Like Moses parting the Red Sea so the Israelites could flee from Egypt on dry land, the Mississippi River is drying up and people are walking on her riverbed. With the lowest water levels since records have been kept, much has been revealed of the treasures that lay beneath the muddy waters. Here are some of the amazing, astounding discoveries…
The Diamond Lady Casino sank in 2021. We knew that. But when it became visible again, we learned that there were about a dozen senior adults, oxygen tanks intact, still playing the slots and smoking cigarettes. They were none too happy at being discovered.
A rare fossil of a giant American lion was found in a previously submerged sand bar. Investigation revealed that its diet primarily consisted of elderly humans gambling on the shores of the Mississippi. Nine thousand five-hundred and sixty-three poker chips were also found in the skeleton’s belly, along with eighty-seven walkers and thirty-eight canes.
Other findings…
An antebellum mansion with two Southern belles still swinging on the front porch.
The first experimental airplane, designed by the little-known Wrong Brothers.
The Lost City of Atlantis.
Seventeen John Deere cotton pickers.
The first case of bottled Coca-Cola, cocaine intact.
Three members of the Corps of Engineers still trying to build a levee at Greenville.
A cement statue of Jimmy Hoffa. X-rays showed that Jimmy was still inside trying to get out. It was taken far into the Gulf of Mexico where it was re-sunk.
The first deep-fried Twinkie.
Twenty-seven thousand Ole Miss red and blue solo cups. No trace of any remaining alcohol remained.
Twelve thousand rusty Mississippi State cowbells with their clappers removed.
Nine thousand 1960s U-Haul trailers bound for Oxford and chocked full of Coors beer.
An underwater railway with a doused steam engine.
An addendum to the Dead Sea scrolls, dubbed the “Dead River College-Ruled Notebook.”
A ship carrying three hundred cases of water buffalo cheeses, four hundred barrels of French wine, and one box of soggy saltines.
The long-forgotten west end of Beale Street, submerged by the New Madrid earthquakes on December 16, 1811.
Jerry Lee Lewis’ first toy piano with smoke still rising from the keys.
Sixty-three Elvis impersonators still gyrating.
Original score for the song “Dixie,” revealing the song’s bawdy lyrics and confirming its true first name: “Trixie”.
Six petrified beignets from Café du Monde.
A stone tablet with the last five of the Fifteen Commandments.
A barge of Pillsbury canned biscuits sunk by Ulysses S. Grant during the siege of Vicksburg, with the first Pillsbury Doughboy still at the helm.
Mummified body of Johnny Weissmuller trying to swim upstream.
Mabel Batson and Vivian Ruth Shaddinger, both crowed the first Miss Mississippi (1924), still walking the plankerrunway and fighting for the rights to the entire tiera.
Brett Favre’s integrity.
The Bermuda Grass Triangle.
W. C. Handy playing “The St. Louis Blues.”
Mark Cohn’s discarded lyrics to “Stalking in Memphis.”
An alien spaceship made of aluminum foil and duct tape.
Mark Twain, still kvetching.
Seven thousand six hundred and two used Civil War Era chamber pots.
A Delta jet that pilot “Sully” Sullenberger unsuccessfully ditched in the river in 1999.
Jeff Buckley’s voice.
Amelia Earhart.
Robinson Caruso.
An Otterman Empire.
Seventy-six trombones and one-hundred and ten cornets in parade formation.
One 1942 refrigerator stuck in a tractor tire. X-rays revealed it to be packed with Jax beer.
Twelve cotton condoms.
Perhaps the most important discovery was Thomas Crapper’s first flush toilet. The ballcock valve was stuck open, causing perpetual flushing, thus the draining of the Great Mississippi River. No one has yet been brave enough to shake the handle as of this writing, due to the fear of backwashing.
Oh, yeah…and last but not least, a partridge in a pear tree.
…and that’s the view from The Balcony.
Randy Weeks is a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Certified Shamanic Life Coach, an ordained minister, a singer-songwriter, and an actor. He now makes Mississippi mudpies, for sale on the dark web. Randy may be reached at randallsweeks@gmail.com.
