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Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Shrimper Bob Wolcott. Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2019.
This series is part of the Pulitzer Center’s Connected Coastlines reporting initiative. For more information, go to pulitzercenter.org/connected-coastlines. This story is part one of three.
PASS CHRISTIAN — On a warm, sunny September morning, bait salesman Roscoe Liebig scanned the harbor’s vacant piers and shook his head in disgust. Liebig recalled his usual surroundings: a full parking lot, a line of fishermen hooking their bait, and oysters peeking out in a low tide. That day, all of it was gone.
In a typical year, he’d be outside peddling his shrimp and croakers, a type of bait fish, to fishermen passing by.
“This is catastrophic,” he said. Referencing another historic disaster, Liebig put 2019 in perspective: “BP could blow up a well and you’d do better than this. It’s a dying freaking industry, and this is just the icing on the cake.”
Inside “Roscoe’s Live Bait Works,” sitting on a barge in the Mississippi Sound, Liebig grows restless as he reviews his finances. Sales are down sharply from the previous year, and he worries that making even a small repair or upgrade to his boat could break the bank.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Roscoe Liebig, left, and Eldon Kruse, right at Pass Christian Harbor. Thursday, Sept. 12, 2019.
At the core of his stress is the recent openings of the Bonnet Carré Spillway, an increasingly frequent event that rattles the sound’s water quality and kills aquatic species that fishermen depend on for survival.
The plight of Mississippi’s fishermen stems from a national phenomenon: how climate change is affecting America’s mightiest river.
The Mississippi River basin covers 40 percent of the continental U.S., stretches from Montana to New York and funnels water into the Gulf of Mexico, picking up nutrients from farms and other pollutants along the way.
The 12 months between July 2018 and June 2019 were the wettest ever for the U.S., the third time that record was broken just in 2019. To relieve pressure in the river and stave off flooding around New Orleans, last May the U.S Army Corps of Engineers opened the Bonnet Carré Spillway in Louisiana for an unprecedented third time in two years.
The spillway, located just south of Lake Pontchartrain, diverts water from the river into the Mississippi Sound. Last year, 1.35 trillion cubic feet of water — the equivalent of 15 million Olympic-size swimming pools — flowed through for 123 days, almost twice as long as any previous opening. The influx of freshwater caused a drastic shift in the sound’s salinity, devastating resident species: the oysters, immobile, perished almost entirely, and the shrimp and crabs either died or swam to habitable waters farther away.
To top it off, nutrients from the water fed a blooming blue-green algae. Fearing illnesses, officials closed the coast’s beaches, and news coverage of the phenomenon turned customers off from local seafood, according to the state marine resources director.
The result was devastation for fishermen and seafood markets that rely on their catches.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
A boat at Pass Christian Harbor. Thursday, Sept. 12, 2019.
Liebig got into shrimping about 15 years ago, and, unlike most in the business, is the only fisherman in his family. Eventually, he opened his own bait shop when market shifts made full-time shrimping impractical.
Usually his 25-cent croakers are the cheapest around, Liebig said. But when supply plummeted and he had to find croakers elsewhere — a four-hour boat ride each way — his monthly fuel spending increased by $1,000 and he was forced to double his prices. For that May, the beginning of shrimp season, he estimates that his year-over-year earnings sank by 80 percent.
“We pretty much make our living in May, June, July and August,” he said in an interview last fall. “You got four months to make it, and the rest of the months you scrap by with a little bit of money. I’ll start back again next year. I’m stubborn.”
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Roscoe Liebig at his bait shop at Pass Christian Harbor. Thursday, Sept. 12, 2019.
For fishermen, stubbornness is necessary for survival.
“You have a good year then a bad year, good year, bad year,” as Carey Cannette, a Biloxi shrimper, described it. “It’s one of those things you can’t quit. You’re so invested in it, you put so much time and energy in it you don’t want to give up.”
But many wonder how much longer their businesses can survive. Even before the coronavirus pandemic brought the nation’s economy to a screeching halt, last year’s spillway openings followed a string of disasters — notably Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 — that only allowed for brief windows of recovery.
These disruptions have a clear connection: a changing climate that’s bringing more rain, storms and flooding. While the connections between climate change, intense weather events and fossil fuels are well-documented, the spillway openings offer a rare glimpse into the relationship between climate, federal policy decision-making and their impacts on local communities.
