Vicksburg, MS - Strike Up the Band

Hey, it’s Veterans Day and time for a parade. We heard on TV that the parade started at 10:30 and we were there along with - no one else. We parked a few blocks before the beginning of the route and passed by the bands lining up, the drum corps practicing and the cars with all the dignitaries lined up ready to go. As we walked down the parade route, we saw no one, no one lined up, no chairs saving spots for anyone and no one walking towards the route. Oh, no, what if they gave a parade and no one came? We saw a local policeman and asked - ‘Oh no’, he said, ‘it starts at 11:00, you’ll see lots of people.’

And, as the time drew near, people started appearing, the day care kids all in a line holding hands, the old vets with their wives and - other tourists, like us.

Then we walked to the river to see the murals that covered the cement walls along the river, to protect from another flood like the flood of 2011. The murals depicted the history of Vicksburg.

Here’s a poster of Reverend Newit Vick, a Methodist minister who had a plantation in the area. He was the first Methodist minister in this area and, before he died of Yellow Fever in 1819 he purchased 612 acres which he subdivided into town lots..

Here’s Teddy Roosevelt who always wanted to shoot a bear. He was on a hunt in the area but was unsuccessful until the leader of the hunt, found a bear, tied it to a tree and told Roosevelt he could shoot it. Oh, yeah, not Teddy. And guess what is named after this incident?

Here’s a poster about how they got railroads across the river before bridges had been built, tracks out to the river, onto a riverboat which crossed the river and deposited the train onto the tracks on the other side.

But the last and most telling of the waterfront ‘murals’ is this one showing the depth of the river during various floods. Note how far above the water we are standing when we took this picture.

The river is so nice to just watch, so much is happening on it, so much to see: barges, paddle wheelers (do you think that the paddlewheel moves this boat?)

We saw a neat diagram showing how much the river has changed over the course of 250+ years. No wonder bridge and levee engineers have a hard time.

No wonder bridge and levee engineers have a hard time. And, we saw some of the tools they used to engineer its path. Hey, this is the same slide rule I had in college when I was an engineer.

We stopped at a donut shop on the way back to the RV and noticed this sign. Seems that there was a group of ‘regulars’ that cursed a lot. The owner warned them, the manager warned them but it was such a part of their speech that they couldn’t stop cursing for long and - got kicked out.