In July, Lil and I attended a William Faulkner Conference in Oxford, Mississippi. We were part of a 28 person Elderhostel delegation. We drove down through southern Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas and arrived in Oxford on Sunday morning, July 23rd. We stayed on the campus of Ole Miss (University of Mississippi) at the Alumni Center Hotel. All of the Faulkner meetings were on the campus.
This was our first Elderhostel trip so, we didn't have any benchmarks for comparison. However, several people in the group had gone on other Elderhostel outings and the consensus seemed to be that this was one of the better ones. The accommodations were fine and the meals were, for the most part, adequate. The conference itself was about what I expected. Most of the presentations were of "a scholarly nature" (read, "very esoteric and dry!") but, in the main, I felt like I did learn a great deal about the life and times of William Faulkner. Lil, of course, was in seventh heaven through all of these proceedings. We had made a trip to England four years ago where, among other things, we attended an A.E. Housman Centenary celebration in Ludlow. The format of the Faulkner gathering reminded me a lot of the Housman meeting. I enjoyed meeting lots of new people and seeing the sights around Oxford was very stimulating. I can't imagine a more beautiful setting for such an event than the Ole Miss campus.
One curious observation was probably due to my having gotten used to exchanging e-mail with friends and associates. This is, of course, old hat with us who have become accustomed to e-mail and the Internet - I guess we sometimes erroneously assume that the whole world does e-mail. Not so, as I found out with several of the Elderhostel folks. Not only are some of them NOT into computers, e-mail, the Internet, etc., they don't seem to want any part of it. I caught myself wanting to "sell and lecture" a time or two - only to realize that some people just don't want this kind of thing. I remember making these same observations at the Housman conference in England.
I had been briefed by a friend about the Square Book store which is located on the square in downtown Oxford. I certainly agree with everything I had been led to expect about this bookstore - it is as fine an independent bookstore as can found anywhere. I don't think I have ever seen a more concentrated selection of famous and noteworthy works. Lil actually found a couple of books that she hadn't been able to locate elsewhere.
We attended several cocktail and yard parties. Jimmy Faulkner, a nephew of William, who is now about 78 years old, was a main fixture at many of these events. Not only did we meet him and got to talk with him one-on-one, he actually invited Lil and I along with a couple of other Elderhostelers to his home in the country one evening. We didn't go as we already had made another commitment - something I not only regretted the next morning but will, undoubtedly, regret forever. Between Jimmy and "Chooky" Faulkner (another nephew), we heard lots of first hand accounts as they told anecdotes based on their many recollections of "Brother Will," (this is the way they affectionately refer to him even though he was not actually their brother). Jimmy also accompanied us on a tour of the Oxford cemetery and pointed out the grave sites of many of the actual people that William Faulkner had used as models for some of the characters in his writings. We also went on a tour of Oxford and the surrounding area to see sights, buildings, etc. all of which had figured in Faulkner's various novels and short stories.
Something we did within the Elderhostel group was based on the annual Faux Faulkner competition. This is a contest wherein writers submit parodies of various Faulkner stories. About eight or ten of us wrote papers and then read them to the group one evening after dinner. Whereas the real Faux Faulkner event is very prestigious and comes along with a handsome monetary award to the winner, our competition was all in fun and everybody was declared a winner.
The Elderhostel/Faulkner event concluded at noon on Friday at which time Lil and I drove on to Cleveland, Mississippi where we spent a couple of days visiting with some friends that we had met through another e-mail group. We stayed at Floyd and Molly Shaman's Bed & Breakfast and, this was a "world class" experience. The Shamans are very affable hosts and the house is an absolute menagerie and showcase for many of Floyd's wood sculptures. Our hosts went to great lengths to wine and dine us as well as show us all around Cleveland including a side trip to a pottery place which was not only very fascinating in it's own right but also included a neatly strung together botanical garden area - it reminded me a lot of the movie, "Suddenly Last Summer."
But, all good things must end sometime so, at 7:00 AM Sunday morning, we said our goodbyes and headed up the road. We made good time and got home at about 5:00 PM.
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