The Bonnet Carré Spillway, completed in 1931, was opened just eight times in its first 70 years after its construction. By comparison, in the past 12 years, high water volume in the Mississippi River has triggered seven openings, including four times in the last three years.
Several factors play into the increasing frequency of the spillway’s usage, but none are bigger contributors than increasing greenhouse gases and temperatures, argues one researcher.
Omar Abdul-Aziz, a West Virginia University civil and environmental engineering professor, has spent years studying the impact of climate change on flooding, including in the Upper Mississippi River basin.
Alex Rozier
The Mississippi River just outside New Orleans.
Carbon causes the atmosphere to trap heat, making air thinner and more moisture absorbent. The result is more precipitation, including snow in the Upper Midwest. Combined with increased rainfalls, the result is historic volumes of water gushing into the Mississippi River. Along the Gulf Coast, warming ocean surface temperatures lead to more frequent hurricanes and algae blooms.
Abdul-Aziz estimates that climate change has reached a point in its arc where recent years can foreshadow the immediate feature.
“How often could a year like 2019 occur? If I wanted to answer conservatively, with some restraint, at least once in the next five years, if not more,” he said.
Deckhand Eldon Kruse, finishing his shift on Liebig’s barge, could barely keep his eyes open after working through the night. Despite logging over 80 hours a week, Kruse said he had to work out a payment plan with the bank to keep his home out of foreclosure.
At that point in September, he hadn’t yet made $7,000 over six months of work after making nearly four times that much in just four months the previous year.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Eldon Kruse working at Roscoe’s Live Bait Works in Pass Christian. Thursday, Sept. 12, 2019.
“It definitely hurts – not just me but my family,” said Kruse, 36, who lives about 45 minutes away in Saucier with his wife and three children. “It got to a point I was staying on the boat just to save a little bit of gas money.”
Kruse, who works construction in the offseasons, is banking on relief funds from a federal fisheries disaster declaration arriving sooner than in 2011, the last time such a declaration was made.
The $11 million the federal government awarded Mississippi that year after similar damages from the spillway opening didn’t arrive until 2015. While the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, the agency in charge of the funds, hired fishermen with those funds, many felt they should have instead received direct payments.
Bethany Atkinson
Congress appropriated $165 million for fishery disasters last year, to be split between seven states including Mississippi. State-resources director Joe Spraggins assured that money will arrive sooner than last time and that this time the agency will make direct payments to fishermen. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association is still assessing how the money will be divided.
In the meantime, Mississippi’s secretary of state and the Mississippi Sound Coalition, a group of local businesses and political officials, have sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Mississippi River Commission in federal court over the spillway’s operation, which is tied to legislation written over 90 years ago.
“This is not only unlawful, it is inexcusable,” says the lawsuit from then-Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann of the spillway’s usage. “Such freshwater inundation will not only upset the delicate ecological balance of the (Mississippi) Sound, but will also inflict serious economic damage to the people and businesses that derive their livelihoods from the Sound.”
After the Great Flood of 1927, the U.S. authorized flood-control projects across the Mississippi River, including the Bonnet Carré. For the rest of the century, the spillway was seldom used, but Mississippi felt the impact each time, including in 1945 when the state received federal relief after losing most of its oyster population.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Carey Cannette, left and Tien Ly, center, stacking crates of shrimp in Biloxi. Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019.
Robert Wiygul, an environmental attorney for the Mississippi Sound Coalition, said the federal government needs to change its approach to the spillway because the river itself has changed over the years.
“Things have changed drastically since 1976,” the last time an environmental study of the spillway was conducted, Wiygul said. “We know the Mississippi River’s bed has raised, so the water gets higher at the same flow than it used to years ago. We’ve had more development upstream, you’ve had increased nutrient loads in the river, and you’ve had increased precipitation.”
Hosemann’s lawsuit requests the Corps to open the Morganza Spillway, which would send river water into southern Louisiana; but unlike the Bonnet Carré, opening the Morganza would flood hundreds of structures and thousands of acres of farmland.
“We’re dealing with 21st century issues with engineering from the 20th century,” said Read Hendon, associate director of the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. “It wasn’t engineered for the problems we’re having today. Once you open Morganza you’re looking at flooding homes, whereas here, we don’t like it, but you’re killing wildlife and affecting the coastal ecosystem. But it doesn’t have the direct human impact.”
