A Hoosier Gazette Study: Is Indiana really that alike Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee?

Here at the Hoosier Gazette, we like to do more than just report on humorous news. Our main goal is to provide a public service—to keep our fellow Hoosiers informed on all pertinent issues. With that in mind, our staff decided to venture outside the state to gain a better perspective on Indiana.

Our staff debated long and hard on what location would best benefit our readers. Should we stick to the Midwest? Do we need to stay in the state and highlight a particular region? Should we head East? In the end, it was determined our readers would be best served by exploring a place that most resembles our own. Our destination:

More to the point the Delta region of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Those states were chosen because they are the kissing cousins of our fair state. Indiana is forever linked with these states at the bottom of all the usual statistical rankings. Our state and these three are always bringing up the rear in education, health, literacy, smoking, and obesity. Just about every negative category that is kept track of contains these four states at the bottom. Yeah, occasionally you might throw in a wild card, but these four states are interchangeable as the bottom feeders of many rankings.

So just like the Wildboyz, we traveled far from Indiana to investigate and probe the Mid-South. This was certainly a region that must be studied.

On Friday we set up base camp in beautiful downtown Memphis. Memphis is the capital of the Tri-State Delta area, so it was only logical to base our studies on Front Street.

Boy, did this turn out to be a wise decision. Within walking distance was a great place to take in Dirty South living: Beale Street. Beale Street was a favorite of the THG staff. It resembled Bourbon Street, minus the filth. Sure, Indiana has nice little entertainment districts like Broad Ripple and Kirkwood Avenue, but they can’t compare to Beale. To start, the street performers were much more interesting. The mass of people in the street parted like the Red Sea to watch two very talented young men performing somersaults and flips down the street. They accomplished this at such blinding speed, I’m not sure I cold run as fast as they were flipping. That sure beats some hippie playing the bongos outside of a bar back in Indiana.

Another definite plus is the food. Memphis is known as the pulled pork capital of the world. A lot of pretenders lay claim to this title, but after having visited them all, we concur Memphis is in a league of its own. We visited a local favorite, Rendezvous, to find out what Memphis barbeque was all about. Even though it was located in an alley downtown, this restaurant had some of the most delectable swine these lips have ever tasted. As a matter of fact, the entire downtown was permeated by the smell of barbeque, and that is a good thing. Unless of course you’re on the Deal-A-meal diet like several of our contingent were, but that’s a story for another time.

Another unique feature of the bar scene on Beale is what I can only describe as a goat pen. That’s right, a goat pen located on the patio of a local bar. When we first arrived I was shocked at how fat these two lucky goats occupying the pen were. I naively wondered to myself, “How could a goat get so fat?” That was of course after I wondered what in the Sam hell two goats were doing at a bar. We decided to explore further and immediately headed for the patio. Much to our delight, a local college formal had let out, and many of the better looking ones had congregated on the goat patio. If that wasn’t enough entertainment, the goats provided even more. Apparently, in the infinite wisdom of the bar owners, they decided to build a large tower that the goats could climb at their pleasure. There was something weird about sitting on a patio, drinking beer, and looking at a goat perched 30 feet above you in a large tower.

It was here in my studies that I realized that the Delta region had much to offer, negative connotations be damned. It was here that it dawned on me: what more could you ask for? You've got hot Southern Belles dancing in front of you, goats downing beer (that’s how they got so fat, they love beer!), a excellent live band (it puts to shame the no-talent-having jerkies I’m used to seeing play bars in Indiana), and to top it off, everything smelled like barbeque. From these factors, the staff concurred that Memphis was definitely a great place, one which we would recommend to anyone.

As for the other two states, Mississippi and Arkansas, a significant lower amount of time was spent studying these areas.

We did explore Ole Miss on Saturday. I was really let down by their campus and football stadium. At Vaught-Hemingway Stadium we took in Grove Bowl 2005, better known in the north as the spring game. After having visited the University of Alabama several years ago, I must say Ole Miss was definitely a let down. To begin, for a SEC school, their stadium was very plain. It was no Bryant-Deny Stadium. Further, we were unable afterwards to locate any strip that contained bars or restaurants. That’s a definite mark down on the ol’ scorecard. No student was able to steer us in the right direction; we were thus forced to eat at Taco Bell. The one positive aspect of Oxford was the plethora of attractive coeds running around. When conducting studies of geographic locations, this fact can overcome many, many negatives.

The study concentrated the shortest amount of time in Arkansas. It was actually limited to driving through about 80 miles of eastern Arkansas. We did make a genuine attempt to find something to do in this part of the state. Our first contact with a native of the area was a rest stop. There, the tourism official on duty had few positive things to say about this part of the state. When we were informed that most of the cool things to do were about a six hour drive across the state, we determined it was unproductive to stay for very long, especially when we knew world class barbeque was close by (it keeps coming back to the barbeque). There were two positive things about the state, though: a rather impressive dog track in West Memphis, and the truck stop we went to had a great selection of trucker hats with funny sayings on them.

In conclusion, our studies determined it’s not hard to figure out why our state is linked with these three. Many of the same characteristics we have in Indiana-- large rural areas, agricultural background, chain smoking, and unhealthy eating—were present in the Delta. This was a positive because we felt like we hadn’t left home. Indiana is described as being the “Mississippi of the North.” Our study concluded that this was for good reason, but that’s not such a bad thing as some would have you believe. We just need to import the barbeque and some of those Southern belles up north.

Tee League To Teen Age is must reading for anyone that spends time at the ball park. Baseball is the great American past-time, and more youngsters participate than in any other organized sport. Parents with first-time players will find this book especially useful as they are exposed to the world of little league baseball or softball. Basic information on the game itself is covered, as are useful tips to help your child adjust to team sports. Rules and regulations, parental expectations, coaches conduct, equipment, practice drills and more are included in this valuable tool for interested parents.

"Tee League to Teen Age is a handbook for beginning baseball. Wonderful insights and concepts. Read this book to learn the do's and don'ts of baseball whether you're a player, a parent, or a coach." --Walt Terrell, former major league pitcher

Click here to order