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tailgating parties at The Grove are as close to heaven as a person can get without dying. A favorite saying of Ole Miss students is, “We may not win every game, but we ain’t never lost a party.”
    Despite the double negative, it’s nice to know some things never change.
    Although it had been years since I’d attended the University of Mississippi, there are some rituals and friendships that are never forgotten. Attending tailgate parties is an activity that’s easy to catch up on despite an absence of thirty-odd years.
    Bitty has annual reservations at The Inn at Ole Miss on the campus. This makes the trip to and from the Vaught-Hemingway Stadium for the big game feasible, and even easier to get to The Grove for the tailgating parties. Drinking and driving is always a big no-no, and especially so in Oxford. Police there have very strict guidelines and swift consequences for those who flaunt the rules. In the bars, closing hours are much earlier than normal; Monday through Wednesday, they close at midnight. Thursday through Saturday, they close at one AM. On the university campus itself, no beer is allowed except east of Gertrude Ford Boulevard. However, liquor is welcome over the entire campus.
    Don’t ask me . I didn’t make the rules.
    Liquor cannot be seen in bottle form; it must be in a container. Beer is generally overlooked by campus police as long as it isn’t seen. In other words, coolers must remain closed, and beer and liquor must be in a cup. Fairly simple rules for the initiate.
    Early that Friday evening we dined at the City Grocery on the Square. While Bitty wanted to eat in the fine dining area, I and my bourgeois taste buds opted for upstairs and maybe a seat on the balcony if we were lucky. The downstairs is incredibly crowded, with tables an arm’s length apart. Normally that convivial atmosphere might be lovely, but I was suffering an immense amount of guilt at my part in our afternoon activities. I ordered a Rebel ale with my cheese grits and shrimp, and Bitty ordered Jack and Coke with her fried pimento cheese salad. An abundance of alcohol should take care of any tendencies toward getting “bound up” as my mama would say about so much cheese.
    At any rate, we were fortunate enough to sit out on the small balcony that looks over the Square. Oxford Square is lovely, with old southern architecture and an elegance most often seen in New Orleans. In some ways, it’s reminiscent of that old city to the south. People have been known to call Oxford “The Little Easy” for its ambient lifestyle and laid-back attitude that mimics New Orleans. Of course, the “Big Easy” reputation of New Orleans also includes some pretty high crime statistics.
    Although they didn’t know it yet, The Little Easy had just gotten a rise in crime statistics, too.
    Leaning forward, I said to Bitty across our table, “How can you sit there as if nothing has happened?”
    “What do you want me to do—leap off the balcony? Beat my breast and do a soliloquy of contrition? I didn’t kill him.”
    “For heaven’s sake, don’t beat your breast. You’d cause a seismic episode,” I said rather crossly. Bitty’s breasts are—in the words of her third husband—“most magnificent mammaries” or some ridiculous thing like that. He just meant she’s well-endowed.
    I never did care much for him.
    Bitty knocked back her Jack and Coke and set it on the table so the waiter would see it and bring her another. “Really, Trinket, you have a terrible tendency to dwell on things far too much. No one has said anything, and he’s long gone from the campus, so no one probably will while we’re here. You need to get over this.”
    I stared at her. “Get over . . . Bitty, he’s dead. D. E. A. D. Dead. What do you think is going to happen when he doesn’t show up at home for dinner tonight?”
    “How on earth should I know? I imagine they’ll call for the police—yes, thank you, another one, please—” That last was