July 8, 2009 Mobile, AL; Moss Point, MS; Pascagoula, MS; Gulfport, MS; Memphis, TN

After checking out of the hotel, I drove to Dick Russell's Bar-B-Que in Tillman's Corner for breakfast, then headed west out I-10 to Escatawpa. In Moss Point, I stopped by Misty's Urban Apparel, and then by Byrd's Music, where Mr. Byrd told me that he had had to add a deli to his music store to stay open, and that if it weren't for the food he was selling, he probably would have had to close. I then drove over to a new record store on Chicot in Pascagoula called Rebel Muzik, and spent some time with the owners there, putting up some of my posters and talking with them about their projects. I suggested that somebody needs to make a movie about Pascagoula and Moss Point in the early 90's during the Carver Village era, and they told me they had been talking about doing that. But Carver Village was gone, I learned, as I drove down Mobile Avenue. All of the projects have been torn down since Hurricane Katrina and replaced with housing for the elderly. Ocean Springs seemed prettier that it used to be, and the old Biloxi restaurant McElroy's Harbor House had relocated to a nice waterfront setting at the approach to the Biloxi bridge. Biloxi is beginning to look like Atlantic City these days, with a new Margaritaville casino under construction almost next door to the Hard Rock Casino, but as I headed westward past Edgewater Mall, the weather turned grey and threatening. By the time I got to Lil Ray's Po-Boys on Courthouse Road in Gulfport, the rains came with a fury, and I got drenched to the bone. But a Lil Ray's shrimp po-boy and Barq's root beer brought comfort and memories, and the food was every bit as good as it had been in my childhood. Gulfport's hip-hop store Da Shop on 34th wasn't open, and neither was Fox Hollow Coffee (it was out of business), so I drove downtown to PJ's Coffee of New Orleans on 13th, where I grabbed a latte before starting the long drive back to Memphis.