Jimmy Reed

The Spattered Batter

Boys who love sports dream of two brass rings: first homerun, first touchdown. I grabbed both rings in high school, but the homerun came at an embarrassing price.

An All-Day Sucker

“Folks who think money is all that matters are fools,” my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird once told me. As a boy I didn’t always pay attention to the old black man’s wisdom, but should have, especially about money.

Junior’s Dead!

For some kids, surviving until adulthood is nothing short of a miracle. When I was ten years old, my yearning to fly like Superman almost nipped me in the bud. At that age, I idolized comic book characters — Batman, Robin, Spider Man, Plastic Man, and Wonder Woman, but my number-one hero was Superman. I marveled at his strength, his X-ray vision, and the way women fell all over him. But his flying skills fascinated me most.

The Pebble In His Shoe

In a discussion following a tour of William Faulkner’s home, I asked students in my creative writing course how the great writer felt about mankind’s capacity for endurance. “He summed it up in one line from his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech,” a student replied. ‘I believe man will not merely endure, he will prevail.’”

I Will Be Your Valentine

Joe was tall, strong, and athletic, and girls in the little Mississippi Delta town of Leland thought he was oh so-o-o-o handsome, but as much as he longed to, he never talked to them. He couldn’t. Around guys he did okay, but around girls, he felt shy, and when he felt shy, he stuttered. During Joe’s high school senior year, along came a February Saturday afternoon that was perfect for football — a crisp, sunny, windless day more fitting for April, yet a day when one cloud before the sun would make it more fitting for December.

I Thought I’d Seen It All

Some folks are naturally accident-prone. I am. My boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird said that I should write a collection of stories about my accidents. If I do, the first story will be about the time we discovered the honey hole.

Trotline Bait

On his Mississippi Delta farm, my father built a commissary store. Between its front porch and the only paved road running through that remote corner of the county stood a huge sycamore tree. Its limbs were broad enough to hold my pal Lamar and me on summer nights when we threw hard, green sycamore balls at passing cars.


Serve Others — Serve God

Because long years of farming permanently set my circadian cycle, I rarely sleep past four o’clock, which provides time to take early-morning walks during which any worthwhile thoughts I have that day are likely to be formulated.

The Greatest Gift Of All

[Author’s Note: Kaitlin Childress, Macey Clarkson, Irene Fondren, John Harkins, Eulita Mack, Michael Parker, Lonna Pearl, Miranda Satchell, Jacob Surrette, and Abby Williams, students in Reed’s Creative Writing class, wrote this story.] 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.

Kindling The Flame That Is God

When my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird, a master teacher, intended to plant life lessons indelibly in my mind, he often clarified the unfamiliar by discussing the familiar. Once when I asked how I could serve God as well as he did, he pointed to flames flickering in his fireplace and began a lesson that made the unfamiliar familiar.

Thanksgiving At The Gin

In 1968, when I returned to the Mississippi Delta after overseas military service, my father hired me as his farm manager. One year, when harvest season was near, he said, “Son, we’ve got a fine cotton crop to gather. I’ll spend all my time in the fields. You’ll have to manage the gin. Jaybird will show you the works.”

Sometimes It Bees That Way

Sometimes a fellow stumbles into calamities worse than he could ever imagine. Consider mythological Actaeon. He and his dogs were out hunting when he spied Artemis, bathing butt-naked in a stream. Lusty, red-blooded god Actaeon froze as he ogled the gorgeous goddess.

The Blessing Of Balance

Until Jaybird joined his Heavenly Father, just shy of his ninetieth birthday, my boyhood best friend and mentor enjoyed good health, although the beloved old black man’s lifestyle was not entirely healthful: He smoked cigarettes and drank beer, both of which he enjoyed in moderation.

Ta-Wit All You Want

I’ve never asked Gene “Spook” Knight a question about birds he couldn’t answer. The Audubon Society should bestow upon him an honorary Ph.D. degree. Then he would be Dr. Knight, son of “Doc” Knight, the beloved University of Mississippi football team’s trainer for so many years, who patched up countless gridiron warriors and sent them back on the field to render opposing warriors in need of patching up by their trainers. Recently, my neighbor Mrs. Munn, Spook, and I were having a backyard chat, and I described a bird.

Mistuh and Miz Goat

“He’s cute now, but won’t be long,” Mama said, when I brought home a baby goat for my daughters. As Italians are wont to do for emphasis, she fluttered her hands in my face, and said, “Remember that old Italian proverb, ‘He who lets the goat be laid on his shoulders is soon after forced to carry the cow.’”

Put Me In, Coach

In high school, football was more than a sport to me; it was an obsession. I dreamed of strapping on pads, cleats, and helmet and doing battle with worthy warriors from other schools. At the start of my senior year, when I weighed in for the Leland High School Fighting Cubs, Coach Ruscoe snickered as he jotted down 109 pounds.

You Ain’t Fishing If You Ain’t Fishing Cane

All day long I watched the fly. My arms ached; I had a crick in my neck; I was tired and hungry … but determined not to quit. My father, watching from the lake’s edge as he grilled hamburgers, thought I was wasting my time. Even a kingfisher seemed to smirk at the futility of my efforts as he preened himself and whizzed in blue blurs from one cypress knee to another.

My Fingers Were Crossed

Our parents believed a halo adorned my brother Rodney’s head, and horns protruded from mine. No story had two sides: I was always wrong — which was the case when we fought the Mexican standoff.

I Knotted Not Nary ’Nother Noose

If my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird hadn’t shown me how to tie hangman’s nooses, I wouldn’t have lynched Gloria’s dolls. My sister’s passion was dolls. In her upstairs room, they cluttered her bed, dresser, and bookshelf. These weren’t ordinary five-and-dime Raggedy Ann dolls; they were aristocratic debutantes, celebrities, princesses, and queens.

Take A Cold Tater And Wait

When he wasn’t busy on his Mississippi Delta cotton farm, my father visited other farmers, and sometimes took me with him. In one grower’s office a plaque with a quote by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe read, “A useless life is an early death.”