Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

An earlier post related how I often ate a bagel for breakfast. Those were the bagels that motels buy from grocery stores. I have no idea how those grocery stories cook those thing they call bagels. They are round with a hole in the middle and are brown, so they do look like bagels. Looks, however, can be deceiving and in the case of grocery-store bagels, looks are deceiving.

While I was approaching Hattiesburg, Mississippi, my nephew, who lives there, told me about a little place on Route 11 as it passes through the old downtown area. Next to the railroad tracks is Southbound Bagels. I walked through downtown Hattiesburg during the morning and made sure to find this place. I am glad that I did.

They actually cook bagels here – just like you are supposed to. You mix a good dough, form the bagel, boil it, then bake it. These are real bagels. It is hard for me to emphasize the difference between grocery-store imitation bagels and real bagels. Let me repeat, the Southbound Bagel place in Hattiesburg has real bagels.

Three weeks of eating awful things disguised as bagels accentuated the goodness of Southbound’s bagels.

My older brother and I stopped in for a cup of coffee and a bagel. After finishing, I ordered a second bagel and had a refill of coffee. I considered a third bagel and a fourth, but training in social etiquette from early childhood prevented that. Sometimes I regret the training in social etiquette that I had as a child.

When the walk was finished, I drove from Louisiana back to my home in Reston, Virginia. I exited the Interstate, wound my way through Hattiesburg, and stopped at Southbound Bagels for a cup of coffee and a couple of bagels. It was well worth the detour.