I was on my way home to Alabama, traveling from Wichita, Kansas, where I was halfway through grad school at Wichita State. It was the Dog Days of August, and man did those hounds need water because it was tin-roof hot. My traveling companions were Mike McCauley and his wife Susan, or maybe I should say I was their traveling companion because we were in their car. (We couldn't have been in mine, not because mine was in the shop but because I didn't have one.) Mike, who usually goes by Michael but for some reason has always let me call him Mike, was from Atlanta, and he and Susan were headed home to visit his family. Since you have to go through Alabama to get to Georgia, if you're coming from Kansas that is, they were nice enough to let me hitch a ride. I actually did more than ride; I took my turn driving, which is how I got into a little trouble with the Mississippi Highway Patrol. We were in North Mississippi, headed to [...]