In November of 2004, author Larry Brown died suddenly of a heart attack. I was devastated. Not only had Brown's writing been a major influence on my own work, we also had a correspondence for years. Hence, when I got wind of a March 22 tribute concert for Brown to be held in conjunction with the Ole Miss annual Conference of the Book in his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, I had to go.

"I'm driving to Oxford," I told my husband.

"That's a long way," he said.

"What's 750 miles?" When I left Cleveland, it was 30 degrees.

I-71 through Ohio is unremarkable and familiar. I understand towns like Columbus and Cincinnati. Things begin to change in Kentucky, where I find Sad Sam's fireworks, Loretta Lynn's Kitchen and Dinosaur World. I tumble onward with ineffable momentum. From a trailer turned restaurant, delivered unto me is a giant pulled pork sandwich. I eat it in three bites without benefit of mastication, bow to the handwritten sign by the door that promises me "Salvation through Jesus is a Free Gift," and advises, "so take it." Will do.

"That's no Free Stamp!" I yell at a giant lifeless buffalo. A 15-foot plaster American Indian has one hand forever raised in a clichéd salutation. "How," I say in return.

In Tennessee, I exit the interstate and take county roads into the deep froth of the South. I open the windows to the 80-degree air. Johnny Cash blares and I sing along, a regular June Carter. The kudzu damage stuns me. Suffocated acres of land lie beneath the creeping vine and only an eerie landscape remains. Rows of rotting cars line the hillside. Plastic lawn ornaments and chipped plates are displayed in front of dirty shacks next to faded signs that say "Yard Sale." Inside the gas stations, entire display racks are dedicated to the glorious pork rind: hot, cracklin' style, and BBQ.

Downtown Oxford takes me by surprise. Darling boutiques glimmer in century-old buildings. Waiters in crisp aprons polish silverware among tables covered in white linen. Christmas lights festoon bars and cafes. Mansions flank the square, their grand porches encased in lacy gingerbread balustrades.

The concert is hours away so I opt for a meandering walk. I find no buffer zone between what is gleaming and what is tarnished in Oxford. White paint on one side of the street is dingy and blistered on the other. Not a mile away from the boutique full of shimmering satin gowns, abandoned beer cans sit on a dilapidated porch, its wood gray and splintered. A man waves at me from the cab of an old pickup, cigarette clenched between sparse black teeth. I wave back.

Southern resistance to the garage leaves lawn tractors and bikes and garden tools in piles that appear unkempt no matter how orderly they are. I want to scream, "Build garages! We Yanks have the exact same shit, but we keep it in the garage and our yards look so much better!"

Lunch is cheesy grits and jalapeno cornbread. "Very good," I tell the proprietor.

"Well thank you ma'am," he says. "You from out of town are you?"

"Cleveland."

"Goooood night you are glad to be here," he exclaims, the unrelated words linked into an unpunctuated sentence the way only a Southerner can manage. I nod and ask for some hot sauce. He tells me he knew Brown, whose image is everywhere, on the covers of local papers and in shop windows. This town misses Larry Brown. It respects his memory. The sincerity impresses me, but I tell no one of my connection to the legendary writer.

Little things are different here. Men shake hands upon even the most casual meeting and buy one another drinks. Then there is the half-r that turns words like sir into suh. "Why suh, I believe I am pleased to accept that offuh of buh-bon." And I am ma'am, ma'am, ma'am.

This isn't just "a long way" like my husband said; I'm in a different effing country.

Evening falls and downtown Oxford crackles with people and energy. The women are colorful confections, perfumed and pedicured. I am in jeans and beat-up cowboy boots. I stop for a drink. Despite being three deep at the bar, the stool next to me remains unoccupied. The empty seat is so absolute that I don't feel the slightest bit piggish about resting my feet on its lower rail. No one's going to sit here and everyone knows it. I am an olive in a punch bowl.

A woman I'd chatted with earlier at a bookstore approaches me but does not sit down.

"You'd think my last name was Sherman," I say.

"We can smell the Yankee on you," she says, and I don't doubt it.

At Proud Larry's bar where the concert is being held, the beer is cold and inexpensive. I meet Brown's widow and son, and am treated to the finest country folk music I've ever heard. Despite my uncomfortable foreignness, I am glad to be a strange Yankee detail on this night, glad some Oxfordian will recount the event and add, "There was even one woman drove all the way from Cleveland."

That's right, suh, I shuh-ly did.

eobnow@cox.net