Thanks for voting. I don't recall ever being required to read Faulkner but they must have required it.

May not be true elsewhere, but Faulkner was from Mississippi (my home state) so he's a pretty common source in the South.

Les wrote: "May not be true elsewhere, but Faulkner was from Mississippi (my home state) so he's a pretty common source in the South."

Oh, MS is my mother's home state too and every year we would drive down there to see our grandparents. It was my favorite place in the world. Mom was from about 30 miles from Tupelo. There is a slight chance I could be kin to Elvis! Mom's cousin Jack went to high school with him. How cool!

I must have read some Faulkner and just don't remember it.

My dad was from Jackson and graduated from Millsaps College and the Univ. of MS Med School. Mom was from Philadelphia in Neshoba County (where the 3 civil rights workers were murdered in 1964) and graduated from Ole Miss. I also had some relatives in Yazoo City that raised soy beans and quarter-horses.

Our brushes with fame (such as they are) came through my mom. When she was a teenager she used to babysit a girl named Olivia Williams so her parents could run their general store. Olivia wound up going to Ole Miss and marrying Archie Manning and becoming the mother of Peyton and Eli Manning.

Mom was a Delta Gamma at Ole Miss. The Chi Omega house was next door and there was apparently a lot of interaction between the two sororities (*** more below ***). She knew a Chi O named Mary Ann Mobley, who won Miss Mississippi the year after my mom graduated and Miss America the next year (1959) and went on to an acting career.

*** My senior year of high school my mom decided to volunteer at the school. There was a girl named Lisa that I was in home room and other classes with, although we weren't particularly close friends. Her mom had been volunteering all 3 years (much to her chagrin, typical teen "mom you're embarrassing me" angst).

My mom got matched up with Lisa's mom. They started talking and found out that her mom was a Chi O at Ole Miss at the same time my mom was a DG there. They eventually decided they'd never met, but they spent several hours just gabbing and catching up on the people they knew. Not sure what the odds are for that happening?

Mom graduated from Wood Junior college. Her little sister went there too but the brothers went to Mississippi state.

My uncle (mom's brother) was an MSU grad. Mom actually started at what was then called Mississippi College for Women, then transferred to Ole Miss.

I am wondering what year Mom graduated. I will have to ask her.