The Witches Take Both Ends of the Coast

Good Friday morning from The Seawall.

Nothing in the tropics. Nothing in the forecast. Two towns full of witches.

This was meant to land yesterday. It didn't, and that's on me. The weekend it's about hasn't started yet, so here it is a day late — which means everything below that says tonight means Friday night.

Two weeks ago this newsletter was a list of sandbag sites. Last week it was an apology for telling you to rush preparations for a hurricane that went to Florida. This morning the Hurricane Center has nothing in the Gulf and nothing in the western Caribbean. Three days, all sunny, all dry.

That is not the October we've had. And it lands on the weekend the whole Coast decided to put on a costume.

Saturday is the day. Bay St. Louis fills Old Town with the Witches Walk at ten in the morning. Ocean Springs sends the Witches Ride through downtown after dark. Opposite ends of the Coast, the same Saturday, no coordination between them that anyone will admit to.

Full guide below — plus a mid-century modern on the Tchoutacabouffa with a hundred and forty feet of river frontage, and a Biloxi stray at the Gulfport shelter who has been waiting since last November.

October is the month the Coast gets its porch back. The air goes dry, the evenings go long, and for a few weeks nobody is watching a cone of uncertainty.

Today — Sunny, 79, easing back toward 75 by late afternoon. East wind 5 to 10. Tonight: clear, 56.

Saturday — Sunny, 76, slipping to 74 in the afternoon. Northeast wind around 10. Saturday night: clear, 54. The cool one.

Sunday — Sunny, 77. Northeast wind around 10.

No rain today, none Saturday, none Sunday. The Slidell office says we may be waiting until next month for anything that counts as real rain.

Start with the water, because it changed overnight. Small craft advisories go up at 10 a.m. Saturday on the Mississippi Sound and on the Gulf out to twenty miles, and at 1 a.m. Saturday for the far offshore water, twenty to sixty miles out. Everything from Pascagoula west runs until 7 p.m. Sunday. East of Pascagoula, toward Alabama, it holds until 1 a.m. Monday. If you were going to put a boat in, today is your window. Saturday morning is technically still open inshore, but the east wind starts building after midnight tonight — treat it as a short, watchful window, not a free one.

Now the dry air. This is the one to watch. This morning's discussion holds elevated fire weather through the weekend — worsening drought, abundant fuels, winds increasing, fire weather headlines possibly needed — and the Weather Service put out a Fire Danger Statement for all three coastal counties before dawn. It lapsed on its own clock a few hours later, and the discussion says more statements, a fire weather watch or a red flag warning are all possible as the weekend wind comes up. No burn ban on the three coastal counties on the Forestry Commission's latest county map — though Stone County, just up the road, is already under one. Still: don't burn the yard pile, don't walk away from a fire pit, and put the cigarette all the way out.

Bottom line: three clear days, mid-to-upper seventies, cool enough after dark for a jacket over a costume. Go outside and stay there. Just don't light anything.

🎃 Nativity BVM Halloween Carnival · Biloxi · Saturday · 1046 Beach Blvd. · games and food priced individually — sixty-eighth year, which is a long time to keep a cake walk going. The parish confirms the date but hasn't posted this year's hours, so call before you load the car.

👻 Terror on the Coast · Gulfport · tonight and Saturday, midway 6 p.m., haunt 7, closes 11 · 3420 Giles Rd. · $25, $35 to skip the line — a 40,000-square-foot warehouse haunt.

🍺 Llamapalooza · Biloxi · Saturday from noon until sundown · Fly Llama Brewing, 186 Bohn St. · free — music, art vendors, food trucks, a beer release. No 2026 lineup had been posted as of this morning, so go for the afternoon and take what you get.

🕯 Long Beach Historical Society Cemetery Tour · Long Beach · tonight, 5–7 p.m. · City Cemetery, Girard Ave. at 1st St. · free — a guided walk through the cemetery with the people who know who's in it. Quietest good idea on the list.

🥬 The Pass Market · Pass Christian · Saturday 9 a.m.–1 p.m. · War Memorial Park, 103 Fleitas Ave. · free to browse — weather permitting, and the weather is permitting.

🎪 Gulfport Boo Bash · Saturday 6–9 p.m. · Gulfport Sportsplex soccer fields · free — games and trunk-or-treating.

