Mincey’s Musings
Year Two, Week Ten

My nephew Jeff was graduating from Marine basic training at Paris Island, South Carolina in the early 1990s. His parents, sister, his two grandmothers and I decided to make the trip to see the ceremony.

I was teaching fifth grade at Luttrell Elementary at the time. I was thrilled to be able to get my own fifth grade teacher, Polly Dyer, to serve as my substitute while I was gone. With her taking my class, I had nothing to worry about while I was away, except perhaps that my students would fall in love with her and want her to stay.

There was much to enjoy on the trip. We took two vehicles. My brother Jerry (Jeff’s father) had a truck with a camper on it. I had a black Buick Skylark with a red velvet interior and an electronic dash. My mother (Jeff’s paternal grandmother) always rode with me, as did Rhoda, the maternal grandmother. The others were interchangeable. My niece Chanda (Jeff’s sister) sometimes rode with me and sometimes with her father, as did Evelyn, Jerry’s wife (Jeff’s mother), depending on how Jerry and Evelyn were getting along.

And their marital relationship, other than the accommodations I shared last week, was the flavor of the trip. They didn’t exactly get along at all on the trip, but at times they were cordial enough to travel together in the truck. When they had a disagreement, we would make a pit stop, and Evelyn would change places with Chanda.

But the problem was, Evelyn didn’t exactly get along with either her mother or my mother (her mother-in-law). At one-point Evelyn had a disagreement with her mother Rhoda which resulted in Evelyn telling Rhoda to shut up. This hurt Rhoda’s feelings, and she started to cry. My mother was very sensitive to anyone she felt mistreated their mother, so she let Evelyn know how awful she thought it was that she talked to her mother like that.

And Evelyn had trouble at times getting along with Mother. My nephew Joey was particularly bothersome to Evelyn. Joey was once visiting at our house, and we went to visit Jerry and Evelyn. Evelyn let us in, and asked me, “What is he doing here?” Later during that visit, she said to Joey, “Hey, Joey, see that road out there? Why don’t you go play in it for a while?” Joey replied, “Why don’t you play in it, you fat elephant?” At this, Evelyn seized Joey by the throat, he seized her by the throat, and they started slinging each other around the room. When they broke apart, Evelyn said to my brother, “Jerry, you’d better keep that little b—basket case away from me!” She had intended to use a different word to describe my dear nephew, but upon noticing the look that Mother shot at her, she changed her wording.

Unfortunately, Evelyn made a derogatory remark about Joey while she was traveling with us in the car. Mother let her know in no flat-out terms what she thought. This, coupled with the episode with Rhoda earlier, made the choice to return to the truck with Jerry at the next pit stop desirable.

During the night, at the miserable motel referred to last week, Jerry and Evelyn had another argument. The next day, the day of the ceremony, Jerry and Chanda walked well ahead of the rest of us. Evelyn and I walked together, and Rhoda and mother were a few yards behind. Jerry and Chanda found seats on the upper bleachers. Evelyn was trying to heft herself from the ground onto the side of the bleachers next to them, but could not quite manage to get off the ground. This amused Jerry and eased his marital tension, at least for the time. He helped his dear wife get onto the bleachers.

On the way back home, my nephew Jeff, the proud graduate, perhaps wiser than we knew, rode in the back of the truck and slept the entire journey. We all made it back to Tennessee safe and sound.

All of the people who made that journey are now gone, except for Jeff, Chanda and me. I wonder if they remember it the same way as I. We rarely get together, and when we do it seems by pure accident.

But overall, I enjoyed the trip. It was the first time I saw the Atlantic Ocean, and I still have a plastic bottle of salt water in my basement. I was also fascinated with the Spanish moss, and you guessed it, I have some of that in my basement also.

The weather on that trip was beautiful. The graduation was in October, if memory serves me correctly. Though it was sunny, there was a cool wind that blew in from the ocean on the day of the graduation. There is no prettier ceremony than a military one. Everything is so formal, so well planned, and the brass band simply has no comparison. To me, all the cadets looked the same, especially at the great distance our stands were from the ceremony.

There was a pride not only in our beloved graduate, but in the history and tradition of protection that has helped our great nation endure for all these years.

God bless our military, each and every one, former, present and future, and God bless the United States of America.

This Week’s Wisdom from E-mail:

Tommy LaSorda, LA Dodgers manager, once said,
"I found out that it's not good to talk about my troubles.
Eighty percent of the people who hear them don't care
and the other twenty percent are glad I'm having them."