Jimmy Reed

The Hardest Part

One late, cold December day, my boyhood best friend and mentor, the beloved old black man everyone called Jaybird, and I were warming ourselves before his fireplace, talking about the year behind and the one to come. When I asked if he made any New Year’s resolutions, he said, “Yep, to stay alive long enough not to make any resolutions for the year after next.” Then his tone became serious. “Boy, I’ve been watching how you work. You have a bad habit of doing a job’s easy parts first — exactly opposite of what you ought to do. Next year, I want you to do the hardest part of any job first, unless it depends on doing other parts first.”

Bawl, Boy, Bawl

As we left the tiny country church near Dad’s Mississippi Delta farm, my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird asked, “Son, as much as love singing Christmas carols, why didn’t you sing today?” The old black man was right. I knew them all, having memorized them while listening to Christmas albums over and over again, but a stinging insult from a man sharing our pew embarrassed me so painfully that I couldn’t sing. Jaybird loved my caterwauling, as I gleefully sang, “Joy To The World,” “Silent Night, Holy Night,” “O Little Town Of Bethlehem,” and other carols. Once spoken, unkind words cannot be unspoken. A few days before, when I climbed into the bus after school, the driver, Mr. Smith quipped, “You love to sing in church, don’t you, boy?” Expecting praise, I chirped, “Yes, Sir.”

On The Inside

When Maria walked into my British Literature class at the semester’s beginning, her stylish attire and thick, glossy, perfectly coiffed, blonde hair impressed me. I thought, if only all female students dressed that well. Nowadays, many don’t. The way some appear in public is appalling: shorts that are little more than panties, T-shirts hanging beneath blouses, garishly colored hair, and dirty, unlaced sneakers. They look like tramps. A few months later, before Christmas break, Maria strutted into class dressed like a tramp, with her hair dyed fluorescent green. Sadly, I shook my head, realizing she had succumbed to peer group fads. During that session we discussed Shakespeare’s sonnets. In one, he described his lady’s outward appearance: Her hair resembled black wires, her breath reeked, her voice droned monotonously dull, her walk was a waddle, and so on. Even so, he loved her.

Thou Art

When students arrived for my creative writing course’s first meeting, they read this 38-word message on the board: “The first thing you must learn to do is to be able to write tight. Then, and only then, after you have learned to write tight can you ever hope to be able to learn to write right.” After analyzing the message, they took a test requiring them to rewrite the message, using nothing more than a dash, an exclamation point — and four words.

The Weights And Counterpoises Of The Clock Of Life

While driving to work, I noticed a sign draped over a hospital’s entrance that read, “Thanksgiving is for giving thanks.” Ho-hum, I thought. Far from being in a thankful mood, I was dejected, unhappy, wallowing in self-pity, due primarily to my wife’s failing health, which required me to become what I was never meant to be: a nurse. The struggle was futile, I knew; her days were numbered. Death would soon take her, ending our long marriage.

Adieu, Mr. Lu

The Mississippi Delta is renowned not only for its fecund soil, but also for its unique characters, ranging from those with benign idiosyncrasies to raving lunatics roaming unrestrained among sane folks. One of the most unforgettable of them was Lloyd Lemuel Llewellynn, known by all as “Mr. Lu.” His varicose-veined face framed a bulbous nose, crooked smile, and intelligent blue eyes, fixed always in a faraway stare. Even in the Delta’s perpetual, soup-thick humidity, where gills would serve better than lungs for respiration, he wore heavy, Victorian Era clothes, so old and shabby that actual Victorians might have worn them. He spoke with what he claimed was his native Welsh accent, but to us Southerners sounded more like a Yankee’s Welsh affectation.

Boldness Has Genius, Power, And Magic In It

Once during my college teacher career, the dean called me into his office and ordered me to finish teaching a course that lost its instructor. When I complained that the semester was almost over, that I had no idea what had been covered, and furthermore that I had never taught that course, the former Marine drill sergeant pointed to the door and dismissed me with the same words he no doubt growled to numerous terrified recruits: “Like it or not, you will do whatever must be done.”

Hooray — Hennie’s Heading Home!

When managing my father’s Mississippi Delta cotton farm, I earned extra money by selling honey and eggs. Like most normal folks, my three daughters — Olivia, Heidi, and Annabelle — kept their distance from the beehives, but loved the chickens, especially a beautiful Rhode Island Red hen that they named “Hennie.” One morning when they went to feed the hen a handful of her favorite snacks, they returned in a panic, shouting, “Daddy, Hennie’s gone!”

Positive Attitudes Achieve Positive Outcomes

When I told Jaybird, my boyhood best friend and mentor, that I no longer wanted to play football, the old black man, knowing how much I loved the game, knew I was lying. After each preseason practice when we drove home, I told him about everything the team did. When I confessed that my attitude change resulted from the coach assigning me to the third team, he said, “Son, Satan has many tools that he uses to prevent God’s children from maintaining a positive attitude; he uses discouragement the most.”

Trotline Tidbits, Thanks To Thaddo

Between the country store and a road passing through that remote corner of the Mississippi Delta stood a sycamore tree with limbs stretching in all directions, shading benches where customers sat while playing dominos and enjoying snacks bought at the store. On summer nights my pal Lamar and me stationed ourselves on the tree’s large limbs, our pockets filled with hard, green sycamore balls, which we threw at passing cars. Once when my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird spotted us perched in the tree, he warned, “Y’all keep up that foolishness, and one of these nights the driver of a car hit by them balls will chop y’all up into trotline tidbits.”