🧹 Witches Walk Bay St. Louis · Saturday 10 a.m.–6 p.m. · Cue St. at Main St., Old Town · free to watch — hundreds of people in witch costume through Old Town for eight hours. Online registration has closed, but the organizers still list in-person sign-up: tonight 6–8 p.m. at the welcome party at Cuz's, and Saturday 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. near the main stage on Main Street, while supplies last. Or turn up in a hat and watch, which is the better way to do it.

🎭 Monsters & Masquerade Bash · Pearlington · tonight 7–10 p.m., VIP at 6 · INFINITY Science Center, 1 Discovery Circle · ticketed — costume and mask contest, silent auction, magic, food and drinks, under the rockets. A rare reason to be in Pearlington after dark. Go.

🌽 Southern Promiseland Farm · Kiln · Saturday 11 a.m.–8 p.m., Sunday 1–4 p.m. · 1212 Raygan Ln. · paid — corn maze, pumpkin patch, cow train, corn cannon, hayride. Call for this year's price.

🏈 Bay High vs. Forrest County AHS · Bay St. Louis · tonight 7 p.m. · Bay High School · gate admission — district football, Bay at home.

🎡 Jackson County Fair · Pascagoula · running through Sunday · Fairgrounds, 2902 Shortcut Rd. · paid — rides, livestock, arts building, fair food. Civic center opens 9 a.m., livestock barn 11, arts building 4. The one thing here that covers all three days.

🧙 Witches Ride of Ocean Springs · Saturday 6 p.m. · downtown · line the route — hundreds of costumed riders through downtown after dark. Packet pickup is tonight, 5–8 p.m. at CRAVE; the Mix & Mingle ticket alongside it is $10 and includes a drink. Riders can still sign up. There's a pub crawl Saturday for the eighteen-and-over crowd, though no start time is posted for it.

🎨 Art After Dark: The Bayou Collection by George Rodrigue · Ocean Springs · tonight 6–9 p.m., timed entry every half hour · Walter Anderson Museum of Art, 510 Washington Ave. · $12 members / $15 everyone else — Rodrigue's bayou paintings, after hours, in Walter Anderson's museum. Do this one.

🏈 Ocean Springs vs. West Harrison · tonight 7 p.m. · Ocean Springs High School · gate admission — Greyhounds at home.

Tonight — Three Days Grace, with I Prevail and The Funeral Portrait, Mississippi Coast Coliseum, Biloxi, 7 p.m., ticketed. The Coliseum's listing names only the headliner; a second source lists all three without saying who closes. Prepaid general parking is $10.70.

Tonight and Saturday — Zach Rushing, the Redneck Logic tour, Saenger Theatre, Biloxi, doors 6, show 7. Comedy on a music page, and he booked the big downtown room two nights running.

Sunday is the surprise — two ticketed shows, which this section almost never gets to say. NOLATET — Johnny Vidacovich, James Singleton, Mike Dillon and Brian Haas — at the Bay St. Louis Little Theatre, 6 p.m., $30.04 to $35.75 with fees, billed by the venue as jazz, funk and experimental. And Peter Mayer is at the Mary C. O'Keefe in Ocean Springs, 7 p.m., under the JazzFest in OS banner.

The full weekend —

Tonight — Carpool, a CARS tribute, 7 p.m., ticketed. Fuego Latin Night takes the room at 10 and runs to 1 — $5 at the door, $10 after eleven.

Saturday — R&B and jazz brunch with Jairus Dixon at 11 a.m., then ⭐ Dwayne Dopsie & The Zydeco Hellraisers with special guest Rockin' Dopsie Jr., 7 p.m., ticketed.

Sunday — brunch with Ty Taylor, 11 a.m. The only Sunday-morning live music we could find anywhere on the Coast.

Seating is limited and first come, first served.

Silver Slipper, Bay St. Louis, Stage Bar, 7–11: The Regulators tonight, Hip Pocket Saturday. Island View, Gulfport: R&R Smokin' Foundation 8–11 both nights, Mishee 7–10 both nights at the Sunset Bar. Boomtown, Biloxi: Starz, 7–11, both nights. Hard Rock, Biloxi: DJ Doc Roc tonight at 9, the Joel Cooper Rock Show Saturday at 9, karaoke in Roadhouse 777.

