There's No Smell Like Home

What up? It's Dromos from the Life as a Gringo Podcast.

We are back with a brand new season. Now Life as a Gringo speaks to Latinos who are born or raised here in the States. It's about educating and breaking those generational curses that man have been holding us back for far too long. I'm here to discuss the topics that are relevant to all of us and to define what it means to live as our true authentic self.

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Download the Roto app or check out Roto.com now. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories. And we tell stories about everything here on this show, from the arts to sports and from business to history and everything in between, including your stories. Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. That's OurAmericanStories.com. And a lot of people have been asking me, hey, do you guys have swag? And we do. We've got t-shirts, we've got blankets, we've got mugs and all kinds of other things.

Go to OurAmericanStories.com and check it out and help us out. We love hearing stories from Mississippi natives. We broadcast from Northern Mississippi, the small bucolic town, a beautiful college town called Oxford. We're about an hour south of Memphis. Randall Haley is from the Mississippi Delta, but came to Oxford for school and for work. Like most people that move away from home, she at times got a little homesick.

Here is Randall with her story. There are three things that Oxford did best. In 1995, a young woman full of ambition and determined to celebrate the food, music, and art of Oxford, Mississippi, couldn't be deterred from the idea of a festival on the square. I knew it would work.

Now, I don't know if that's just because I was young and naive, didn't know enough to know it might not work, or I'm bad about thinking I can make whatever happen. Once I decided, I'm like, yeah, we're gonna make it happen. Robin Tannehill was hired in June of 1995 to be the director of the Oxford Tourism Council, which is now called Visit Oxford.

Tannehill immediately began work on her first project. 22 years later, that project has become one of Oxford's most celebrated weekends, bringing over 60,000 tourists to the square. For a weekend that all started with the idea of a young, naive woman, it's safe to agree with Tannehill and say, Double Decker Arts Festival has become just as big as a home football game weekend.

So what is Double Decker to me? Well, I was born and raised in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. Of course, I live and work in Oxford, and it's most certainly my second home, but there's just something about the Delta that makes a person proud to call it his or her own. My love for Oxford comes close to that of the Delta, but there are two distinctive lifestyles that, despite the proximity and distance, cannot compare. For a country girl like me, Oxford culture was more comparable to city life, even though Oxford is considered a small town in every sense of the word. I was so blinded by the rich culture in Oxford when I moved here that I thought, Oxford is huge.

In reality, there's no more acreage in Oxford than there is in my hometown of Clarksdale. It felt so big because Oxford has about five times the amount of restaurants and places to shop, and a university, of course, which has me praying for summer traffic on Jackson Avenue most of the time. But it was the ambiance that revolved around an artsy culture that caught my attention. It was one I could relate to. I was no stranger to the artsy type.

My heart beats to a blues rhythm 99% of the time. What I wasn't accustomed to were buildings on almost every plot of land on the square with no space between them. I was used to empty parking lots and grain bins if anything, and after driving up the hill toward the square on Jefferson Avenue thinking it would use every drop of gas in my gas tank to make it up the hill, I realized how much I really loved the flatlands.

After all, the biggest hill I ever saw on the Delta was the man-made levee. However, despite all of its differences, I found a piece of that culture I loved, a true Delta aura at the Double Dacre Arts Festival in Oxford, Mississippi. While roaming the square, I caught the scent.

Lee Margaret Hamilton of Greenville, Mississippi sat in her chair scanning card after card as the line grew outside of her booth. The crowd couldn't get enough of her So Delta candles. With scents such as blues, sweet tea, and cotton row, I could smell home within yards of the booth. When Hamilton began So Delta Candle Company in 2009, she wanted to produce a Mississippi manufactured product that would capture the Delta in all of its essence, the smell, the sight, the sound, and the culture. She used the purest soy wax she could find and voila, people from across seas, celebrities, everybody, and their mama were ordering these original candles. Actress Laura Dern's assistant gave Hamilton a phone call one day and she said, we want to buy them for ourselves and we want to buy some to give as gifts. She bought some for actresses Mary Steenburgen and Reese Witherspoon and asked to have them sent to her by the next day. She wanted them in California in time to enjoy the sweet smells while getting dressed for the Oscars.

Hamilton hurried to have them sent immediately and said, when Hollywood calls, you have to answer. Sending candles to Dern, Steenburgen, and Witherspoon was a memory Hamilton will forever hold on to, but their most rewarding sale to date was the shipment that made its way to Afghanistan. After an order was placed online, Hamilton read the zip code and found that an American soldier was ordering candles from her.

He ordered Mississippi and cotton row, Hamilton said. I just kind of put everything into perspective and thought, gosh, this guy really missed his home to be ordering candles that are indicative of his homeland, and that really touched me. What I'm doing, people really love and appreciate. They're so connected. That Saturday on the square, I felt I could relate to that man who missed home. Sure, Oxford is lovely and everything it has to offer, but that one cent makes you stop dead in your tracks to take another whiff. That one cent that reminds you of where you came from, who you are, and what you'll be puts you in a trance where all you can say is, so Delta. And so Delta indeed, and if you've never been to northern Mississippi or to the Delta or to the general Memphis region, take a visit and you'll see a lot of American history and a lot of, well, a lot of bad things too, or some bad things.

You'll see the Martin Luther King Civil Rights Museum. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, but also the rich culture, the heritage, and my goodness, the magnificence of the never-ending horizons of the Delta itself and the sights, sounds, and smells. You were listening to Randall Haley, her story of being homesick and yet loving where she lives too, and that so many of us who move away and never really come back, but also never really leave. And to anyone who has stories like this, again, send them to OurAmericanStories.com, and particularly stories of your hometown. Randall Haley's story here on Our American Story. Folks, if you love the great American stories we tell and love America like we do, we're asking you to become a part of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that America is a good and great country, please make a donation. A monthly gift of $17.76 is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters. Go to OurAmericanStories.com now, and go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming.

That's OurAmericanStories.com. How are you spending your weekend with friends and family or at the car dealership? Why lease a new car the old way? With Roto, lease your vehicle in three easy steps, all from our app. Shop real-time inventory and see the clear cost. That means the best price personalized to you with no haggling. Then complete your lease right from your phone.

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Ready, set, Roto. This February Xfinity Flex is unlocking premium entertainment for you to try every single week, no strings attached. Celebrate during Black History Month with shows like Unsung the Decades. Snuggle up during Valentine's Day with a Lifetime Movie Club pick like Harry and Meghan A Royal Romance. Or crank up the action with Godfather of Harlem from MGM Plus. Get down and funky with the Classic Soul playlist from iHeartRadio. Easily discover new free content each week across the best streaming app. Say free this week into your Xfinity voice remote. This is Kevin Costner and if you're an avid traveler like me, you've got to download my new app, Auteo. That's audio with a T. A-U-T-I-O. Enjoy a new way of traveling with stories activated by your location. So when you're driving through a new town, discovering a national park, or just curious about the origin of your city's name, you can listen to a quick three to five minute story covering our history from the first peoples to famous places and insights only locals would know.