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.”
Back in my office in a blue funk, I had no idea even how to begin preparing for the course. Then I thought about how my best friend and mentor Jaybird during my boyhood years on Dad’s Mississippi Delta farm would react to such a daunting challenge. “If you’re looking for an easy day, boy, look to yesterday,” he would have said. The wise old black man began his well-earned rest in the Lord’s eternal embrace years ago, but is very much alive in my heart and mind. So, I did what I often did as a boy: I talked to Jaybird, knowing he would provide the encouragement I so desperately needed.
“A steady grind hews a mountain down”
His answer didn’t come quickly; they never did. He always withheld advice, forcing me to think through difficulties on my own, thereby improving my problem-solving skills. The more I thought about that unfamiliar course, the more one word Jaybird hated popped into my mind: Can’t. Whenever I used that negative word, he immediately shouted, “Can’t is in Satan’s vocabulary; Can is in God’s.”
I remembered another of his sayings, one that aptly described his attitude toward productivity. Sunup to sundown, Jaybird was the hardest working man I have ever known, and if asked how he faced even the most difficult tasks with energy and equanimity, he always said, “A steady grind hews a mountain down.”
Jaybird drank heartily of the elixir called work, and spat out the nepenthe known as idleness. He didn’t know the meaning of the word philosophy, but his scorn for laziness coincided with attitudes toward sloth espoused by many philosophers.
He would have agreed with Russian writer Leo Tolstoy’s belief: Nothing makes people feel nobler than work. Without work, a person cannot have human dignity. Or, French philosopher Michel de Montaigne’s: The most outstanding gifts are destroyed by idleness. Or, famed aphorist Charles Caleb Colton: From its very inaction, idleness ultimately becomes the most active cause of evil. Or, Greek philosopher Plutarch: Poverty is dishonorable only when it comes from idleness.
In a world craving results, people must not offer excuses, and I knew the dean would not accept one anyway; he demanded results … and got them. Before stepping to the podium in the new class, I bowed my head and asked God for courage and guidance — and received them. The challenge was great; the God-given courage, greater, and proved what philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said: Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
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 The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
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.”
Back in my office in a blue funk, I had no idea even how to begin preparing for the course. Then I thought about how my best friend and mentor Jaybird during my boyhood years on Dad’s Mississippi Delta farm would react to such a daunting challenge. “If you’re looking for an easy day, boy, look to yesterday,” he would have said. The wise old black man began his well-earned rest in the Lord’s eternal embrace years ago, but is very much alive in my heart and mind. So, I did what I often did as a boy: I talked to Jaybird, knowing he would provide the encouragement I so desperately needed. 
