A Few “Lesser Known and Obscure Facts” (I learned) about the Mississippi River, and its Inhabitants.

Bottom line: In spite of COVID risks, we took measures to protect ourselves and enjoyed our trip.

During our “Christmas on the Miss” cruise, Janet and I traveled on the American Duchess down the Mississippi River from Memphis, TN to New Orleans, LA, known by locals as NOLA.

1) The Duchess is a stern-wheeler, with two wheels side by side located at the stern, as opposed to one paddle wheel on each side of the boat, aka a side-wheeler.

Janet poses with the American Duchess docked in Greenville, MS.

2) Headwaters of the Mississippi River flow from a spring that feeds Lake Itasca, Minnesota, elevation 1,475 feet. With a length of 2,341 miles, the Mississippi drops 7.560871422 inches per mile until it merges with the Gulf of Mexico beyond New Orleans.

3) The “Duck March” at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis is quite popular among people . . . as well as the ducks.

Peabody Hotel Duck March in Memphis,TN.

4) The Blues City Cafe in Memphis doesn’t believe in customers going away hungry. When I inquired about possible menu misprints, the waitress said, “We don’t have (ounce) steaks.” I thought better of ordering their largest sirloin. Then, the waitress mentioned something about a family meal. Indeed!

Really? Never mind the shrimp, fish, and chicken.

Beale and Main Streets near the Blues City Cafe in Memphis.

5) Janet and I "toured" the World's First Billy Bass Adoption Center at the Flying Fish Restaurant in Memphis.

The main Billy Bass display wall in the Flying Fish Restaurant.

Wouldn't cha' know? Another Elvis Impersonator!

6) Janet had to visit Elvis' Graceland. She just had to, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Elvis' Graceland home is much like many pre-Civil War

plantation homes across the deep south, after a fashion.

7) Elvis' taste in home decorating, 1970s era, was nothing to envy.

Elvis' 1970s Media Room (pre-internet social media).

8) Elvis owned and traveled via two planes.

The Lisa Marie, largest of Elvis' two jets.

9) Elvis owned horses, and purchased numerous cars and motorcycles during his short career. I can't comment about the color of his horses, as I saw none, but his choice of Cadillac color suggests he believed if you got it, flaunt it.

Elvis' Pink Cadillac.

10) The Delta, aka Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, of some 70,000 sq miles of alluvial floodplain in Arkansas, Louisiana, and primarily Mississippi, should not be confused with the Mississippi River Delta, which terminates some miles beyond New Orleans.

11) The Delta suffered major flooding in 1927, the most destructive in US history, when the levee first failed near Mounds Landing, some 17 miles from Greenville, Mississippi. Some areas were covered by as much as thirty feet of water and at least two months elapsed before the floodwater completely subsided.

The Mississippi Delta, not to be confused with

the Mississippi River Delta southeast of NOLA.

12) Greenville, Mississippi, boasts of “more published writers per capita” than any other town in the US, such notables include Shelby Foote.

Their published author's list as displayed at the

Greenville Writers Exhibit at the Percy Library.

13) Many consider The Delta as the birthplace of Blues music, and highly influential in the development of Rock and Roll, if not its birthplace as well.

14) The Mississippi River temporarily ran backwards after a series of New Madrid fault earthquakes between December 16, 1811 and February 7, 1812. Additionally, those tremors created 18-mile-long Reelfoot Lake in TN.

Reelfoot Lake near Tiptonville, TN. Note: Photo taken during a separate trip.

15) The NMSZ, New Madrid Seismic Zone, is not benign nor dormant. Ruptures have occurred numerous times and have been felt and recorded in personal journals as far away as Louisville, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio.

16) Though many consider cotton the primary crop of the pre-Civil War South, corn and sugarcane figured prominently. Corn fed farm animals and sugarcane helped fuel the opulent plantation culture built upon slave labor. Touring a few notable houses on our trip, I was reminded of European royal palaces.

Nottoway Plantation Mansion. Note: Gentlemen, please

ascend on the right as to not glimpse bare feminine ankle.

17) Gators love marshmallows. Wait . . . why are they called “marsh” mallows?

Several swamp gators compete for a marshmallow. Note: the brown &

green is vegetation reflecting off the water, not muck in the water.

18) Cafe Du Monde’s beignets, French doughnuts, aka fritters, are popular in the French Quarter of NOLA. Janet and I opted to stand in the take-away line for almost an hour to purchase an order, as the sit-down line appeared longer. I’m sure both lines had formed hours before our arrival, with customers placing and consuming their orders all the while. And when Janet and I left, the lines had grown longer still.

Queue for Cafe Du Monde beignets when Janet and I arrived on the scene.

