[em]Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled [strong]The Jaybird Tales[/strong].
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (Dragline Daredevils
In my mind, Harley-Davidson motorcycles are motorized music in motion. Their muscular, deep-throated, all-American, guts-and-glory roar brings tears to my eyes. Their sensuous sound thrills me, as does that of any powerful machine. Many times, I have let myself be hypnotized by the steady, staccato rhythm of huge diesel engines, effortlessly driving lengthy center pivot irrigation systems, pumping life-giving water over my father’s Mississippi Delta cotton fields. Once this love of machines and the music they make got my pals and me in a ton of teenage trouble.- Friday, May 15, 2020
My boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird was tight with his money, and expecting me to be likewise, couldn’t believe I got suckered in by an advertisement in a fishing magazine guaranteeing that no fish could resist the patented, pink, plastic, pearly-eyed wobbler.
I ordered the lure, and when it arrived, I couldn’t wait to show it to him, knowing he would agree that it was a “guaranteed sho-nuff fish killer.” I was deeply disappointed by his rude response.
On Valentine’s Day, I asked my Creative Writing class a simple question — one I should have known would create a firestorm of controversy among young adults in their late teens and early twenties: “In the business of romance, which sex — male or female — does Mother Nature favor most?”
As a college teacher, I often reminded students that the number-one asset gained from applying themselves to their studies is the ability to communicate effectively and efficiently. Rachel, an excellent student in the creative writing course, asked, “Professor, shouldn’t you also include ‘correctly’ and ‘accurately’? We have all heard of instances in which ambiguous communications led to unintended — and sometimes disastrous — consequences. In fact, you explained recently how double entendres, gaffes, and mixed metaphors sometimes communicate the exact opposite of an intended message.”
In my lifetime, eating black-eyed peas at each year’s beginning has been an inviolable Southern tradition. Grandmothers and mothers would no more think of not serving them on New Year’s Day than they would of not praying before meals.
Even when I was overseas in the military, Mama sent packages of black-eyed peas, and admonished me not only to eat them, but also to share them with soldiers from the South … and if any were left over, with some of the Northern chaps, too. (Mama was a tolerant person, but even so, she’d often slip and refer to those who started the War Of Northern Aggression as “damn Yankees,” and besides, she was offended by the fact that some Northern farmers use black-eyed peas as cattle fodder.)
At each New Year’s beginning, I analyze the worst mistakes made over the last twelve months, try to forget them, and create mentally a “tabula rasa” — a clean slate — on which I record resolutions for the coming twelve months. On average, they are abandoned by the end of January.
While sipping a cup of coffee at the top of the stairs, I heard little feet pitter-pattering into the living room where a Christmas tree was surrounded by beautifully wrapped gifts. Dawn was just breaking and my grandson Corey was already up. I sat quietly, watching his excitement. The scene reminded me of a Christmas morning, long ago.
What prompted Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar to leave their kingdoms, travel to Bethlehem, and place precious gifts by the manger in which Jesus lay? In the Gospels, Matthew records that they stopped along the way to ask, “Where is the child who has been born King of the Jews? We observed His star, and have come to offer precious gifts, and pay Him homage.”
A banner spanning the hospital entrance read, “Thanksgiving is for giving thanks.” How trite, I thought, how unoriginal. Then, in the hospital parking lot I watched a family loading a child into a van. Imprisoned for life in a wheelchair, the boy’s legs had atrophied to little more than shriveled, stick-like limbs, his arms flailed aimlessly, his head weaved from side to side, saliva dripped from his chin, and his eyes were fixed in a hopeless, upward stare.
In my hometown, Leland, a tiny Mississippi Delta farming community, everybody knows everybody … except on Halloween, when kids, disguised in the get-up of ghosts, gangsters, goons, goblins and ghouls, roam the streets and terrorize the residents, who offer treats to avoid tricks. One moonless Halloween Saturday night, my friend Clarence and a pal, both ten years old, having successfully pillaged the neighborhoods, headed toward Leland’s main street to extort goodies from storekeepers and shoppers.