Hit the Road Jack

In 1986, I drove in a Lincoln Continental up the Mississippi River delta leaving from New Orleans. I planned to see the mighty river close up. After all, I’ve read a lot of German translation of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain as a teenager growing up in Switzerland, and listened to Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf in art school.

Driving the freeway straight up to Memphis was not an option. I took the road less traveled, which was the closest to the Mississippi River. Eventually, I ended up staying in an Airstream trailer in a smalltown named Rosendale for a few days. The Arkansas River meanders and slow merges with the big Muddy, you see the town was a major junction for all the river traffic in Mark Twain’s days.

By the time I visited, the Freeways had replaced the waterway, and the magnificent victorian buildings framed by large Magnolia trees had seen better days. All the young folks would leave for the city due to the lack of jobs and economic prosperity.
My short time spent in Rosendale left a lasting impression on me.

Flag Redesign

Last week, a news item did catch my attention: “Mississippi State running back Kylin Hill vows not to play unless the state flag is changed,” read the headline.
In the light of Black Lives Matter and the removal of all confederate flags
from NASCAR and Military Bases, the Mississippi State Flag is about to be redesigned.
The graphic designer wheels in my head started to spin, what would a Mississippi flag look like without the rebel flag in the upper left corner? It would look like another horizontal tricolor flag like the national flags of Russia or the Netherlands. With a heraldic emblem in the center, would look like a reversed Missouri Flag.

Immediately I started to think of the Magnolia trees and the Mississippi River and the dynamic of diagonals in flags.

After a little research, I found out that: The magnolia flower is Mississippi’s state flower, and the Magnolia tree the state tree. The thirteen stars in the old flag represent the losing confederacy that wanted to hold on to slavery. During the American Civil War, the Mississippi’s capture by Union forces marked a turning point towards victory, due to the river’s strategic importance to the Confederate war effort.

Could I include the meandering and sometimes river-bank and color-changing Mississippi River into a new design for the Mississippi State flag? Mississippi State bears the same name with its mighty river that has helped shape this entire country since it’s inception.

Here are two design proposals for the new Missippi flag, one based on the diagonal dynamic of the river flowing north-west to the south-(east).

The second design features a meandering river and a blue star, symbolizing the state.

Replacing a state flag is a big deal that doesn’t happen very often. I hope that Mississippi makes bold, progressive choices for its new flag, and it will be a positive step forward into the future.

While I’m writing this post, Tate Reeves, the current Governor of Mississippi, declared that there must be the words: “IN GOD WE TRUST” on the new flag.

It’s morning, and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafts through the kitchen while I’m waiting for the coffee to finish percolating, I glance out the mudroom window and find my mind wandering looking for my dog Zuzu. I know she died a few months ago, and yet I still look for her familiar outline sitting outside, waiting for me to take her out for our morning walk. A tiny little sparrow hops right up to my glass front door and starts picking away on the door matt. Help yourself, little fellow. Nest building requires lots of fibrous material and bravery to get it at my front door.
The decaf coffee kicks in and I start my day by watering the garden and the newly transplanted bushes.
A few days later, I find a small birds nest under the cedar where the little sparrow flew with his fiber bounty gattered from my doormat. The wind must have blown it lose overnight; the good news is there were no eggs in it. Upon carefully inspecting the nest, I could see a strand of blue plastic ribbon from a frayed tarp, grasses, and several white dog hairs from Zuzu.
My mind wanders to about what happens to our bodies when we die. Our dead bodies transform into something else; in Zuzu’s case, parts of her body became a bird’s nest.

I like my body to become a tree after I’m dead.

In Memory of Zuzu 2006-2020

Easter Sunday, Zuzu stopped eating and refused to go on a short walk. Her belly looked a bit more round than usual, so I took her to the veterinarian at daybreak the next morning. After an x-ray and an ultrasound, it turned out her spleen leaked blood into her body, and she needed surgery to stop the bleeding and remove a mass on her spleen. The ultrasound revealed some spots on her liver as well.
The next day, with the ongoing covid19 pandemic, I drove her to the animal clinic, where I put on my mask and called the front desk from my parked car. I handed her over to a nurse technician, hoping to see her alive after her surgery. The doctor called me from the operating room with bad news. The few spots seen on the ultrasound was a large tumor that had engulfed her liver, and the fistulas were about to burst as well. I had to let her go right there, by phone.

I did say “Goodby” to her, and I’m terribly sad that I did not get to say “Hello” again.

Zuzu liked long hikes, playing in the snow, peter-patter trough mud puddles, barking at squirrels and deer, hauling with the local coyotes, snapping up dog treats, sitting outside in front of my studio listening to the birds and crickets.

Zuzu did not like gunshots, fireworks, nailguns, vacuum cleaner, and lighting, in short, anything noisy. She also didn’t like other dogs unless she was properly introduced. Snooty dogs who would walk by without
proper greeting would be barked at any time of the day.

Zuzu was a Chocolate Lab mixed with a Border Collie; she will be missed by friends and family.

I found this vintage illustration of mine via an internet image search the other day. It felt like finding a lost child that I bearly recognized. In 1988 the record industry was just about to switch over from records to CDs, and I got a chance to create artwork for the last RCA records covers. At the time, RCA Records did send these sampler records to radio stations to promote the artists. In retrospect, it was the last tail end of a design and illustration tradition-steeped era where all the artwork was created by hand in conjunction with analog equipment. Fun memories. The Art Director Ria Lewerke.