19) Janet and I found the World War Two Museum in NOLA interesting, as we spent nearly a whole day there. I liked the museum's display of US WWII planes.

Surely, that Avenger wasn't dropping a live bomb.

Probably not. Well, maybe not. I hoped not, anyway.

20) I'd expect to be hanged and quartered, if I didn’t mention Southern and Cajun cuisine, other than that above. Both Janet and I enjoy Cajun food, though only lightly spiced. However, Janet shies away from deep-fried breaded items, particularly catfish. Her catfish aversion has something to do with owning a pet catfish years ago, but that didn't deter me, at least on one occasion.

Prepared to chow down on fried alligator, crab cake and raw oysters, Connard photo

bombs Janet's foodie picture at the Coterie Restaurant & Oyster Bar, NOLA.

Note: Gator tastes like a cross between chicken and ground beef to me.

Spirituality (Wisdom of the 12-Steps)

Bottom line: There are many paths to spirituality.

Aristotle said man is a social animal. I say, in addition, man is a spiritual animal. As such, each of us has an inherent desire to answer the bigger questions of our existence.

Ever ask yourself how so many religions came to be? My answer, culture and man as spiritual animal. Each culture or society (group of people) grapples with the fundamental existential questions to which every human seeks an answer. It all boils down to where and how we, individually and collectively, fit in to the bigger scheme. I’m including many and varied questions here, such as, What happens when we die, Do we have self-determination, and How did life begin?

The need/desire to answer some or all of those questions has driven the development of religions, which then serves the spiritual needs of its followers, though each reflects the values, practices and beliefs of the culture from which it sprang (springs). And as every individual has fallibility and blind spots, so do cultures, and thus religions. As a result, no one religion has the corner on spirituality. By that I mean every religion potentially can lead an individual to the same place, if only. . . . If only the cultural blind spots don’t inhibit that person. If only the individual can work their way through the weeds, the labyrinth of rituals and practices that create that religion’s blind spots.

If you're still with me here, I’m saying no religion has the perfect formula, nor a formula for everyone. As well, every religion changes over time as a reflection of its followers/cultural underpinning. No religion is the sole proprietor of spirituality. Moreover, no one religion is necessary to attain enlightenment/spirituality, nor any in that sense. Rather, finding and piecing together the commonality helps alleviate contradictions in any particular culture/religion and gets closer to the essence of spirituality.

Having lived a few years now, and been exposed to the 12-Steps, I consider those steps a good guideline, not only for those seeking relief from their struggles with destructive behavior, but a path to their spiritual development. I don’t see the 12-Steps as part of a cult nor a religion, though they can act as an adjunct to religion.

Though the 12-Steps originally incorporated the use of the term God, though higher power has supplanted that more recently. I’ve heard encouragement to newer members/attendees of meetings to consider a chair as their higher power, if that works for them. There is no dogma attached to anyone’s definition or determination of higher power, in whatever form.

The purpose of developing a personal higher power is to surrender one’s self in Step 2. That is, give up the idea that one controls and can deal with their problem(s) alone through their thinking and willpower. In psychological terms, I see that as putting the ego aside. The entire point of surrendering willpower is to give up on the notion of controlling that behavior which has been and is out of control for that individual. Imagine resisting drinking water when your dying of thirst! Most everyone attempting to overcome an addiction to a substance or destructive behavior can testify that they’ve quit many times, though never remained abstinent. Obviously, a significant focus of discussion in 12-Steps meetings centers around relapse, and the phrases, One day at a time, and, Easy does it, which are heard frequently.

Case in point: my father smoked like a chimney and stopped many times. Problem was he couldn’t stay stopped and succumbed to lung cancer.

Recently, someone claimed the 12-Steps and meetings were a cult. Here’s what I say about that. The Merriam-Webster dictionary includes several definitions of cult. To apply any of those to the 12-Steps or 12-Step meetings in any serious way becomes a considerable stretch, at least in any negative sense. The 12-Steps don’t extol a deity, nor the program have a leader. Instead, the steps point the way on a path that has worked and is working for others to avoid their destructive behavior. Absolute adherence to dogma isn’t required. Instead, recommendations are made and some best practices are followed, such as maintaining anonymity and utilizing a sponsor (a more experienced support buddy). The 12-Steps are voluntary, take ‘em or leave ‘em. Meeting attendance doesn’t require special clothing or tithing. There’s no hierarchical establishment, though there are fellow recovering members who have secured a meeting location, lead the meeting, purchase coffee and so on. Meetings can occur anywhere, wherever an organizer can arrange. Some meetings occur in a house of worship, though that isn’t a necessity and many don’t. The meetings are intended to provide safe places for attendees to share what they are doing that is working for them, unload emotional baggage, gain insight, and provide encouragement and support to others. The latter brings the steps full circle at Step 12: "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs." (Substitute other destructive behaviors for the term alcoholics.) The meetings become a mutual self-help process utilizing the guidelines of the 12-Steps. I see this as a similar process to that of therapy/counseling, the final goals being the same or nearly so.

