It’s not often in the small-town American South that you have dinner at a restaurant and overhear a foreign language or accent.

But that’s exactly what happened a couple of weeks ago over dinner at Anchuca.

The table behind my husband and I were speaking in an accent that caught my attention. As my eldest sister married a British man and lives about 30 miles north of London, the familiar and soft English accents bent my ear. It was fun to ask them what part of England they came from and their impressions of our town, what surprised them and what they enjoyed most. The two were music lovers and enjoyed hearing blues at local spots downtown that routinely play music like The Biscuit Company, Cottonwood and 10 South.

The same has happened at Mainstreet Market and Walnut Hills as tourists peruse our town and stop to enjoy some of our local cafes and eateries in between museum, church, military park and antebellum home tours.

We ran into a German family on another outing whose father is stationed in Vicksburg at ERDC. His wife and 8-year-old son still live in Germany but were in town visiting, and the child quickly took a liking to my husband’s 1985 CJ7 Jeep that originally belonged to his grandfather.

The jeep is missing its doors and has a top and windshield that can be let down, and was fascinating to someone who lives in a country that doesn’t allow vehicles like that to be driven on public roads.

How neat to live in a community that affords its residents the opportunity to be exposed to so many different cultures while still enjoying the charm of small-town life.

 

Catherine Boone Hadaway is publisher of The Vicksburg Post. She can be reached at catherine.hadaway@vicksburgpost.com.