How fortunate we are to be living in my hometown of Natchez. This is especially true when it comes to traffic.

We can get practically anywhere we want in less than 10 minutes.

Mainly, though, traffic-wise, what a great advantage we have over those “big” towns. Here in Natchez, we don’t have to worry about speed limits; we can drive as fast as we want, especially downtown on Main and Franklin streets as we speed along to make those synchronized traffic lights.

Once downtown, parking is never a problem. Just park anywhere you want — handicapped zones, no parking zones, straddle the marked parking space brackets or just stop in the middle of the street. Heaven forbid we would have to find a parking space that would make us have to walk over 10 steps to get to our destination.

Let us not forget how smooth our newly surfaced streets are, unless you are driving north past Jefferson and North Pearl, or south on North Commerce from Monroe to Jefferson. It’s more like driving on a bombed out street. I’m sure, however, that no one ever travels those streets, nothing there but Stanton Hall, the Carriage House and a few old houses.

State Street is, however, perfectly fine, until you get to Martin Luther King Jr. If you continue on to Melrose and the Natchez Trace, you’d better tighten up your seat belt and clench your teeth and prepare for another front-end alignment.

Well, I hope we all have another nice driving day, but, beware, if you go to one of those “big” towns, watch out, they write tickets and charge fines for the most ridiculous things, like traffic violations.

Dick Walcott

Natchez resident