Stories of the South - Kings Store Revisited

I love Mrs. Mildred King Lavender's store. This is another Highway 388 gem and I love it. It's so darn photogenic. The blues, reds, rust, it's just screams "The South." Mrs. Mildred's store has been closed for some time, but I keep my horses right down the road at her place and we've become buddies. She's a spry 85 and we sit out on her back porch and talk and talk and talk. She reminds me of my great grandmother and has the most awesome outlook on life. She doesn't sugar coat things, speaks her mind, and lives by herself 20 miles from town. She has to have a little help with the housework, but still does all her own cooking and cans when she has help to close the jars. She is a wonderful lady and it has been my pleasure to get to know her.

Her husband was in the Air Force and when they moved back to Noxubee County he was a diesel mechanic teacher at the local community college and farmed and she ran the store.

Older people have so much to tell us and teach us if we will just listen. If you have the opportunity to make the acquaintance of someone like Mrs. Mildred please do. You never know what you will learn.