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Greenwood and nephew of the late Sen. James O. Eastland of Mississippi, staunch defender of the Old South dur- ing his many decades in Washington. Hiram, 60, seemed to know everyone in the state, an accomplishment made eas- ier than it sounds, he explained, since tens of thousands of them show up in Oxford whenever the University of Mis- sissippi plays a home football game. They pitch tents in the Grove, a wood- ed area in the middle of campus, set up bars and sumptuous buffets, hire their own live entertainment, and basically turn the occasion into a giant reunion. The partying continues until game time and, win or lose, resumes afterward, frequently lasting late into the night. “You’ve got to see it to believe it,” said
Eastland, an Ole Miss grad, who soon had me persuaded to join him, his fam- ily and friends for a football weekend Mississippi-style. So here I am. When I arrive in Ox-
ford, it’s just getting dark. Hiram’s wife, Gail, and her sister Debbie are waiting for me in front of Abner’s, a fried-chick- en landmark already crowded with customers placing carryout orders for tomorrow’s game. The plan is to ren- dezvous with Eastland, then go to a party at a friend’s house near campus. On the way, I get a chance to take in some of the sights as we drive down tree-lined streets, past columned man- sions and the old county courthouse in the town square with its stone statue of a Confederate soldier. Named after the university city in
England, Oxford (population just over 19,000) is so much a part of Ole Miss it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Oxford also occupies a unique place in American literary his- tory. William Faulkner lived here for most of his life, using the town as a set- ting for many of his novels and short stories. Willie Morris, whose own work explores the strange hold his native state has on Mississippians, wrote that Faulkner’s “physical and emotional fi- delity to Oxford … was at the core of his being, so that today Oxford [is] the most tangibly connected to one writer’s soul of any locale in America.” In addition to Morris, who lived here for years before his death in 1999, the
town has been home to dozens of au- thors, including John Grisham, Barry Hannah, Larry Brown and Richard Ford. But Faulkner (1897-1962) was — and is — such an enduring presence that people talk about him as if he were still around. He attended Ole Miss for three semesters, dropping out in 1920 to embark on a writing career that earned him the Nobel Prize for Litera- ture 29 years later. Today, Faulkner might have a hard
time recognizing his home town. Square Books occupies the old drugstore build- ing across from the courthouse. The Lyric Theatre, where the film version of his novel “Intruder in the Dust” premiered in 1949, now hosts rock concerts. Once the bustling hub of Mis- sissippi’s cotton industry, Oxford has become a trendy tourist destination known for its art galleries, shops and chef-owned restaurants, such as City Grocery, that specialize in reconstruct- ed regional dishes. One thing that hasn’t changed, how-
ever, is the devotion to Ole Miss football, such a major fall attraction that many alumni buy second homes in the area just to use on game weekends. “Prices have gone through the roof,” Gail says. The party, hosted by Jimbo and
Peggy Adams, is well underway by the time we get there. A spread of food and drinks extends from the kitchen into the hallway. The Adams and their guests are all loyal Ole Miss fans, and everyone is talking about the Alabama game until Eastland mentions he’s bringing his friend James Meredith. The two have been close since meeting a few years back. “James is a big Ole Miss fan,” he says. Which might come as a surprise to some. In the fall of 1962, Meredith was the first black student to enroll at the university. The rioting that followed fo- cused the nation’s attention on Oxford. Most of the partygoers at the Adamses’, teenagers at the time, have vivid memo- ries of what happened. “It was outsiders that caused the
trouble, not students,” insists John- nie Freeman from Greenwood. Others agree. Two people were killed and scores injured before President John F. Ken- nedy called out the National Guard to restore order. More than 10,000 troops
32 The WashingTon PosT Magazine | september 12, 2010
turned Oxford into an armed camp in what one news report called “the great- est crisis the South has faced since the Civil War.” Wilbur Abernathy, an Oxford busi-
nessman, remembers a friend of his taking home an unexploded tear gas canister he found on the campus. “He started playing around with it in his bed- room one day, and the darn thing went off. Years later, he told me, you could still smell tear gas on some of his books.”
■
After dinner, Eastland and I are off to sample Oxford nightlife. Outside the Lyric Theatre, we run into Johnnie Freeman and his wife, Leslie, from the party, and the four us follow the crowds along Van Buren Avenue. On Friday nights before Ole Miss home games, Oxford’s courthouse square becomes a mini-New Orleans. By 9 o’clock, the sidewalks are filled with students and alums. Sorority girls in cocktail dress- es and high heels stroll from bar to bar, while frat brothers whoop it up in front of Proud Larry’s, Rooster’s and other noisy hangouts. Later, a few of the more literary types will be visiting nearby St. Peter’s Cemetery, where spilling a shot of bourbon on Faulkner’s grave is
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