We didn't go to bed until late (me 12, her 1), but had to get up before 4 to catch our 6 AM flight out of Manchester. Surprisingly, perhaps, it wasn't any more difficult to get there than to get to Logan from our house, despite it being 45 miles away in NH. Airport is much smaller, parking is much cheaper ($5 per day for long-term, $8 for short term, vs $8 and $18 at Logan). Traffic is less of a problem (although at 5 AM, nowhere has traffic). MHT (as well as Providence) is becoming more of a hub for Boston travelers, and airlines are using it more. Southwest is now at both, and others have increased their service.

Our trip was pretty nice. We stayed Th-Fr at her aunt and uncle's house in Brandon, about 20 minutes outside of Jackson. On Sa, aunt and mom drove us down to Waveland on the coast to visit dad and step-siblings (aunt and mom went antiquing and stayed at Holiday Inn), then drove back Sunday.

Her aunt and uncle are fairly well off, for the area, although they live fairly modestly. Aunt Clytice likes to take trips and talk about herself in the third person. Uncle Bub is pretty down to earth, too, and likes coon hunting (RACcoon, I learned) but without guns, and fishing. No kids, but they like them, and have often paid for plane tickets for Jackie or any of her cousins. They built their own home (well, mostly Bub did), have been married 48 years (72 and 66 yrs old), have 5 hunting dogs, subscribe(d) to Coon Hunters Magazine and another one with Coon in the title, are very friendly. Next door neighbor is a mobile home, since zoning laws weren't in force. Clytice has had troubles with one niece-in-law's name, although she's improving from "Brommalynn" to "Bromwin", but hasn't reached "Bronwyn" yet. She kept trying over the weekend, but couldn't get it. "What is it? Bronwyn? Anyway, so Bromwin is ..." Grandma also had this problem with the name. Funny quote from Granny Annie: "She's such a nice girl, but I don't like her name Brommaleen." Bub kept asking me questions about Pennsylvania like "do you have a lot of coal mines up there?" and "what high school did Joe Namath go to?" (Broadway Joe went to Beaver Falls before enrolling at 'Bama in 1963, and credits the Bear with toughening him up.)

Part of Thanksgiving supper (held at 2 PM) was turnip greens, which are not unlike what I envisioned stewed seaweed would be like. I put a couple small forkfuls on my plate, and someone brought attention to it, and soon everyone was looking at me waiting for my reaction. I pleaded shyness, and waited until eveyone was involved in conversation before tasting. It wasn't as salty as seaweed would be, a little more bitter, but otherwise like it, and I pushed the remaining bit to the far edge of my plate.

We also did the driving tour of Brandon. Big highlight was driving by Mary Ann Mobley's house (Miss America 1959, married the actor Gary Collins, who never appeared in anything I remember other than game shows and Night Gallery astral plane episodes).

Friday morning we did the driving tour of Jackson. Clytice was so proud of everything there, as well as in Brandon (pop 11073, but you should see how built up it's become). Neither the Amtrak nor the Greyhound station were very nice, although we did see one of those buses that has an ad over the whole side of the bus, including the windows. In the afternoon we drove up the Natchez (pronounced NATCH-izz) Trace, which would have been really pretty a few weeks before when all the leaves were still on the trees, and stopped in Sallis, where mom and aunt and family grew up and a lot of Robertsons still live. On the way, we saw a lot of places that are stereotypically Mississippi: rotted houses, overgrown front porches, broken down cars, outhouses, dirt. I was actually kind of happy at that, since I felt like my trip was more complete. The cemetery that Granny Annie was buried at was full of Robertsons. The slave graveyard was back behind the white folks' one, and mom confirmed that the family had once owned slaves. Her ancestors were among the first five families in that part of Mississippi back in about 1830. The family still owns a lot of property up that way, and it seemed that every house was owned by some or other relative. We dropped in on Aunt Dee and Uncle Jean, about 80 years old but still living in their old home. They were a cute old couple. Then we headed from there to the DU-rant football game, where her cousin Danny took over the reins as head football coach of the high school after his daddy Homer "Cotton" Robertson died a couple years ago. Durant has 42 kids in their senior class, 194 in the school, but was 11-1 and challenging yet again for the title in Gillespie-Robertson Stadium. The other team was much bigger but still in the same class (1A, five classes total, but there were no B's that I could find). Durant went done by 2 touchdowns with 2 1/2 minutes to go, but the 5'6" tailback returned the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown, and two plays later, an ill-advised bomb was picked off, and Durant had one final chance from their 35, but couldn't get the first down and lost. It was actually pretty fun to watch, and disappointing at the end. School is mostly black and poor. The school didn't even have a marching band. The other team brought a huge band and a lot of fans, and three of their players did double duty and marched at halftime.

