Longklaw.com

As many of you know, I grew up in Mississippi and lived there pretty much all my life until 6.5 years ago, the exceptions being 15 months in New Orleans and a summer in Ohio.

I went to college in 1997, around the time the Internet was starting to take off. The summer before college, I would go one of the local libraries just to get online for a little while. At some point while in was an undergrad, I discovered IRC. I had barely been outside of the South, but I was able to chat with people everywhere. My favorite chat room (weren’t they called channels?) was one dedicated to pro wrestling.  I was a big fan at the time. If I were still a big fan, I’d probably have a wrestling podcast or at least listen to wrestling podcasts.  This particular chat room was mostly a guy named Sean and his friends in Walla Walla, Washington.  And me.  But most of the time it Sean and his close friend whose name I can’t remember and me along with the occasional stranger who popped in.  [I just listened to some audio files Sean recorded and sent me dated April and May 2000. One had a reference to an incident involving a user named after the Pokemon Psyduck.  You have to have been there, but  it’s why I still like Psyduck to this day].

We had fun chatting about wrestling and whatever else popped up in our mind.  I guess Sean was my first online friend.  In the social media age, I’ve made so many online friends.  I’ve met many of then, planned vacations with them, stayed in their houses, etc.  I never got to meet any of those guys.  At that time the Pacific Northwest might as well have been Australia in terms of distance and the idea of meeting someone from a chat room probably would have been weird to me.

Sometimes they would joke about Walla Walla and how the only thing Walla Walla is known for are its sweet onions.  Here in the Portland area, I see Walla Walla sweet onions in the grocery stores.  Maybe you can find them all over the world, but I never noticed them until I moved here.  Whenever I see them, I think about that chat room I used to hang out in about 20 years ago. I wonder that happened to those guys.  We lost touch at some point.  I wonder if they’re still living in the PNW.

Here’s Sean doing the DX “suck it” sign [a wrestling thing].  Look at that fine picture quality.

Three weeks ago, I was in my home state of Mississippi. I hadn’t been in Mississippi since December 2012, about 2.5 years earlier. It was past time.

I was there from June 3-7. I had planned on going to Mississippi for Super Bulldog Weekend in April. However, a high school classmate of mine passed away in January and a group of students decided to have a multi-year class reunion to commemorate those who we have lost. The span of years represented kept growing as time went on. In the end I think 11 years were represented.

I stayed with my friend John and his partner while I was there. I arrived on Wednesday night after a decent amount of time traveling. I didn’t have to leave early in the morning this time, which was good. Once I got to John’s we went to bed shortly afterward.

On Thursday, I met John and one of his co-workers for lunch. Afterwards, I drove around the Jackson area for a while. I drove past my old high school, went by my mom’s house (she’s in Georgia now), and went to my favorite Dairy Queen for some ice cream. I was a little disappointed not to see my favorite DQ employee who worked there for so longm even after I moved away. After ice cream, I went shopping. I got some Target clearance cloths, one of which was a shirt that I wore to the reunion. I also used a Best Buy gift card to buy a video game named Catherine for John. When John got off work, we went to his gym to go the one of the classes there. I think later that night we played that video game and watched Buffy. Buffy might have been the next night.

On Friday, John had to get his car fixed. We got some breakfast, but John slept a good bit of the day and I did some more sight-seeing. That night we went to a comedy show in Jackson. There were a lot of racist, homophobic jokes, which is okay if you’re funny. These guys weren’t that funny. We played the video game some more that night.

I don’t remember what happened during the day Saturday, but that night John and his partner went to see Mad Max while I went to my reunion. I had a great time at the reunion. It was more fun than I expected. It was great seeing people that I hadn’t seen in 18 years, though I keep up with some through Facebook. Some people have changed a lot, some not so much at all. A lot of people told me I looked exactly the same. Once I left, I went back to John’s for breakfast at dinner. We played that game until 7 am the next morning. We almost beat it. I just wanted to get some sleep before my flight.

I think I got about 3-4 hours of sleep before I left for the airport. I said my goodbyes to John and was off. After I left I got a text saying my flight was delayed an hour, so I could’ve gotten more sleep if I had known sooner. After a layover in Charlotte, I arrived home that night after a long flight.

The trip to Jackson was short, but great. I came back 4.4 lbs heavier. Ouch. The following week in the gym was rough. I hope it’s not as long before I’m in my home state again.