It was hard to believe that we did not even get a drop of rain from Ivan the terrible.

I want to tell the community what a great job you did in welcoming in all the evacuees from the coast. It seemed that the population of Natchez doubled overnight.

One of my friends commented that the traffic made him think he lived in a big city for a few minutes.

Hats off to the merchants who decided to think outside of the norm and stayed open later or had different times to help give them somewhere to eat and something to do.

I also thought it was nice of The Democrat to publish an article of things that were going on around town to help our visitors.

In case you haven’t figured out where I’m headed with this, here’s a little hint &045;&045; cooperation.

From what I have heard about the marketing report that was given to Natchez last week, that should be our new buzzword around town.

Natchez has a lot to offer her residents, and her residents have a lot to offer her. But without organization and cooperation these things will never happen.

If we want our young adults to come back to Natchez to live and raise families, we have to provide them with jobs. And just as importantly we have to provide them with leisure activities for the adults and the children.

For some business owners that is going to mean going out on the proverbial limb. Perhaps extending your hours in the evening or opening on Sunday afternoon.

For others it may mean giving your customers something new and different.

A wonderful case in point is the new Uptown Grocery. Here are two local families who have chosen to move back to Natchez and open a business. They are offering us an opportunity to purchase many items previously not found in our area.

Have you been in yet? If for no other reason, you should go get a muffaletta for lunch; they are divine. And I found the sushi kit in there that I wanted, which made more sense than buying it out of town or off of the Internet.

Living and working in Natchez is a two-way street. On one side are the merchants in our town and the other are the residents. It is up to our city leaders to bring the two together and help us make sure that our city grows, prospers and is a place where we all want to stay and our children want to come home to.

It is up to all of us to cooperate and help our city grow. And while I certainly don’t want another hurricane to hit anytime soon, wouldn’t it be great if some of our evacuees returned just to visit because we were so hospitable the first time?

On the home front, my son Matthew made it through the football game Friday night without an injury. Hallelujah. That meant for the first Friday night in three weeks, we weren’t in the emergency room, which was a relief. Our friend Jordan Farmer wasn’t so lucky &045;&045; he ended up with a broke wrist.

Along with the Green Waves first win of the season, Matthew received the Sports Center defensive player of the game with Andrew Ellard named the offensive player of the game.

The Hall house had a perfect football weekend, along with the Green Wave win, our Ole Miss Rebels managed to pull out one in OT and our Saints won on Sunday. And for this time of the year life just doesn’t get any better than that.

E-mail

Christina Hall

at

christina.hall@natchezdemocrat.com

.