Everybody seemed to have their Xmas decorations up by Friday. We drove through the small town of Canton on the way home from the game, and their town square was brilliantly illuminated and decorated. "Oh, how BEAUTIFUL," said Clytice. She would also point out almost every notable decoration she saw.

Clytice and mom (Linda) drove us down to the Gulf in the morning and dropped us off at the Bourgeois (pronounced BOOH-zhwah by dad) family house in Waveland. The previous wooden house had been damaged by Camille in the late 60s and hadn't been inhabited since. Instead, the red brick vintage 1970s house was built and serves now as a vacation residence. My God, it was so 70s inside, even down to the 8 track player. Wood paneling, fuzzy (not shag) carpeting, plywood paneling (plywood is usually made of softwood, always has an odd number of sheets, is made in a process not unlike apple peeling), wood paneled TV, and kitchen appliances from the 70s. The house was about 1/2 mile from the Gulf, wasn't damaged much by the hurricane earlier this year partly because it was at about 9 o’clock in the storm and the winds came from inland and didn't do as much damage as those at 3 o’clock that came from the sea. Our Mississippi office is located just down the road in Long Beach, which we drove through that evening on the way to the casino.

Ja hadn't seen her two half-siblings in a while, and took a minute to remember that Elliott was in 11th grade and Claire in 7th. We all went to the beach, caught some frisbee, and even played hot box until Jackie hurt her hand, which she was convinced was broken but wasn't even swollen the next day. Then we drove to the Grand Casino (GND) in Gulfport. Standard casino, lots of bells and lights going off every time someone won a nickel, and a big inexpensive good buffet. We all pigged out there, then we dropped the kids off in the arcade while we gambled. I lost $30 at the blackjack table, victim of lots of bad luck (I would have still lost $30 with good luck probably, but it would have taken me a lot longer). Examples: first two hands, I got 20, but dealer also got 20. Twice got aces first but no face card second. Got 11 on first two cards twice (which would have enabled me to "double down," a good bet in some circumstances), but once the dealer got blackjack and the other time had a face card showing. Dad Fred was up $10 early on $1 slots, then lost that plus the original $20 just as quickly, and we all retired to nickel slots for the rest of the evening. I didn't even get much of a thrill from those, since the payoffs and risks were so low. Plus, all the slots are computer controlled, so it seems like whether you win or lose is pre-determined by the casino, rather than being just probabilistic as far as anyone can tell. Anyway, we played for a while, checked on the kids in the arcade, then Fred decided he wanted to play some more, so we went back. My big win was $12 on a 15 cent bet. While I was cashing in, I noticed a woman who seconds before had won $500 or $1000 on a $1.25 bet. So, I put $2 back into the $1 slots, leaving me $24 down for the evening.

We all retired to the house and watched the somewhat violent "The Negotiator" with Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey doing pretty well, pretty entertaining movie, but probably not appropriate for a 13 year old.

I enjoyed the weekend. I enjoy hanging out with other people's families. I suppose the peculiarities of them seem cute instead of irritating. Aunt Clytice insisted we leave at about 8 AM from Gulfport for the 3 hour ride back to Brandon so we could leave at 2 for the 25 minute trip to the small airport so we could make our 3:38 flight, then when it got to be about 3:15, she became very nervous that we were going to miss our flight so we had to leave them at the X-ray machine and head to our gate.