Ten Years in Mississippi

This week marks a very important anniversary for the Colonel and his Lady.  It was ten years ago, this week, that they closed on the sale of their home in Florida and closed on the purchase of the sweetest plot of land on the planet.

What makes it so sweet?

Well, for starters, it belongs to the Colonel and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda.  That makes it special all by itself.

They put their names on the place.  They call their little slice of heaven on earth, situated at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere, Egeebeegee.

Nope.  That's not an Anglicized spelling of a word in the language of the former temporary tenants on the land.  

There might be more of a nod than not to the fierce Chickasaws, who displaced the mound-building Mississippians, who themselves displaced some other previous temporary tenants.  But, the name Egeebeegee has no real indigenous roots.  

It's just the Colonel's and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's initials -- spelled somewhat phonetically.

The Colonel stresses the word "somewhat" because he believes several of his former English teachers surveil posts hereon and he hopes that qualifier will insulate him from the heat of their correction in case he has used the word "phonetically" incorrectly or has used passive voice when he should be using active voice or is failing to punctuate correctly or is abusing conjunctions and gerunds or is Faulknerizing his writing with run-on sentences that stretch for pages and cover more information in a single sentence, while the sun arcs slowly to rest, than most writers pen into a plethora of paragraphs, and, with no thought of the payment for the crime, breaks rules set down by ancestral English teachers, whose authority, like the passage of minutes on a clock whose keeper is a monk with the sole job of winding the clock, is unquestioned, even by the most questioning soul on his journey under that arcing sun, measuring his steps in cadence with the clock whose monk never fails to rise with the sun and attend to his clock-winding duty, and...           
(There, that should keep Mrs. Corbett busy for a while!)

This week, the Colonel and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda have been reminiscing regarding the changes they've seen aboard Egeebeegee since their arrival.  Ten years in one place is an amazing achievement for a couple who together and between them have nearly three score domiciliary stops on this globe before coming to rest at long last here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.  

In ten year's time, one can actually watch a tree grow -- amazing!

In ten year's time, one can mark the seasonal arcs of the sun, by the same landmark, enough times to finally prove the theory.

In ten year's time, acquaintances can become friends.

In ten year's time, an abode can become home.

In ten year's time, one can accumulate, without worry that one's accumulation will exceed the limits on one's PCS orders.

In ten year's time, one can build, repair, (note Oxford comma -- and it ain't the Tuscaloosa comma for good reason) and rebuild the bridge across the stream that divides the Colonel's vast holdings in half. 

In ten year's time, one can plant, and feast on the fruit of, an orchard.  

So, here's to the Colonel's ten years in Mississippi.  Ten more, please.