On April 3, the Corps of Engineers opened the Bonnet Carré for a record-shattering fourth time in three years.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
A statue outside the Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum in Biloxi. Monday, Feb. 18, 2020.
With springtime and another rainy season underway, it’s unclear how many more years like 2019 Mississippi’s Gulf Coast fisheries can take without changes to the spillway’s operations.
Take two of the Coast’s largest seafood companies, for example. Kendall Marquar, owner of Waveland-based Pinchers, the state’s largest crab processor, said his yearly earnings were about a third of what he makes in a good year.
“This winter’s probably going to be the worst we’ve ever seen on crabs,” he said last fall.
At Crystal Seas Oysters, the state’s largest oyster processor, manager Jennifer Jenkins said their total business fell 55 percent from 2018.
“I don’t want to flood New Orleans,” she said. “But right now, the oyster industry is… I’ve never seen it worse. Not after Katrina, not after any oil spill. If you put them all together, I don’t think it’d be worse than it is right now.”
Despite this century’s hardships, fishermen who have taken after generations of family in the trade find it hard to see themselves doing anything else.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Kendall Marquar owns Pinchers, a seafood processor in Waveland. Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019.
Mark Kopszywa, a fourth-generation fisherman from Ocean Springs, got his start at age 4 making toy boats and earning a penny a piece mending needles for shrimping nets. A descendant of Polish immigrants, Kopszywa dropped out of high school at 15 to shrimp full time and now quips that after 30 years in the business he doesn’t know any better.
“Once you’ve done it as long as we’ve done it, it’s hard to do anything else,” he explained. “We know that there’s a possibility that if I go out next week I can hit a lick. I can make more in that one lick than I made or you made in two months. But these licks are getting farther and farther apart.”
In the meantime, Kopszywa, like so many others in the business, has been forced to adapt.
After ending 2019 with the lightest haul of his career, Kopszywa fixes other shrimpers’ nets to get by, a skill he said isn’t common these days. While most years he averages between 50,000-60,000 pounds of shrimp, he finished last season with a mere 15,000 pounds.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Shrimper Mark Kopszywa at Ocean Springs Harbor. Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2020.
Unable to afford reliable deckhands, he operates his 60-foot, double-rigged shrimp boat by himself. Despite the financial stress and an assortment of injuries collected over the years — two missing toes, crab bites and a staph infection to name some — Kopszywa basks in the freedom of working for himself.
Kopszywa, 48, was named 2019’s ‘Shrimp King,’ a title given to a different representative of the Coast’s seafood industry each year since 1948. Each Shrimp King’s name is inscribed on a monument in front of the Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum in Biloxi.
Now, that monument is a token of his family’s legacy to share with his sons and the generations to come.
“No matter whatever happens in life now, their daddy’s name is going to be on that wall over there, so they always have a history in Biloxi because of it.”
As much as he would like to see his children follow tradition, he knows that it might be a fantasy.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Shrimper Mark Kopszywa at Ocean Springs Harbor. Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2020.
“The industry’s just done got so hard. It’s hard to see a future,” he said.
Abdul-Aziz, the West Virginia professor, explained that greenhouse gas emissions already in the air will continue to warm the earth’s climate for decades due to their long half-lives. While mitigation like adopting renewable energy sources and building green spaces will help future generations, it won’t undo the damage.
“Whatever has happened, we can’t do much about it,” he said. “What countries are trying to do is simply not make the condition worse.”
The post A Flood of Catastrophe: How a warming climate and the Bonnet Carré Spillway threaten the survival of Coast fishermen appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Good Thusday morning everyone! Today will be a perfect weather day in North Mississippi! Look for a mix of sun and clouds with highs in the low 70s and a northwest wind 10- 15 mph. Tonight, skies will remain clear with a low near 49…Hotter weather in the 80s is coming this weekend!
Senior Students and their parents recived an email reccently that left some worried and other angry about Graduation plans. Today, THS Administration sent the following:
Graduates:
As you are aware, the 2020 commencement ceremony will be a virtual one. We will be recording student “walks-across-the-stage” in ten-minute intervals for three full days – May 6th, 7th & 8th – in five locations. We will film in alphabetical order divided among the five locations. Attached is the recording schedule which includes the location, date and time for recording your walk.