Nothing listed at any of them Sunday.

Tonight — Sugarcane Jane, Jack's by the Tracks, Pascagoula, 7 p.m.

Saturday — the Terrapins Band is listed at Government Street Grocery, Ocean Springs, 9 p.m. One listing only, so call ahead.

Treasure Bay's entertainment page says only that entertainment will return. 100 Men Hall lists nothing until Mike Zito on Friday, October 30. The Coliseum goes quiet Saturday and Sunday after tonight's show.

We could not reach the calendars at The Shed, Shaggy's, the Blind Tiger, Scarlet Pearl or Harrah's. Unreachable is not dark — The Shed advertises no cover every Friday and Saturday, so assume there's music and call ahead.

⭐ The pick: Dwayne Dopsie and Rockin' Dopsie Jr., Ground Zero, Saturday night. Three Days Grace will sell more tickets and it belongs at the top of this section. It's also a national tour that happens to stop here. Two Dopsies on one stage in a blues room on Howard Avenue, on the one night everybody's already downtown in a costume — that's the show that only happens here.

📩 Venue owners: if you book live music and you're not in this section, that's our fault and it's fixable. Send us your weekend — [email protected] — by Tuesday noon and you're in. We're still after a reachable schedule from Shaggy's and Nine Toes in particular; a reader asked for both by name.

Long Beach High has three days left in round one. (WLOX) The school is one of forty national finalists out of nearly 2,500 applicants in T-Mobile's Friday Night 5G Lights. Making the top forty already banked $25,000. Winning the division is $250,000, and there's a $1 million grand prize past that. Lumpkin-Magee Stadium is about fifty years old and needs bathrooms, concessions and a weight room. You can vote once a day — today, Saturday and Sunday — and this round closes Sunday, October 25. A second round runs into November. So vote.

Bay Waveland is the number one school district in Mississippi. (WLOX) First out of 148 in the state's 2025-26 accountability release — top 4% in reading, math and science proficiency, top 2% for growth in math and reading. Superintendent Sandra Reed gave the number that matters: eight years ago the district ranked 61st, and was the only C-rated district on the Coast.

Amtrak is making a special stop in Ocean Springs for the Peter Anderson Festival. (WLOX) The 48th annual festival runs November 7 and 8, and the train will stop downtown for it — two departures each way from Mobile and New Orleans. Mayor Bobby Cox: "There's no better way to arrive in Ocean Springs than by train during festival season."

Pass Christian now has seventeen oysters. (The Gazebo Gazette) Main Street has installed seventeen hand-painted fiberglass oyster sculptures as a permanent art trail, with locations running from City Hall toward the harbor, Henderson Park, Second Street, Scenic Drive and Davis Avenue. Artists came from six Gulf Coast cities. One oyster, "Guardians of the Bayou," still needs a sponsor. Main Street president Wendy Diaz del Valle on where the idea started: "We thought, if we don't have our reefs out there, we can have a reef up here."

Scooter's Coffee · Biloxi · (WLOX) — opened earlier this month on Popp's Ferry Road. Seventh in Mississippi, first on the Coast.

Church's Chicken · Gulfport · (WLOX) — back open off Pass Road in an entirely new building on the same spot, after months closed and a demolition. A rebuild, not a new arrival, but it's back.

The Seafood Shack · Bay St. Louis · (Seacoast Echo) — opened at the start of the month at the Hollydeck Bar & Marina, running a rotating seafood special Saturdays and Sundays through October under the name Decktoberfest. Boiled shrimp, boiled crab, char-grilled oysters. The dish changes and no menu is posted, so call ahead.

Freddie Mac's survey, released yesterday: the 30-year fixed at 7.32%, down from 7.40%. The 15-year at 6.68%, down from 6.71%. A year ago, 6.19% and 5.44%.

Rates went down.

This section hasn't been able to write that sentence since August. Look at the run: 7.03% on September 24, then 7.28%, then 7.40%, then 7.40% again, and now 7.32%. Eight basis points back off the top.

Eight basis points is not a rally. On a $300,000 loan it's about sixteen dollars a month, which is lunch. But after a month of being asked whether this number only goes one direction, the honest answer this week is no. It stopped last week and it gave a little back yesterday. Two data points are not a trend and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Still — 7.32% is 1.13 points above where this survey sat a year ago, and that gap is doing more to your buying power than yesterday's eight points undid.

