A Saturday meeting at the Capitol
It’s a Saturday afternoon and the Mississippi Capitol building is empty when I arrive to talk with state Sen. Hob Bryan about Jackson’s former Sun-n-Sand motel, a legendary offsite legislative venue that was torn down in 2021.
Bryan, who has been in office for 40 years and is one of the few serving lawmakers who remembers the Sun-n-Sand’s heyday, had suggested that I phone him when I arrived because the doors to the Capitol are locked on weekends. When I do, he says he’s running a tad late. A few moments later, he texts to say he is “90 seconds away.”
Such attention to detail is typical of Bryan, who is known as a dogged and meticulous lawmaker with a fondness for arcane facts.
After about 180 seconds, by my reckoning, he arrives in his compact Buick SUV, dressed in gray checked dress pants, a tucked Oxford cloth button-down shirt and white sneakers on a Saturday afternoon. We chat for a few moments in the parking lot, mostly about architecture, which we had discovered over the phone is a shared interest and is one of the subthemes of the Sun-n-Sand story.
I point across the Capitol lawn to the other side of High Street, where the seventies-era Gartin justice building stood until it was torn down and replaced by what we agree is an awkwardly imposing Greek Revival-ish monstrosity. The wide steps to the current building are blocked by barricades – there is apparently some sort of problem with the plaza, which prompts Bryan to launch into a tirade. The barricades rile him more than the building’s bad design. But then, many things rile Bryan.
Entering the Capitol, we head for the elevator, a gilded period relic that looks like a giant brass birdcage, which until 2021 still had a human operator whose name, Bryan later tells me, was Kenny. Reaching Bryan’s floor, we follow a wide, dimly lit marble corridor to his office, the door of which contains a window of translucent glass etched with a delicate feather pattern. Everything about the Capitol, down to the finest details, is opulent and robust, almost garish. I ask Bryan about the building’s style of architecture – is it Beaux Arts? It seems like something he would know, but he answers, simply, “Good.”
He cycles through a heavily loaded ring to find the right key and unlocks the door to his darkened suite. We squeeze past a supply cart parked in front of the door to his private space, in which the desk, a large round table and most of the floor overflow with files and stacks of papers. It looks a bit like a hoarder’s lair, but it is a working document cache from the recently ended legislative session. Bryan is big on documentation. As we talk, he frequently turns to filing cabinets or his computer to find answers to questions. At one point he manages to lay his hands on an ancient Sun-n-Sand restaurant receipt: $2.66 for an egg and bacon breakfast dish called the Sun One. He also finds an old, remarkably brief news clipping, only a couple of sentences long, that he hands to me without comment. The headline reads: “Bryan Saves Taxpayers Money,” or something to that effect. I’m unsure whether he considers it a curiosity or a source of pride. All I can think of to say is, “That’s a really short article.”
Bryan is an attorney, and conversations with him tend to include frequent verbal volleys. Occasionally, he seems skeptical and even dismissive. He was once accused by another senator of being a bully in his style of chairing meetings. He also has a wry sense of humor. He is curious about my approach to reporting and editing, and asks where I stand on the Oxford comma (he is for; I am generally against, with a few exceptions). At one point he roughly appraises my story idea, saying it sounds a bit convoluted. I do not disagree – it’s in the early stages, I say, and I’m not trying to force an idea, yet. But architecture is an overarching theme.
It is easy to imagine Bryan’s assertive approach and seeming perennial dissatisfaction having influenced his decision to run for the state Senate, in 1983, and to continue running and serving while Mississippi at first slowly, then with remarkable suddenness, went from Democratic to Republican political control. As a testament to his credibility as a lawmaker, he chairs the Public Health and Welfare Committee despite the fact that he is a Democrat and that the legislature has a Republican supermajority. Associated Press reporter Emily Wagster Pettus once observed that Bryan is “generally regarded as one of the smartest people in the Mississippi Capitol, even by those who oppose him ideologically and those who roll their eyes at his occasional finger-pointing, vein-popping rants about public policy.”
He is also something of a Luddite. Another reporter noted that Bryan notoriously loathes modern technology and refused to recognize a senator because he was participating in a committee meeting via Zoom and was not physically present. In a similar vein, when I mention that his voice over the phone sounds a bit like Michael Stipe’s, he responds: “Who’s that?” I tell him Stipe was the lead singer of R.E.M. He says, somewhat haughtily, “Is that some new band?” In the eighties, yes, I say.
Despite his occasional gruffness, Bryan is gracious, and when it comes time for me to go, offers me a series of souvenir tchotchkes, including a mug with some interest group’s logo that was apparently given to him. I’m not sure whether he really expects me to take it or this is an inside joke that only he is in on. In any event, I decline the offer. As I move toward the door, he asks if I need him to walk me out of the building. I say no, not really. So, he walks me out of the building.
When we reach the now unoccupied guard station (two Capitol police officers had been leaving as we came in), he insists that I take a brochure about the Capitol, which he says will likely note its architectural style. It does: Beaux Arts. He also asks, apropos of nothing, whether I am aware that the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library moved from Illinois to Mississippi State University. I did not know that, I say.
“You should look into it,” he says, then holds open the door.