There are many components to the Commencement Ceremony video that cannot be filmed or added until after grades are finalized on the 12th which is why the graduates’ walks across stage are being recorded first. In order to get each graduate recorded and allow time for the video to be put together for airing on May 22nd with the students’ speeches, honors, and all other parts of the ceremony, we are working within an extremely tight schedule. Please be on time and follow instructions carefully. Signs will be posted at all locations and THS staff will be directing the activities.
The safety and health of our graduates, their families, and the Tupelo Public School District employees is first and foremost in our minds. TPSD is committed to following the CDC safety guidelines in regard to COVID-19.
Milam location – park in the Robins street lot. Stay in your car until a THS employee directs you and your family to enter the building.
Civic Auditorium location – park in front of the Civic Auditorium on Varsity Drive. Stay in your car until a THS employee directs you and your family to enter the building.
Lawhon location – park in front of Lawhon school on Lake Street. Stay in your car until a THS employee directs you and your family to enter the building.
THS Small Auditorium location – park in the lot in front of the new gymnasium. Follow the sidewalk between B and C buildings to get to the small auditorium. Stay in your car until a THS employee directs you and your family to enter the building.
THS Performing Arts Center recordings – park in the lot in front of the Performing Arts Center. Stay in your car until a THS employee directs you and your family to enter the building.
Our goal is to have the video produced and ready for airing on Comcast at 7:00 p.m. on May 22 – the original graduation time. We are also working with the city to “make some noise” when the video ends to celebrate the Class of 2020. These plans are furthering daily so please be patient as we roll them out.
A note from Mr. Dobbs:
I want the Class of 2020 to know how sorry I am that we cannot give you the graduation you deserve. This has been one of the toughest times in THS history for us as a school, and for me as your principal. As an educator, I only want the best for our students. These seniors matter to me and, if we thought there was a better way, we would do it. Currently, COVID-19 restrictions do not allow for gatherings of more than 10 people. With cases in Mississippi yet to peak, no one knows when CDC guidelines will allow gathering numbers to increase to 5000 (our normal number of graduation attendees), 1500 (just graduates with 2 guests), or even 500 (graduates and required staff only). This plan is what we know we can do for sure now.
Our committee of seniors, parents, staff and administrators, who brainstormed and planned the commencement ceremony did not enter into that task lightly. When we met virtually, everyone felt it was too big a risk to wait and hope that we could have a more traditional service later in the summer.
If restrictions should lift in June or July and a gathering of 500 is allowed, we will absolutely have a Class of 2020 celebration together with all graduates. Until then, we are asking for your support and understanding and to trust that we are doing all we can do at this time to recognize our graduates.
Stay safe and Go Wave!
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hailstate.com
Tommy Stevens’ next football will be with the Saints.
The NFL Draft was rocking along, nearing its end, and then, rolling across the bottom of our TV screens, came this bolt out of the blue: The New Orleans Saints, with pick No. 240 in the seventh round, take Mississippi State quarterback Tommy Stevens.
Rick Cleveland
Say what?
And while the Saints’ pick of Stevens may have shocked most of the football universe, at least one person wasn’t surprised: Joe Moorhead.
Moorhead, who coached Stevens at both Penn State and Mississippi State, remains bullish on Stevens. “Good things happen to good people,” Moorhead said. “Tommy Stevens is a great person.”
Nevertheless, the pick raised eyebrows around the NFL – and in Mississippi. The Saints traded a sixth round choice in the 2021 draft to get Stevens in the seventh round of 2020. What’s more, they drafted a quarterback who started nine games in five years of college football – all those in his fifth year as a grad transfer at Mississippi State.
Rogelio V. Solis/AP photo
Joe Moorhead remains bullish on Tommy Stevens.
“I knew there was pretty good interest in Tommy,” Moorhead said. “A couple teams called me about him and I knew, from talking to Tommy, that the Saints were high on him. So, no, it was not that big of a surprise.
“We’re talking about a 6-foot-4, 235-pounder who runs in the mid-to-high 4.5’s and is really, really athletic,” Moorhead continued. “You’re talking about a really tough guy who has battled through injuries, a really good team guy who his teammates really appreciate. I mean, good gosh, he was only in Starkville for a short time before his teammates voted him team captain.”