And one piece of news that pays, if you own a house here. Two South Mississippi homeowners have received the first certified fortified roofs under Strengthen Mississippi Homes, a new state program paying grants of up to $10,000 toward a fortified roof. Wind-pool policyholders qualify first, by lottery, and the Windstorm Underwriters Association is funding $2 million to start. Its executive director says wind-pool policyholders with a fortified roof get a 20% premium discount. A wider rollout is planned for early 2027, opening past the wind pool with funding rising to $15 million.

On the wind pool? Enter the lottery. Off it? Know it's coming — because on this Coast the insurance line is doing more damage to affordability than the interest rate is. And keep it in mind when you get to the House of the Week, whose listing claims a new fortified roof. If you go look at it, ask whether it carries the FORTIFIED certificate — that's what the discount turns on.

I'm a licensed Mississippi real estate salesperson with REAL Brokerage, and a Ramsey-trained financial coach — I've led four Financial Peace University classes at Mosaic Church in Ocean Springs, which means I've sat across from a lot of people doing this math at a kitchen table. If you want the version of this conversation that starts with your numbers instead of the market's, reply to this email or call the Seawall line at 228-325-1502. More at www.robrecio.com. — Rob

Robert Recio · Licensed Mississippi Real Estate Salesperson · License #S-62221 · REAL Broker, LLC · Equal Housing Opportunity

"What happens if the appraisal comes in below what I agreed to pay?"

Somebody has to cover the gap, and the contract decides who — which is why the appraisal contingency is the paragraph to read before you need it.

Your lender doesn't lend against the price you agreed to pay. It lends against the appraised value. So if you're under contract at $400,000 with 10% down and the appraisal lands at $385,000, the lender is still only lending on $385,000. That $15,000 doesn't vanish. It moves to your side of the table. You can bring the cash, renegotiate, split the difference, challenge the appraisal with better comps, or walk away if your contract lets you.

That last one is the whole point of the contingency, and it's why I argue with people who waive it to win a bidding war. Waiving it doesn't make the house appraise. It means that if it doesn't, the shortfall is yours and your earnest money is at risk if you can't close.

Where this bites hardest here is the one-of-a-kind house — an architect-attributed place on an acre, a 1920s cottage somebody restored past its neighborhood, a house whose square footage on the listing and in the public record don't match. Appraisers price against comparable sales, and an odd house has fewer real comparables, so the number has more room to land somewhere you weren't expecting. Buy the interesting house anyway. Just keep the contingency, and go in knowing the valuation is the live question, not the paint color.

County: Harrison ✅ (Harrison was owed three weeks running — this slot sat on one Hancock County listing through October 1, 8 and 15. Here's the unwind: Harrison this week, Jackson next.)

3573 Brandon James Drive, Biloxi

It's a mid-century modern house with a hundred and forty feet of frontage on the Tchoutacabouffa River, backing onto a hundred and ten acres of wildlife preserve. That is the sentence. Everything else is detail.

The MLS credits the design to the late Carroll Ishee. Be careful with that. The claim appears identically on every site carrying the listing, which means it's one description repeated, not seven sources agreeing, and we could find no heritage, preservation, archival or news source connecting Ishee to this street. Then there's the part nobody has reconciled: the Mississippi Gulf Coast National Heritage Area and Preservation in Mississippi both give Ishee's dates as 1921 to 1982, and the listing says the house was built in 1983. Both halves are solid. We're printing the contradiction. Resolving it would mean inventing the explanation.

What's actually in it: three bedrooms, two full baths and a half, on 1.01 acres in Wells Ferry Landing. Vaulted cedar inside and out, plaster walls. Geothermal heating and cooling. A residential enclosed elevator, and the listing calls the house ADA compliant. A woodworking shop, a built-in potting bench, a fourteen-zone irrigation system, a koi pond, six carports, parking for an RV and a boat. New appliances. And — go back and read the Real Estate section again — a new fortified roof, and a new bulkhead.

On the market since August 6, listed at $689,000 and cut to $640,000 on August 28.

