Let’s face it. Our community is always a little bit different.

How else can you explain some of the strange happenings in these parts?

But that’s OK. Being different isn’t bad.

Just last weekend, our community showed its oddness by being only the fifth place in the world where a Mississippi Blues Trail marker gets planted slap dab in the middle of a Louisiana town!

That’s right, our community showed the world how two states can work together on a project that benefits us all.

All too often we falsely believe that states are simply too competitive to work with one another. And, when it comes to landing gigantic car manufacturing plants that will probably always be true.

But community leaders must pound home the message that in our neck of the woods we’re a little different and thus old-style rules that prevent working together should be bent a bit.

The most visible need for a regional approach is the concern some local leaders have that the lone railroad leading into Natchez may be scrapped soon.

If that were to happen, our whole community — including the areas in Louisiana — would suffer long-term.

We must get state and national legislators from both sides of the river to work together to find a solution to this potential problem.

A simple blues marker could be the start of something truly unique for our community — a sense of togetherness that is blind to a simple, arbitrary political boundary.