Still, you’ve got a guy like Shea Patterson, a former five-star quarterback recruit who was a full-time starter at both Ole Miss and Michigan, who was not drafted. And you’ve got the Saints trading a future higher pick for the right to draft Stevens, a former three-star recruit.
If you know anything about Saints coach Sean Payton, who will kick onsides to begin the second half in a Super Bowl, you know there is most often a method to his madness. No doubt, he sees a whole lot of jack-of-all-trades Taysom Hill in Stevens.
So does Moorhead.
“At Penn State, we used a two-quarterback system and we created hybrid position that lined Tommy up at running back, tight end and wide receiver besides,” Moorhead said. “We wanted to get him on the field because he can help you in so many ways. He could have played special teams, too. He could have been the wedge-buster on kickoff coverage. That’s how big, strong and fast he is.”
Sounds an awful lot like Hill, whom the Saints have used like a Swiss army knife – lining up all over the field on offense and also on special teams.
Hill, who played college ball at BYU, is listed at 6-2 and 221 and has run a 4.51 40. Stevens is two inches taller, weighs more and is nearly as fast. Hill completed 58.2 percent of his passes at BYU. Stevens completed 59.9 percent of his passes at Penn State and Mississippi State.
Tommy Stevens
Said Payton of Stevens, “He’s athletic enough to play in the kicking game, he’s certainly someone that we feel like catches the ball exceptionally well, and he’s someone that I think is in a developmental role more as a quarterback. But we saw him do a number of things.”
Payton said the Saints would have preferred to sign Stevens as an undrafted free agent but knew there was high interest from other teams and that Stevens might be leaning in another direction.
Clearly, the Saints saw immediate value in Stevens or they would not have pulled the trigger.
Moorhead sees the same and points to the 2017 Maryland-Penn State game in which Stevens threw for one touchdown, ran for three more (out of three different positions) and also caught a pass.
“I know Tommy believes he has a long-term future as an NFL quarterback, and he has that ability,” Moorhead said. “But he has the physical tools that you can plug in to a system in a number of ways.
“I am happy for him. He deserves it. Only 255 players in all of college football get picked,” Moorhead continued. “When you think of it that way, that’s pretty elite.”
•••
Because of the coronavirus pandemic Moorhead, now the offensive coordinator at Oregon, still lives in Starkville and has yet to move his family.
“It’s just a surreal time,” said Moorhead, who had participated in four spring practices at Oregon before all college athletics were curtailed there and across the nation.
Moorhead said he and his family are making the best of the situation. Earlier this month, the Starkville Police Department, via Twitter, sent out a thank-you to Moorhead for providing a pizza lunch for the entire force.
The post Is Tommy Stevens Saints’ next Taysom Hill? Joe Moorhead believes he has the skills appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Color your way through Mississippi with me! Click below to download a coloring sheet of Leland.
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Good evening from Tupelo, MS!
Thanks for joining me!
Glad to be here and grateful for the opportunity to share some songs with you.
Thanks to the Mayor’s office for hosting 30 days of local musicians! Enjoy!
2020 has been quite the season, hasn’t it? We are all a little lost. We are all, even if we don’t want to admit it, somewhat afraid. We are all tired of being quarantined. We are all concerned about our family, friends, our country, and our world. We are all having to make serious adjustments in our lives. We want our lives back. And we are all, in this season together. Sounds bleak, doesn’t it? Well, here in the midst of the storm, I am here to tell you, I believe this tragic time will soon come to an end and bring with it triumph.
It’s hard to see how anything resembling a victory will come of this situation, isn’t it? After all, thousands of people are sick, or have passed away due to this virus. Many more are at risk of getting sick. We do not have a cure; we do not have enough medical staff or safety equipment for those who care for us or our loved ones. Some people have lost their jobs. The list of dread seems endless. But I am telling you, a ‘glory day’ is coming. And if you look closely, you can already see tinges of this change. All you have to do is look.
