(Publisher’s note: My son and newspaper cohort in Water Valley, David Howell, reports that the Yalobusha city hosted a stellar Watermelon Carnival last weekend with increased participation in all events and a slight cloud cover during part of Saturday that helped moderate the heat.
But after everybody goes home and the numbers are crunched and the weather compared to previous carnivals, what people best remember from each year’s historic festival are the stories fondly recalled. And the following account from this year’s Carnival, excerpted from the North Mississippi Herald, will likely be remembered among the best.)

A Case Of The Mistaken House

By David Howell
While the food, entertainment and visiting was superb, the best watermelon carnival tale of the weekend happened outside the park and did not involve the police department or bodily harm.
But it could have.

The instructions seemed easy enough for out-of-town guests Tom and Amy Tyler Brawswell. Come to the house, the door would be open, pet the dog and head on upstairs and make yourself at home. They were visiting Water Valley for Amy’s 45th  class reunion, the class of 1968.

They planned to stay with Amy’s first cousin, Nell Jobe, who provided the instructions.
“I told them I was living in my mom’s house. She is deceased,” Jobe explained.

It turns out that Amy remembered visiting another home Jobe’s mom lived in over 25 years ago, a home now occupied by Rex Howell and Denise Sunderland.

When they arrived home  Saturday morning around 1:30 a.m. after enjoying the carnival they noticed an unfamiliar car in the driveway with Tennessee tags
Actually Denise had made it home ahead of Rex.

“She took a knife with her in the house, she wasn’t sure whose car it was,” Rex said, retelling a story that has already made the rounds across town numerous times.

Everything seemed fine inside and they speculated that the car may belong to a friend of the kids.

“Then we thought we better check and see if the kids are home,” Rex continued. He checked the bedrooms and decided he better look upstairs too.

“I got to the bedroom and there were two people in there,” Rex explained.
He cut the light on and a man raised up.

“I cut the light back off,” Rex said.

    “How are y’all doing?” was the first question Rex asked.

    Next was, “Who the hell are you?” he added.

“Neal’s cousin,” was the answer, or at least that’s what Rex thought he heard.

“Who the hell is Neal?” was the next question.

    It took a few minutes, but they sorted out the details–the couple had intended to crash in Nell Jobe’s second story bedroom.

Rex hated to relocate them in the middle of the morning, especially after they had lugged their luggage upstairs.

“We tried to get them to stay, but I think they were too embarrassed,”?Rex explained.

The couple relocated to Jobe’s home, where she had left the light on after they didn’t show.

“She remembered visiting my mom at that home. The driveways were also similar,” Jobe said about the case of the mistaken homes.

By the next day the story had circulated ahead of the couple as they enjoyed the carnival.
“Tom asked who he needed to bribe to keep it out of the newspaper,” Jobe said. “I think he had a good time with it.”

Amy’s class members also took it in stride, Jobe told the Herald. They even made a special name tag, “Goldilocks,” for the reunion.

“It would have been even funnier if we had not checked it out and they had showed up the next morning for breakfast,” Rex added.

(David Howell is publisher of The North Mississippi Herald in Water Valley.)