Right out of college I moved to Athens, Georgia, for three years. It was a great experience. I met a lot of great people and got to go to University of Georgia Bulldog ballgames.

While I was there, people would always ask me where I came from. They said I had an accent or something. I don’t hear it, but I heard their accents.

People would also ask me, "How many people have they hanged in Mississippi?" You know what my smart-aleck comment was?

"The same amount they hang in Georgia."

You know what was funny? People stopped real quick asking me that question.

Now, I understand parents have problems with the way their child was disciplined at school. If it happened that way, I would be hot, too.

What I have a problem with is the comment, "Civilized states do not allow corporal punishment in their schools."

Mississippi and its schools have problems, like every other state in the union, but we are not uncivilized.

We allow a lot of foreigners in Mississippi. Some come from Tennessee, Louisiana, Chicago, Los Angeles, Wisconsin, Texas and even Arkansas. And we even let them stay and work and become productive citizens.

Now, if we were so uncivilized and these other states so civilized, why are these transplants here?

Go back to where you came from. Who in their right minds would go to a place they consider uncivilized to try to make a living?

The only people I know who travel to "uncivilized" places are missionaries who have to raise money from all across the United States in order to be able to live in those places. They don’t get jobs over there.

Yet, this parent came here, set up a medical practice, that a Mississippi born and bred person could have, and is taking money for her services and knowledge. She does not have to depend on the goodness of people who support missionaries to make money.

People who live and work here pay her good old greenbacks.

People I know send children from all across the United States to go to school in Mississippi to get away from the influence of the big cities and hopefully have a chance to finish high school.

You don’t send your children to uncivilized places to get good influence.

I suggest you be careful with the words you use to describe Mississippi. We have worked hard and come a long way from a barbaric, primitive, uncivilized way of life. Though I have never lived any of those ways.

Even though this parent was referring to corporal punishment as being those three things, the words came out as the whole state was living in the dark ages.