Have you noticed the difference in social media? Boy, I have! I used to cringe when I scrolled my page and saw all of the political posts. There were so many! But now, my feed is filled with positivity, humor, and thankfully, with things of God. The nastiness and negativity of politics has been replaced with daily scriptures, and videos and devotionals from many sources. I have even seen some of my past students lead daily devotions and let me tell you, it makes my heart rejoice. I also see photos of past students and friends who serve in the battlefields of the medical community, the military, and law enforcement. To those, I am so grateful and so proud of you. Know that I pray for your safety each and every day. You are appreciated. You are greatly loved. When I see your sweet faces on Facebook or Instagram, I smile. I am so blessed by you, your sacrifices, and gifts you so freely give us all. Thank you for all that you do.
I see videos made by teachers and principals that show how much they miss their students; movie clips made with so much love and care. These ‘love notes’ reassure the children that they teachers are still present in their lives. They are notes of promise that every little thing and every big thing, is going to turn out fine. Teachers, though they may not inside the classroom, are still working, still teaching, still loving.
I also watch daily, videos made by parents. Some of these clips make me laugh, others make me cry, and some make me laugh so hard, I cry. Parents now understand FULLY everything teachers do for their children. Parents are appreciating teachers like never before. Teachers, you are heroes. Teachers, you are saints. Teachers, you are now among the most loved individuals on the planet. Your struggle is real, and is now felt by the multitudes. You rock harder than Jerry Lee Lewis playing a piano engulfed in flames. Thank you for your love and service.
Yes, social media has indeed changed in the last few months; for the better. And it is my fervent prayer that it will keep changing long after this quarantine is a thing of the past. Let us not forget. Let us always be grateful, and let us always show and share it.
I hope everyone reading this post knows God on a personal level. I pray you are a Christian. I could not fathom what I would do if I did not have a relationship with God. How would I have made it through the many snares in my life? Very plainly, I would not have made it. Who could know exactly what my situation was and how it would come out? Nobody but God. Who could grant my heart perfect peace in the middle of the many dark times I have faced? God, that’s Who. Who is going to take this villainous virus and everything associated with it, and turn it in to something good? Yep. God is.
I have heard a few people ask why a loving God would strike us with this plague. Well, I don’t believe He ‘struck’ us with it. I believe He ‘stopped’ us with it. Yep. Stopped us in our tracks. Think about it. What was our world like a few months ago? What were people doing, or not doing? Seriously. Look back. Think. Remember. Do you remember? I do. And let me tell you, this world, myself included, had drifted away from God. The closeness to Him was replaced by the need for more money, for ‘things’, and for our own ‘wants’ and ‘desires’. This ‘wanting’ made us slip further away in our relationships with our family and friends. We seemed to care a great deal about what money could buy, and less about what it could not. At least that’s my take on things. I believe we all needed a ‘time out’. What do you think?
Remember the words to Psalm 23? Pay close attention to the words in the second line:
“The Lord is my Shepard, He MAKETH me to lie down in green pastures…”
It doesn’t say, “He suggests I lie down, it says, “He MAKETH me to lie down.”
I never thought about the word, “maketh” until recently. And after thinking carefully about it, it makes perfect sense. God is our Father. And a good Father takes care of His children. Did you ever have to ‘maketh’ your child take a nap? Of course, you did! Why? Because the child needed REST. Because it was good and necessary for their well-being. Same with God. Sometimes He has to ‘maketh’ His children stop, rest, and reflect. I believe He has done just that with the Coronavirus.
Though I am more than ready to get back to parts of my previous life, such as being with my family again, other portions of it will be left behind. My hurried lifestyle, my lack of extreme closeness to God, and my low level of patience will be dropped at the door. This period of change and rest has given me a fresh set of eyes and a new vision for my life, one that I am anxious to experience. You see, God does not relish in our sufferings, He delights in our developments! And as for me, during this time at home, I have ‘developed’ a new closeness to Him.
Yes, this season we are suffering through has not been easy, and may continue to be difficult in the coming months. Yes, there will be obstacles. Yes, there will be sorrow. Yes, there will be tears, but take heart. It’s going to be okay, and I am sure of that. What makes me so certain? The Bible does! Do you remember the Bible story of Joseph? His own brothers cast him into a well and then sold him into slavery. What a dark situation Joseph faced. But God used all of his trials for good. In fact, he ended up saving his people. Had things not transpired the way they did, his people would have surely starved to death.
