William introduced me to a “sake bomb” at the sushi shop. Sake is pronounced “sah’-kie.”

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This week has been both educational and enlightening.

My son William has been visiting from Nashville where the night life is always hopping. When he arrived in Starkville, aka Boardtown (that’s what my town was called in its early days), he was bewildered by the lack of entertainment opportunities. He calls it “Bored-town”.

On Monday evening he and my eldest son, Braddock, decided to go out for a night on the town. (It was William’s birthday.) I was anticipating a burger and a movie ….but neew. We went out for fish bait followed by the mouse races at the Dark Horse Tavern.

I kid you not. There is a huge segment of Starkville society which crowds into a local tavern to bet on their favorite rodents.

The hapless mice are placed in parallel tubes and invited to race toward the cheese. The crowd hoops and hollers and the lucky winners get a free brew.

(The mouse race track is pictured at left.)

We began the evening with a beautiful assortment of fish bait disguised as sushi at a Japanese restaurant called Umi.

My boys have become connoisseurs of this genre of cuisine, but for the life of me it tastes like raw fish wrapped in Johnson grass. The tab: $97.23. I left hungry but happy that they enjoyed themselves. They participated in a ritual they called “Sake bombing.” A jigger of sake is placed between chopsticks over a glass of Japanese beer. You then begin pounding on the table until the jigger falls into the beer, which they promptly chug-a-lugged.

I was simply a spectator, mind you – sipping my green tea and wondering when I got too old to enjoy such antics. It was quaint that the sushi was delivered in little fishing boats, but they stopped me when I tried to take my boat home.

We made friends with the sushi makers who even comped us a platter of sushi in honor of William’s birthday. My boys were extremely impressed with the quality of the fish bait. It was beautiful to behold if a bit off-putting in its rawness.

Fish bait CAN be beautiful.

The evening was still young, but I was feeling older with every passing minute. They dropped me off back at the house and I don’t even want to know where they went next.

Our new friends, the Sushi makers.