October 19, 2012. Jackson, Mississippi. Ridgeland.

To be truly accurate, Ken and I live in Ridgeland, just on the north side of Jackson.   You would be hard pressed to know one place from the other, but in times past, the towns were totally separated by farms and fields.   If you read The Help,  the new large home where the young couple lived and whose wife was not accepted by The Junior League, you would recall that their house was all by itself,  in a brand new area called Ridgeland.  That was 1962.  Now it has grown and grown and grown so nothing separates Ridgeland from Jackson, except the sign, that says Welcome to Ridgeland.  

And we live in a different county than Andrew and Christina too.  We live in Madison County while they live in Hines County.  Just north of us is the town of Madison, which has the prettiest court house in the land.  Madison is an old town with a lot of history while Ridgeland was built in the latter part of the 20th Century.   Of course, Madison was burned during the War Between the States, but not all the old houses were burned, which has a story all it's own.

I am reading a book written by writers from the WPA and published in 1939, which gives driving tours in Mississippi.  It is a fascinating look at the Mississippi of that time.  They always use the term The War Between The States and never The Civil War.   The other term you hear is The War of Northern Aggression.   It seems that there was nothing civil about that war.   But here in Ridgeland, on the shore of The Reservoir,  everyone is civil and pleasant and we feel right at home.