The 5th inspiring tale in our Southern Gentleman Anthology

The newest competitor in the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is neither an engineer nor a pilot. In fact, he never advanced beyond his third, gin-soaked semester at the University of Mississippi-Molassesburg. But 56-year-old Sylvester Boggs-Cockrell is nothing if not a determined and courtly Southern gentleman. And when this scion of the South first learned of the international competition to send a robot to the moon, he set down his glass of iced tea, rubbed his fine white whiskers contemplatively, and exclaimed, "Mercy me, how I would so delight in beating those Yankee rapscallion tin-men to the moon myself!"

And so began a leisurely but nevertheless earnest attempt to claim the X PRIZE, with Boggs-Cockrell himself at the helm.

The aeronautical world has thus far approached the Boggs-Cockrell lunar module, recently christened "Ol' Magnolia," with no small amount of skepticism. The craft is being constructed of stout hickory timbers, with a fine tin roof that will "pitter-patter pleasantly with the impact of tiny meteors," according to Boggs-Cockrell mission control director, Big Glenda.

Ol' Magnolia will be fueled by a 15,000 hog-power diesel locomotive engine, retrofitted to run on a high-octane whiskey blend. It will also include a handsome screened-in front porch, complete with rocking chairs and a pressurized sleeping berth for General Sassafras, Boggs-Cockrell's loyal blue tick hound. But perhaps the spaceship's most distinctive feature is its seersucker outer shell, constructed from the same material that gives Cordarounds Suckerlab pants their incredible cooling properties, even in the sweatiest of summers. Reportedly, Boggs-Cockrell was so enamored of his own Cordarounds seersuckers that he insisted his engineering team swaddle the craft from top to bottom in the luxuriously puckered fabric, protecting it during its fiery reentry into Earth's atmosphere.

"It shall be the finest astro-craft ever to sail the celestial seas," said Boggs-Cockrell in his usual gracious manner. "I will be delivered to the moon in comfort and style, and I will stroll about its surface to my heart's content, as my competitors' mechanical ne'er-do-wells observe from afar my victorious toasts with a tall gin fizz!

"And upon my return," continued Boggs-Cockrell, "I will worry not a whit about excessive perspiration, thanks to the seersucker ensconcing my stately vessel ¯ as well as my cool and dewy-fresh nether regions!"