Ellington

One Sunday before Christmas, a packed bus from an out-of-town Missionary Baptist Church pulled into the parking lot of Romantic Adventures on U.S. Highway 80. The traveling Sunday school disembarked to buy dirty Santa gifts. This isn't the oddest thing owner Thomas G. Harris has seen.

Romantic Adventures sells lingerie, adult videos and contraception. The biggest sellers, however, are gadgets. "By gadgets, we mean sex toys," Harris says. A popular item this month is a single, romantic rose that looks innocent enough in its cute plastic form. It is also a personal massager.

Valentine's Day is Harris' Christmas. He will see more business now than any other time of the year. It's an emotion-driven business, but that's not always enough in a tough economy.

"I thought it would be a recession-proof business, but it's not," Harris said. "When everything nosedived, we went with it."

Harris, 68, is an Eagle Scout, an Air Force veteran and an engineer. He's a lifelong member of the NRA, a 1972 Mississippi State University graduate and a former president of the Columbus Host Lions Club. He races Corvettes and has a much younger girlfriend. Harris is also a prostate cancer survivor who studies tantric yoga. He was born in California, grew up in Vicksburg and worked as an engineer in Columbus, Miss., for 20 years before moving to Jackson in the late 1990s.

Harris started his company, HCH Holdings, in 2001 with his brother and a good friend. His partners have since died, and Harris is now the sole owner of the store. Most of his customers are married or long-term partners who come in together.

Romantic Adventures offers military and police discounts.

Mississippi law bans the sale of sex toys, but not the possession of them. "You can possess them all day long," he says.

The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2008 overturned a similar ban in Texas. Since then, the law hasn't bothered Harris. His lawyer advised him to have each customer become a member. He has 150,000 members now.

"I have got quite a few celebrity signatures," Harris said.

Harris is conservative on many issues, liberal on others. "The common thread is (that) I object to the government telling me how to live my life," he says.

He thinks much of the state lives under a dark cloud of pain, suffering, denial and hardship. Getting rid of negative energy is part of the reason he stays.

"I love Mississippi. The people are as good as anywhere you are going to find," he says. "The strongest energy in the world is love.