New Orleans      Mississippi has many problems as one of the poorest and reddest of American states.  Of course, there’s the constant battle to offset its well-deserved bad reputation that predated the Civil Rights movement, which exposed its draconian racial reputation internationally.  Recent advantages in youth education still couldn’t get as many headlines as its welfare scandal which robbed the poor of benefits for self-dealing and volleyball courts.  I spend time in Mississippi and always have.  My mother and her brothers were raised in the Sunflower County in the heart of the delta.  Admittedly, I have a soft spot for the state, even as I still work to pay their debts as much as I can.

I couldn’t resist reading about how Mississippi has suddenly gone dry.  Mind me, not the river, but the state, because of the inability to get wine and liquor out of its warehouse near Jackson to all of the booze outlets around the state.

Not that this is the first time the state has been at least publicly dry.  Prohibition hung on in the state until 1966, but bootleggers were well-known and regaled in every county.  I can remember over a Thanksgiving visit to my grandmother’s house, listening to my dad and my uncles planning a visit before all of the adults were going to drive to Jackson to see an Ole Miss game in the early 60’s, even before Drew’s own Archie Manning make the team legendary in the late years of the decade.  Maybe Mississippi was the last to leave Prohibition, but is in good company with 17 other states in handling the warehousing and distribution of wine and liquor, and that’s where they have run that well dry.

The state warehouse near Jackson is older and not in tiptop modern shape by any stretch of the imagination.  The powers that be brought in a private company to run the operation, Des Moines-based Ruan, long a major trucking company in the Midwest, now having expanded into logistics and distribution.  Contrary to promises and expectations, a break earlier this year ostensibly for inventory purposes was also intended to install a new computer system, but it didn’t mesh with the old system, creating this set of chokeholds on delivery to stores around the state.  Supposedly there are 144,000 cases of hootch stuck in the warehouse.  Some stores can get some deliveries, some get none, and others get deliveries that are both late and wrong.  Some outlets in the boonies have closed, especially those that couldn’t deliver the half-pints that some of their more faithful customers depended on daily, even while the high-end stuff is getting dust still sitting on their shelves.  Suddenly, you can get Red Breast Irish Whiskey, but not Taaka vodka.

The Mississippi legislature had held hearings on this issue.  Gulf Coast establishments couldn’t get supplies during Mardi Gras.  I now understand why there’s been more traffic on I-10 heading into Slidell, Louisiana.  Likely, there’s a bit of road tripping to neighboring waterholes in Texas and Arkansas as well to supply the tonic to wet the whistles of these parched throats.

What’s the world coming to now!  Don’t belly up to the bar in Mississippi until the solve this problem.  As Nanci Griffith famously sang in another context, “Come on Up, Mississippi!”