Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

I attended high school in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana. This remained my home while I attended college. During these seven years one source of confusion in my life (I had many) was the concept of Pearl River. While taking a walk, I traversed all my Pearl River demons. Allow me to try to explain.

My high school, Loranger High School in Loranger, Louisiana, played sports against Pearl River High School in the town of Pearl River, Louisiana. I greatly disliked the kids from that high school. We beat them badly in football, lost to them badly in basketball, and played about even in baseball. Hence, the town of Pearl River was a well known concept to me. I understood that even though I didn’t like it.

I didn’t walk through Pearl River, Louisiana, but skirted the edge of it. I was a little disappointed.

The other “Pearl River”s confused me.

There is a river named The Pearl River. It separates Louisiana and Mississippi on part of Louisiana’s eastern border and part of Mississippi’s western border. Route 11 crosses the Pearl River. At that point, however, Route 11 is concurrent with Interstate 59. Hence, I couldn’t walk over the river, but had to ride. What a shame.

There is a county in Mississippi called Pearl River County. As expected, part of this county is bordered by the Pearl River. I walked through Pearl River County as Route 11 traverses it.

And then, there is a community college, formerly a junior college, called Pearl River Community College (PRCC) in the town of Poplarville, Mississippi. The Wikipedia page for PRCC is here (the nice photo of a building at PRCC was taken by me). The official web page for PRCC is here. PRCC is of course in Pearl River County near the Pearl River. Simple, right? What always confused me about this college was that lots of boys from my high school and other local high schools played sports or tried to play sports at this college. They always referred to it as “playing over at Pearl River.” That made no sense as Pearl River was a high school. “No,” they told me, “it was a junior college over in Mississippi.” What?

I walked right in front of PRCC as it sits on Route 11. It is a fine looking place. Maybe one day I could teach…

So, there you have it. The instances of Pearl River, at least as I know them, are:

1. The town of Pearl River, Louisiana
2. The actual river called The Pearl River
3. The county in Mississippi – Pearl River County
4. and the community college – Pearl River Community College.

You have no idea how comforting it is to me to have all this straight in my mind after all these years of confusion.

Now, while writing this post, I learned that there is a Pearl River in China. It is 2,000 km long and…too much for me.