And do you remember the story about Jesus and the grave? As tragic as this time was for Jesus, it turned out to be the most wonderful for His followers. The ugly and gut-wrenching part of this story is when they beat Him, spit on Him, cursed Him, and then hung Him on a cross to die. But…the greatest part of this story is that He rose again, and because of Him and His mercy and grace, those who believe in Him will spend eternity in Heaven! It just doesn’t get any better than that.
I challenge you to pull out your Bibles and read carefully the stories inside. So many disasters were recorded. Major misfortunes and heartbreaks are found throughout its pages. But, read again how the stories end. Every one of them, for those who followed God, ended in His glory. Yes, the people suffered. Some died. Many were imprisoned. But, in every one of these situations faced, God made it all good. And I KNOW that when this story we are living through comes to the final chapter, God will give us a happy ending too. How do I know this? Because the Bible tells me so!
My closing thoughts are not ones of sadness, but ones of hope. I believe God, the good Father, teaches all of His children lessons to make their lives better and to further His kingdom. I believe that through all of this, God is going to bring us together like we have never before seen. I truly believe we are positioned to see one of the greatest miracles of all-time. I believe God, in His infinite power and wisdom, may not change this situation as quickly as we would like, but I do believe He will change each of us. And in doing that, He will indeed, change the world. I believe, and I hope you do too.
Wear your masks and wash your hands.
Stay home as much as you can.
Keep the faith.
Pray.
Help others.
Love y’all.
“He shall cover me with His feathers, and under His wings I shall seek refuge.” – Psalm 91:4
I am finding myself becoming short tempered the longer this quarantine lasts. It’s not that I want to go anywhere – I am perfectly fine staying home. I think I miss all the fussing and griping on social media. The negative posts where someone didn’t get enough French fries on their plate. The posts condemning the school about not letting out over the threat of a sprinkle. There is only so much religious and political debates I can stand to read. I’ve about had my limit with those, and it is obviously taking a toll on my sociability.
I do think we are only about a week or so away from some parent of a senior going off on facebook about a rule concerning graduation. Tupelo’s graduation has always been some source of controversy concerning how they conduct the Pomp and Circumstance – or “pomp-less” circumstances. I remember when they started prohibiting anyone from clapping during the part where the student’s names were being called. It seems like I heard about that for a while. IF they even decide to have a graduation ceremony can you imagine the rules surrounding it? I would imagine we will need to produce a complete CBC, temperature check, and prove we have taken a round of antibiotics in order to reserve a seat.
Luckily for me, my senior doesn’t go to Tupelo. However, I still imagine that his school will figure out a way to remove the pomp as well as the circumstance. Now, don’t forget how this podcast started – I am in a weird mood lately and most of what you are about to hear, while it may be funny, it may take on a dark funny. I was smiling when I said that, by the way. I feel that while there doesn’t seem to be so much negative posts on Facebook lately – I would help out the situation and belly ache for a few minutes for your listening entertainment. However, before we cut from the intro to the next part – I want to use some reverse psychology on you. Now, I don’t want you sharing this podcast with any of your friends. I don’t want you sending me messages. I feel like if tell you not to do those things you will break your thumb hitting the share button and typing me a message. I don’t want to be responsible for that.
Part 1
I feel like any day now I am going to get a message that reads: The commencement ceremony for graduation is as follows:
1. You are not allowed to invite anyone except your immediate family. All of you who have stepparents will need to explain to them that only those involved in your birth are allowed in the building.
2. Your parents will be sequestered to an isolation booth where they will undergo disinfecting prior to you being called to receive your diploma. Please wear clothes that don’t easily stain because we can’t be responsible for any damages.
3. If you do not have a mask and gloves you will need to report to the school nurse for proper cross-contamination training and receive your PPE.
4. We will need for you to sign a waiver allowing us to broadcast your image via social media live feed and realize that due to the extreme pull on bandwidth we may need for you to walk slowly and hold your pose with the principal until we are certain your image isn’t distorted or pixelated.
5. Do not be alarmed by the HazMat team on site in case someone sneezes .
6. We will provide everyone with the ZOOM notification to watch the Valedictorian, Salutatorian, and Historian give their commencement speeches.
7. We will have social distancing monitors throughout the facility making sure that no one makes pictures without using landscape mode on their phones (that’s sideways – not up and down). Also, absolutely no cheek to cheek pictures with duck lips. We have instructed the Sheriff’s office to taze you and take you to jail if this is attempted. (Honestly, this would be great law to implement whether or not there is a pandemic.)