Let Us Never Forget

The old man behind the country store counter clasped my hand with eagle talon strength, squeezing tighter and tighter, his pained, bloodshot eyes locked with mine. Panicking, wishing I had not stopped for a cold drink, disregarding change from the bill on the counter for payment, I struggled to free my hand and flee.

Those Terrifying, Terrible, Transylvanian Troglodytes

Those brothers — Theo, Tobias, and Titus — were the strangest bunch of humanoids in the Mississippi Delta. It was rumored that they migrated from Transylvania and perhaps were the progeny of Count Dracula himself. Antisocial, they lived, fought, drank, and worked together sunup to sundown, exerting Goliath-size bodies overflowing with strength and energy unmatched by any ordinary man or set of men. Of fear and women, they had no use, which didn’t matter because women steered clear of them, as did most men. They were the source of children’s nightmares.

The Penitent Plum Poacher

Stealing fruit from Jaybird’s orchard was risky, but like Adam and Eve I succumbed to irresistible temptation, climbed a tree, and filled my pockets with sweet, juicy plums, dismissing the theft’s severity by assuming the old black man wouldn’t miss the few I plucked. While shinnying down, I came face to face with him. “Gotcha!” he said. The punishment was swift and painful, rendering well-striped buttocks. Tossing aside the willow switch, he said, “I hope you enjoy those plums.” For a while, I dearly hated the man who was my boyhood best friend and mentor.

Sebenleben, Uhmadgin, Goodeel

From sunup to sundown, my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird was always busy. Achievement through productivity gave him great satisfaction. For him, hard work seemed as natural as breathing. Even though well up in years when he took me, a boy of ten, under his wing, during our long days working together in Dad’s Mississippi Delta cotton fields, keeping up with him was an all-day challenge. He was a doer, not a talker; he spoke through actions, not words. Even so, some of his words with multiple meanings offset his limited vocabulary. I remember three: sebenleben, uhmadgun, goodeel.

ATM Mayhem

After what happened to me at an ATM machine one Saturday afternoon, my understanding of the word dementia is perfectly clear. On Flag Day, friends in a retirement community invited me to be their lunchtime guest speaker. My ego being what it is, I never decline invitations to orate, so I dressed patriotically in a red tie, white shirt, blue blazer, American Flag lapel pin, lizard-skin boots, and the quintessential American male symbol: a cowboy hat. After lunch, I stopped for cash. I’m leery of ATMs, having read about victims whose cards were stolen and identities sold to other thieves, who cloned them into countless criminal consumers. Upon inserting the card, a message stated that the machine’s sponsor charged $3 for withdrawals. I was furious! For years, the bank used my money to make money, and now had the gall to charge me a fee to withdraw my own money! I became even angrier when a bunch of teenagers blaring their horn shouted, “Hurry up, old man!” In senior citizen choler, I squealed away.

Atlas, The Attacking Airedale

When a neighbor offered Atlas to my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird, he accepted the four-month-old Airedale puppy. Soon they became inseparable. For Atlas, a dog’s life was heaven. His luminous eyes shone in quizzical, mischievous anticipation, his mustache-framed mouth smiled permanently, and his wiry coat glowed like amber. He had rocket fuel energy and an anvil’s tolerance for pain. With Jaybird’s constant love and care, Atlas grew from puppy-size to pony-size, and had three modes of action: eat, sleep, attack. Anything that moved was prey.

Big-O-O-Oh!

While handing over the money, Jaybird muttered, “Boy, you’re a sucker for advertising. This money — a loan, mind you — will be wasted on yet another lure as fish-frightening as the Pearly-Eyed Wobbler you foolishly had to have and that I foolishly loaned you money to buy — just another piece of junk designed to catch fishermen, not fish.” Ignoring the wise old black man, my boyhood mentor and best friend, I hurried to Clyde’s bait shop, hoping he hadn’t sold all of bass-fishing’s hottest lure: the Big-O. Angler fanatics like myself had never seen anything like it. Made of balsa wood, the body’s top half was green, separated from its ivory belly by a black line, nose to tail. The most innovative feature was a transparent plastic, protruding lip, shaped like a flat spoon, and positioned so that a few reel cranks would send it diving to the deep, murky depths trophy bass love.

The Fastest Fighting Cub

During my two-decade college teaching career, experience— always the best teacher — taught me to identify the number-one ability of students whose attitude held them back and do all possible to maximize that ability. Although challenging and not always successful, for some it was a life-changing experience. I know… it happened to me way back in 1961.

Peanut Pearl’s Perfect Paradise

Folks raised below the Mason-Dixon line cannot drive past roadside stands selling boiled peanuts, and the little Oriental lady, nicknamed “Peanut Pearl” by her late husband, boiled the best goobers Southerners ever gobbled. I befriended her after going into sticker shock when an orthodontist informed me that even a self-respecting garfish wouldn’t put up with one of my daughter’s teeth, and that his fee for making her smile as beautiful as the rest of her would set me back five grand. Luckily, I found a weekend truck-driving job to earn the money.

Boy, Boy, Boy, Boy, Boy!

Newman was old, cantankerous, and deaf as a doorknob, but mighty handy around Dad’s Mississippi Delta farm. When hauling off garbage, he let me sit on his knees and steer the old flat bed truck as we drove to the dump. Once, when cotton harvesting was in full progress and rain was in the forecast, Dad was running in ten different directions at once, supervising cotton pickers and stalk cutters, delivering lunches to drivers, and handling Newman’s job of weighing up sacks for the hand pickers.