Lemondrop

There is a place you can go where enormous, glittery boobs sparkle in the sunshine, big hair makes your butt look smaller, and women call each other Virgins and Sluts and no one bats an eyelash. This is partly because you're all drunk, and partly because the terms have nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the ceremonial popping of your hypothetical cherry.

The place? Jackson, Miss. The occasion? The annual Million Queen March of the Sweet Potato Queens.

Up until this year, I was a Sweet Potato Queens Virgin. But at about 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 20, I'm proud to tell you that I lost my "virginity" -- and did the whole thing with a tallboy of Bud Light in hand.

Now, the Sweet Potato Queen tradition began back before I was even a zygote, when a gal named Jill Conner Browne (that's her, at left, with me) told her friend Mal that his St. Patrick's Day Parade would not be complete without a queen to ride on a float, look pretty and wave at folks.

Everybody knows you can't have a parade without a queen, especially not in the South. So Jill got herself a tiara and a wig and some majorette boots and declared herself the Sweet Potato Queen -- which may sound funny to you, but truthfully it's not all that odd in these parts. We have queens for almost every cash crop you can imagine, plus a few farm animals, some dairy products and probably a handful of fried foods.

After Jill's inaugural reign as the Sweet Potato Queen, a few friends wanted to get involved, and pretty soon there was a gaggle of Queens on a float every year. In 1999 Jill committed their exploits to print in "The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love." Six books and 10 years later, the SPQs have gone from a float in the parade to an extended weekend of wild festivities that are equal parts booze, glitter, dancing and high cholesterol. Here's how it all goes down ...

"Larvae," "HRH" & Other Queenspeak
In Queenspeak, I'm considered "Larva." My mama and I made this trek down to Jackson in celebration of my 25th birthday, and according to HRH (Her Royal Highness, as we call Jill) you pretty much just don't exist before the age of 40. (We Larvae were in the distinct minority. In fact, I'd say there were probably more women there over the age of 70 than under the age of 30.) And let me tell you, the first time you see an 80-year-old woman in a flapper dress and stick-on-glitter, smoking a cigarette and wearing a sign that says "Diminutive Bitch," well, you just ain't never gonna be the same.

But I've gotten ahead of myself. Long before the first costume is shimmied into, the Queens get crafting. It's like being in Girl Scouts -- if your troop consisted only of women named Tammy (as all Queens are known), your troop colors were pink and green, and you earned badges for hot-gluing almonds onto a triple-D brassiere.

And don't forget wardrobe: All Queens need a festive outfit for the Sweet Potato Queens ball, as well as a parade ensemble, some sassy sleepwear for the "PJs and Pearls" party, and something a little more comfortable for the "Bathrobe Brunch."

We Queens do love a theme.

The End of an Era
During the Bathrobe Brunch, when we were addressed by HRH herself, we learned that this year was the last time the SPQ would be part of the St. Paddy's Day Parade. Why? There's just too damn many of us. Next year's event will be separate, entirely Queen-centric -- a parade solely for the Sweet Potato Queens and their thousands of Wannabes.

It was a little bittersweet, but there's a story HRH tells in one of the SPQ books. She says she's not scared of near-death experiences. Rather, she fears near-life experiences. Case in point: In the South, we like to use the word "fixin'," but fixin' itself is a problem nearly all humans have, regardless of geography. We're always fixin' to do something. We'll travel when we have time, or we'll go see that old friend when we have money. We put things off. And next thing you know, we realize we spent all this time just near to living. And that's Jill's greatest fear.

The entire weekend was the opposite: One of those truly see-to-believe affairs -- even the 300 photos I took could not begin to tell the tale. Have you ever seen an 85-year-old man twirl around a stripper pole? I now have. And I could go on asking crazy questions like that for days, because oh, Y'ALL, the things my eyes have witnessed.

And might I add, all this partyin' and merry-making isn't just for us -- it's for "the chirren," as Jill would say: Literally every second of glitter and beer and pole dancing throughout the entire weekend is to raise money for the Blaire E. Batson Hospital for Children, the only hospital in the state of Mississippi where every child is treated regardless of their ability to pay.

The Message Behind the Mayhem
When the weekend festivities wrapped up on Sunday, HRH was a-preachin' to us. It struck me that this dichotomy is something I love so much about the land from whence I come -- that we would dance and drink and go completely funny-farm-certifiable crazy all weekend (during karaoke at the PJs and Pearls Party, a girl hollered into the mic, "Sorry I'm bein' a bitch, y'all, I've been drinkin'") and then we come together reverently for Sunday morning brunch, to listen to Jill talk about how God made all this happen.

And in the midst of those Bible verses my mind wandered to the group of gals who'd showed up with fake boobs hanging out of their robes like an R-Rated Vicks Vap-O-Rub commercial. And then I cussed aloud for not getting a picture. And I would've felt bad about that, but y'all, we love to cuss just about as much as we love candied bacon. Bless our effin' hearts.

Elizabeth Cawein is freelance music writer and humor blogger born and raised in Memphis, Tenn. After living in London and New York City, she came to terms with her roots and moved back home in 2009. She blogs about travel, Southern life, sex and relationships at Just a Girl in the World.