Coming Home to Mississippi

Bob Allan Dunaway

209 BobAllanDunaway Bob Allan Dunaway is a retired art teacher and a native of Walthall County. He moved to Columbia, Mississippi, with his mother at the start of World War II. He became interested in photography and art, which he studied at Mississippi College after a tour in the air force. For thirty-five years he taught art in the Jackson public schools and at Mississippi College, Wayland Baptist College, and Hinds Community College . He maintains a studio in Clinton and continues to paint and pursue the joy of writing articles for the Tylertown Times entitled “Things Remembered.” He is the author of Things Remembered—Recollections about Recollections and DRAWING! . . . Where to Begin. W hen I was eleven years old, I became unhappy over something and decided I would leave home. I packed a small cardboard suitcase with a few clothes and comic books and hitchhiked about forty miles to my daddy’s home. I felt sure he and my stepmother would take me in and solve all my problems. There I had no supervision and could do as I pleased. It was summer with no school days to worry about. But soon I missed my playmates and the routines established back at home, so I asked to be put on a bus and sent back. I was welcomed with open arms and a forgiving mother. Nothing had changed. When I was all grown up,my travels outside Mississippi began with a tour in the U.S. Air Force which took me to Europe and North Africa for over two years. Letters from home always brought nostalgic memories of family and friends. I dreamed of getting back to familiar 210 bob allan dunaway surroundings and events that had previously shaped my life. Little had changed among friends and relatives, except that my namesake grandfather had died,and most of my former classmates had graduated from college and were living elsewhere. Making new friends, however, was not difficult.Entering college myself,I encountered several former military members; we had much in common. Although I was depending on the GI Bill, the administrators told me I still must put a small portion down before I could be admitted. Those former GIs in line with me at registration pitched in enough dollars to allow me to start that semester. Those still living remain good friends to this day. I became an art teacher and in a course of events sought advanced degrees which took me to Illinois and Arizona. Summers were spent in those places—meeting requirements needed for more pay and advancement . Most summers I had to leave family at home, so returning each time became a much-needed lift from the pressures of study. Friends were always there as well, and after a week or so, it was as if I had never left. Up until this time, it never occurred to me that work would take me totally away from Mississippi. With the exception of a sister in Arizona, all my family was nearby, down the road a piece, or across town. The opportunity arose for better pay and advancement, but it was in Texas, seven hundred and fifty plus miles away.Ambition, however, drove me to make the decision to move, so I bundled up a wife, three children, and a mother-in-law, and began a new life in the Texas panhandle. After we grew accustomed to spending a lot of time in the cellar out of respect for many tornadoes and to a pool-table-flat landscape almost totally devoid of large trees, we began to become a part of the community and cultivate friends. Not often, but on occasion, Mississippi friends would pass through and stop for a brief visit. Relatives wrote and called with news about family and political goings-on, news that prompted thoughts of our being permanently apart from all those folks and our former lifestyle. I became aware that I really missed swimming and fishing in the Bogue Chitto River and would not be able to introduce my young children to the thrill of that experience. The nearest river to us at the time was hours away, and it really did bob allan dunaway 211 not qualify as a river by Mississippi standards. The only thing familiar to someone from south Mississippi was the farming, although the method was a bit different, since it was necessary to irrigate...