On the square footage, read carefully. The MLS says 2,900. The public record says 2,271. That's a 629-square-foot gap on the same house, and only one of the sites carrying this listing surfaces it at all. We're not resolving that one either. Ask it first. An appraiser will.

The numbers: $640,000 · 3 bed / 2 full + 1 half bath · 2,900 sq ft per the MLS, 2,271 per the public record · built 1983 · 1.01 acres · 140 ft of river frontage · covenants with no HOA · about $221 a foot on the MLS figure, $282 on the public record's. (No tax figure here: the MLS holds none for this property, and we don't reprint a number we can't source to the record.)

Flood: Zone AE, base flood elevation 14 feet. We pulled that ourselves rather than taking anyone's word for it — Harrison County FIRM panel 28047C0284G, effective June 16, 2009. For a house on a river that's about what you'd expect, and the new bulkhead reads differently once you know it. AE means a mapped special flood hazard area, so flood insurance if you're financing. Get your own determination and an elevation certificate before you get attached. The certificate is what sets the premium.

Listed by Kristi L. Ferguson, Century 21 Busch Realty Group.

That's the credit, not the phone number you want. It isn't my listing — which is exactly why I can show it to you as your agent instead of the seller's. Want to walk it? Reply to this email or call the Seawall line at 228-325-1502 and I'll set it up. Already working with an agent? Call them. That's how this is supposed to work.

A geothermal mid-century on a river with an elevator and no real comparables is a house where the valuation is the whole conversation. You want somebody in that conversation who answers to you.

Kaylee Ann is at the Humane Society of South Mississippi in Gulfport. She came in as a stray out of Biloxi last November.

Black Mouth Cur and Siberian Husky mix, female, medium, spayed. The shelter describes her as calm and gentle, good on a leash, a dog who stays close to her people and would do best in a quieter house. The structured record lists her as an adult, three to eight years. The shelter's own write-up says she's three. We're quoting both.

Two things said plainly. HSSM's write-up says she tested heartworm positive, and that the shelter offers discounted treatment and payment plans for dogs who do. That's the shelter's text, not a lab result we've seen — and Petfinder has no heartworm field at all, for any animal, so every heartworm claim you read there came out of a bio. Ask at the desk. Second: her house-training field reads Unknown, which is the honest answer for a dog who arrived as a stray, and not the same thing as a no.

Also still waiting: Bosley, the big hound mix we ran on October 8. He's still on the roster. We'd rather tell you that than quietly feature a different dog and let you assume he found somebody.

Humane Society of South Mississippi · 2615 25th Ave, Gulfport · (228) 863-3354 · published hours Tuesday to Friday 10 to 5, Saturday 10 to 4, with no Sunday or Monday hours listed.

Adoptions are first come, first served — no appointments, no holds, no prepayments, bring a photo ID. Adoptions get cut off about thirty minutes before closing, earlier when it's busy. Fees run $20 and up for a standard adult dog, $95 and up if it's a small dog, $110 and up for a puppy under nine months. Purebreds run higher. Ask at the desk — the schedule isn't posted on their site. The fee covers spay or neuter, vaccinations, a microchip with an engraved tag, a heartworm test, a discounted vet visit within a week and a bag of food.

Confirm she's still available before you drive over. Other non-pit dogs on the roster: Torin, a small retriever mix; Cannoli, a young retriever mix; and Cinder, a Labrador mix the shelter is still getting to know.

Jon Pardi · Mississippi Coast Coliseum, Biloxi · Thursday, October 29

Mike Zito · 100 Men Hall, Bay St. Louis · Friday, October 30, 6:30 p.m., $25

Peter Anderson Arts & Crafts Festival · downtown Ocean Springs · Saturday and Sunday, November 7 and 8, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. · 48th year, and this year Amtrak is stopping for it

Gulfport Harbor Lights Winter Festival · Jones Park, Gulfport · opens Friday, November 27 · forty acres, a million and a half lights · tickets on sale November 1

Reply to this email — it comes straight to us and we read everything. Tips, corrections, a venue we missed, a dog that found a home: [email protected]. The Seawall line is 228-325-1502.

Forward this to somebody on the Coast who'd want it. That's still the only way this thing grows.

Three days of sun and not one thing in the Gulf. Put on the hat, go stand on Main Street or Washington Avenue, and let somebody else's kid be amazed at you.

Take someone with you.

— The Seawall