8. Do not, under any circumstances, congregate together and throw your hats into the air.
9. Any parent caught crying will be treated as a biological threat. Make sure you get it together now. Refer to number 5 above if you have any questions about the outcome of this.
10. There will be no clapping – we felt this was necessary to have some sort of normalcy to our new rules.
The one and only time I ventured away from home without my wife I was asked to go to the store for a few items. I did not enjoy having to do this. I felt like the kid in the winter that has so many coats on he can’t bend at the waist. I was told to wear my mask. I was told to wear my gloves. I was told to make sure I stayed at least 6 feet away from someone. Again, I didn’t want to do this. It’s not that I am afraid of catching anything. That is the least of my worries – I have gotten used to being at home and don’t want to go anywhere. I have absolutely enjoyed the shelter in place. However, the honey-do wasn’t going to do itself.
I arrived at the store. First, I couldn’t figure out the mask. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to tie the top strings over my ears or crisscross them in back. I just know that when I did tie them, they came loose. My left thumb when right through the glove as I was putting it on. I didn’t want to call my wife and tell her how silly I felt – because the only way I could get that silly mask to stay up was to twist it around the arms of my glasses then tie it in knot. I had to only use one hand because, like I said, my other glove was destroyed before I ever got out of the truck. There I am pushing the buggy with one hand – mostly trying to keep from going into circles. I figured it would be easier to pull the blasted thing since one of the wheels kept locking to the side. I was in the cooler section where the milk and eggs are and I was looking for a particular brand of milk that always get. There was a lady approaching my space and that made me nervous. I could barely understand her because her mask was too tight and she had one of those plastic shields attached to it. It almost looked like one that surgeons use. She was having a tough time because instead of surgical gloves it looked like she was wearing dishwashing gloves with a pair of those food service gloves over them. It looked as if it was extremely difficult hold anything.
I could hear her mumbling and I said, excuse me? She was complaining about having to wear all the garb (as she called it) and she had picked up some air freshener for her home and couldn’t open it and smell it. I mentioned that the names on the boxes were pretty close to accurate, but she was certain that without smelling it before she bought it wasn’t going to end well at home. Apparently, her husband has sensitive sinuses and if she changed scents it could cause him to have headaches. I about to tell her that I completely agree that it could because I have the same issues. Before I could say anything, she said it’s all in his head and she’d never heard of anything like that. She said he just doesn’t know what good smell is because he’s a man. So I said, well I can relate to being a man. She was manhandling one of those air fresheners trying to at least get to where she could try to smell it. She was putting the bottle down into the top of her mask and manipulating the part covering her nose to try and get sniffle. I had my milk so I was walking away and told her good luck.
About the time I turn to walk away I hear her sneeze. Like a scream and a sneeze and then another scream of OH MY GOD! I turned around and the inside of her mask was completely covered in spit and mucus. She was instantly blinded by her own snot. I assume by the upward direction of the spray that she managed to get her mask below her nose. One of the store employees heard the scream and had made his way over to where the commotion was. He had brought a mop and bucket and I’m still not sure why. He apparently had been in this situation before and knew how to cut corners. This poor lady is walking in circles begging for help and nobody was willing to get close enough to her. I thought about taking out my phone and recording it but I didn’t want to be that guy. She was screaming, “what am I gonna do? How am I gonna get home?” I was thinking that maybe when she got to the car she would think to pull off the mask. Well, she managed to pull off her mask and one of the employees had brought her a new one.
They treated the area like a chemical spill and I was impressed by that – and then someone said, “I saw on the news that the spray from a sneeze like that can travel 15 feet! That’s when folks started adjusting their masks and walking slowly away from her. The employee asked her if the items in her buggy was all she was getting and would help get them bagged so she could leave. I was standing far enough away but close enough they could hear me. I said, “ma’am if I were your I wouldn’t buy whatever fragrance that was that caused the explosion. I mean, it’s none of my business, but if it made you sneeze can you imagine what it’s going to do to your husband.”
That settles it – I’m never going back to the store – or anywhere else. I am going to remain home for the rest of year. I’ll see ya’ll in 2021.