat must have done that.  You could take a deep breath and break a sweat.  People knew your name. They also knew your business.  Get up in the middle of the night and your neighbor would ask, “were you sick? Your bathroom light was on at 2 a.m.”

When you lived in the Town, you didn’t need voter I.D.  The lady at the polling place knew your mama.  “Who’s your mama?” That was the first question you were asked when you came to the Town.  The second one was “Where do you go to church?”  It wasn’t hard to find one of those.  There was a church on every corner. The tallest object in town wasn’t a building. It was a water tower.

Mosquitoes landed at the local airport. So did crop dusters.  Data on the internet traveled slower than gossip on the front porch. The information superhighway was the path between Molly Grable’s house and her neighbors. People elected politicians just so they could talk about them.  Children left to go to college. But eventually they came home to raise their families. The local schools succeeded because the parents cared. And high school football? It was the second religion in the Town.

There were challenges. The big box store opened on the bypass and the local businesses were under siege. The local hospital was having funding problems. And the mayor was always concerned about the tax base.  But like the giant oaks next to the courthouse, the Town would survive. It would always be there.  It had deep roots to keep it alive.

Yes, it was a small town. But life in the Town was anything but small.

The lady walked into the bathroom and looked around.  It looked like something you’d find in a third-rate truck stop. And smelled worse. Even flies gagged when they entered it. But over in the corner was an air freshener.  It was placed there to try to cover up the mess. It was an olfactory bandage on the fact the room had not been properly cleaned.  It took 30 seconds to place the air freshener on the counter. It would’ve only taken a few minutes more to clean the room.

She thought about how many air fresheners she had in her life.  How many messes had she just covered up? Then she thought about the stress that all of those messes were causing.  She was putting a lot of air fresheners on the counter.

She went back and sat at her desk.  She looked at the loose piles of papers. The unanswered e-mails. The things she procrastinated about.  She thought of her closet. It was a mess. She just closed the door — an air freshener.

She thought about all the messes in her life. And she made a list of ways to start cleaning them up.

No more bandages. No more air fresheners.