Wilkinson County, Mississippi, is a beautiful part of Flyover Country. Bounded on the west by the Mississippi River, its alluvial soil is incredibly fertile. Trees grow fast here, providing the lumber industry with an endless supply of hardwood timber.
Wilkinson County is the last place one would expect to find a strip club--much less a strip club where the dancers are both topless and bottomless. Yet, until recently, Illusions, a gentlemen's club, did a thriving business on Highway 61, just outside the Woodville city limits.
According to local lore, investors in the club circulated a petition in support of an application for a resort license, which would allow the establishment to sell alcohol. Imagine the townspeople's surprise when they discovered that their signatures had paved the way for commercial nudity!
Several sources confirm that one of Illusion's strippers had a prosthetic leg, which gave her pole dances an especially exotic appeal. Did she do lap dances? No one I talked with has given me a definitive answer.
Not surprisingly, Woodville's religious leaders were scandalized. I am told that a Protestant preacher read the names of people who signed the petition in support of the new business, which included several church deacons. A Pentecostal group picketed the club for a time, apparently without discouraging its customers.
The East Coast elites are contemptuous of Flyover Country, which they consider to be a wasteland of Trump supporters and utterly devoid of culture. But they are wrong.
Woodville has its own brand of diversity, encompassing diversity of race, diversity of religion, and diversity of culture. Lake Mary, where I live, is home to some of the world's most beautiful waterbirds, including white ibises, wood storks, green herons, snowy egrets, and many more.
Illusions closed before I had the opportunity to see the Pentecostal pickets or the one-legged stripper. Yesterday, however, I spotted a bald eagle while driving along Route 24 west of Woodville. The majestic bird was on the wing, fending off an aerial attack by crows. Yes, according to the Audubon website, crows are known for harassing bald eagles.
I once lived in Greater Boston, the epicenter of East Coast snobbery and elitism. I attended Harvard to get a doctorate and often walked the streets around Harvard Square.
I expected Harvard to be a glittering intellectual Camelot, which would open new vistas of opportunity for me. I was surprised by the grubbiness of the neighborhoods around the university and the town of Boston in general. I was shocked by the provincial perspective of most Bostonians, who seemed to prefer a leftist political viewpoint to independent thought.
How impoverished are the lives of the Bostonians! I'll bet most of them have never seen a one-legged pole dancer or a majestic eagle fighting off crows over the hardwood forests of the lower Mississippi Valley.
I pity the coastal dwellers who disparage Flyover Country; they may never know the richness of life in the real America.
