First impressions upon returning to McComb and Mississippi as a home-owning, tax-paying, gun-toting (isn’t that legal in the state now?), yard-mowing, restaurant-visiting, funeral-going citizen:
As we all know, the first view of visitors upon entering our hometown — or any town — is of the city streets, and the scene here is not a pretty one. McComb truly has some streets that are in the worst of conditions, rivaling only Jackson’s as the city in the state with the most rugged thoroughfares.
The worst and most embarrassing intersection in McComb has to be where Seventh Street and Virginia Avenue meet at McComb High School. The students and faculty deserve better.
There must not have been an overlay of that confluence since my classmates and I roamed those environs until the spring of 1965. (I can just imagine that some former city street worker or selectman is furiously digging into records to refute my claim, but they’ll never make me believe it.)
A project to reclaim all of McComb’s worst streets would require a tax assessment of epic proportions. We the people would never stand for it. And the Whitney Rawlings administration cannot be blamed for even one pothole in McComb. They are leading a revival to repair the worst streets. This fiasco can be blamed totally on the numerous administrations before this one.
Someone in a past administration couldn’t spell, either. At the northeast and northwest corners of Peach and Minnesota avenues, the latter is misspelled in the blue marking in the concrete on both corners.
City employees have continued their splendid maintenance of Hollywood Cemetery. I doubt there is another cemetery in this state in such fine shape.
Former Gov. Haley Barbour is the only Republican I’m aware of to come out so publicly for governments to “begin investing again in transportation infrastructure in many modes, including highways, bridges and ports.” Barbour said the projects are “going to require major expenditures by the federal government and by the state government and by the private sector.” This is not a novel idea.
I hear that the trophy given to the 1963 McComb team for winning the State Babe Ruth Baseball championship has been misplaced. When recovered, please turn it over to the league-sponsoring McComb Rotary Club for safekeeping.
This town has some outstanding charitable, non-profit, volunteer-led organizations. One is the PALS group, which rescues and shelters animals. The Railroad Museum group, led by the dedicated Winnie Len Howell, also does yeoman’s work in maintaining the rich heritage of this railroad town.
McComb people care deeply for one another. In just a few months, I have attended a half dozen wakes and funerals at various venues, and the citizens of this town have responded tremendously with a lot of love for the families and friends of the departed. I’m going to take writer’s privilege here and thank everyone for turning out to help my sister Carolyn through the recent death of her beloved husband, Clif “Bud” Boyd, an all-around good guy, the man in the hat.
Mac Gordon is a McComb native and retired newspaper reporter. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