I believe answers to our existential questions are all around us. We are of them. We are infused with them. We are not, and have never been, separated from our spirituality, though we blind ourselves by creating walls within ourselves. And that if each of us listens and looks, maybe we can come to understand the above, arrive at an inner peace of grace and serenity, and live in the question without self-righteous judgment of others. Moreover, perhaps, we can abandon intolerance and the expectation that others follow our path.

Photo Credit: pexels - Adam Kontor

Rejection & Self-Acceptance (Wisdom of the 12-Steps)

Bottom line: In the end, acceptance is an inside job.

We won't get acceptance from everyone. We don't always get acceptance from those whom we wish to get it. However, there are those who will accept us and we need to be prepared to seek them out, which may take effort. In the long run, we need to accept ourselves, though we may need others to believe in us before we can believe in ourselves.

For those stuck and suffering a self-destructive cycle of behavior, emotional pain and trauma, 12-Step support groups provide an atmosphere of acceptance, and a safe platform to overcome the wreckage in our lives. Professional support through counseling/therapy provides the same. Both have complimentary ultimate goals: relief of destructive behavioral patterns, psychological health/emotional balance and better relationships.

We've all been rejected or will be rejected in some form or fashion. Big rejections, little rejections, loud or silent rejections, head-on or sideways, obvious or obscured.

I'll use an analogy of myself as a writer. Above and beyond the usual rejections that I receive in life, I live with rejection as a result of my selfish reason to have others read what I’ve written. I have a deep seated desire to create, connect and pass along ideas through writing.

Running the gauntlet of rejection is a necessity for a writer. Rejection of a proposed book. Rejection of a submitted article. If a written rejection does come after a submission, it’s usually weeks or months afterward. And if a written response is sent, it may be: No, thank you; or, Your piece isn’t a good fit at this time. Otherwise, there's dead silence. Nothing, nada, zilch. Anything short of acceptance doesn't feel good, though a written rejection is at least an acknowledgment. But that’s the nature of the biz. Little did I suspect the amount of rejection I'd face, when I started thinking, I’ll write and get it published. Ha, famous last words! And it isn't that editors are inconsiderate individuals. They're just inundated with submissions, so they can't and won't respond in writing to every submission. And a writer gets disabused early on that an editor will provide feedback about improving something written/submitted. Regardless of the form the rejection takes, impostor syndrome, the common self-doubt enemy within many writers, lurks in the shadows. Thoughts emerge like I can't write or that piece will never be published. I’ve heard actors on TV talk shows admit to experiencing impostor syndrome. I suspect many people across a wide variety of professions experience it.

In addition to grappling with imposter syndrome, every writer needs an audience. But if a writer doesn't already have an audience, or a large enough one, say through fame, then they need to build one. And I fall into the not famous category. No ifs, ands, or buts, it then boils down to marketing. That is, putting it all out there. I need to market my brand, my message, my book, blah, blah, blah. Again, that’s the nature of the biz.

Social media is an obvious place to build an audience, though froth with competition and potential rejection. Needless to say, I think, I've encountered people on social media who are demeaning and willing to hurl vile. I suspect everyone encounters that at some point. There’s always someone ready to p*** on your ideas or feelings, or the fact that you're breathing their air. I work to avoid those people as best I can, knowing that sifting through the dirt and rubble may be required to find the empathetic, supportive souls out there who want to read my work.

Though, I don't attend a support group to deal with my writer's rejection, I have and do utilize feedback from other writers in critique groups and writer's conferences. I take those opportunities to hone my material, learn the ins and outs of writing craft and inoculate myself regarding further submission rejection. Those attending 12-Steps support group are doing much the same regarding utilizing support from like-minded individuals to hone their better selves and reduce their destructive behavior.

When I face rejection, I've learned I need to take personal responsibility for my reaction (Step 10), though I'm not perfect. I work to avoid an unhelpful trip to Rantville. I take a breath and remember that my reaction to others’ rejection of my ideas, or whatever, is my trip, all my trip, and nothing but my trip. More importantly, their reaction of me is their trip. I may want their acceptance, but I need to sleep with myself every night, and that's what really counts in the long run.

With that, I continue along my healing journey and chosen path.

Hint: look closely at the photo.

Photo Credit - gettyimages