For no apparent reason at all yesterday and today, my mind wandered back to memories of my brother, J. C. Truthfully, I think of him often, most probably daily if truth be told.
Particularly in the days of my early childhood, J. C. (James Clyde) Mincey was in many respects very much like Archie Bunker. (Oh, younger generation, Google and learn!)
J. C. was probably rougher than Archie in the days of his own youth, but I wasn’t around for that.
My mother (later to be J. C.’s stepmother) remembered once meeting J. C. as he was riding either a horse or mule through Hogskin Valley. She said the steed bucked, throwing J. C. over its head right into the middle of the gravel road. J. C., not phased one bit, hopped right back on the beast as if nothing had happened. I can’t imagine he did this without breathing several threats and curses upon the animal, and probably a few licks in the bargain.
J. C.’s mother died when he was a youngster. He lived his last few years at home with his grandmother and grandfather, J. L. (Fate) and Mary Katherine Nicely Mincey. Mother Mincey is credited by everyone I ever heard speak of her as a saint on earth. This is undoubtedly true. She partially raised six children (five boys and one girl) from Pa Mincey’s first marriage. I have heard Mother Mincey’s sister (my great-aunt Lidia Nicely Mincey, who married one of Mother Mincey’s stepsons) tell of how Amos Mincey in particular used to beat up Mother Mincey’s milk buckets, and of how Mother Mincey had to deal with all the drinking and carousing of the male members of the household. Mother Mincey gave birth to six children of her own, two of which died in childhood. Then, after the death of her daughter-in-law Dora Thomas Mincey, first wife of my father Frank Mincey (also J. C.’s mother), Mother and Pa Mincey took in eight of their nine children. Mother Mincey devoted her life to raising these twenty children, and though I was never privileged to know her, that fact alone makes her truly amazing to me.
J. C. married very young, as did our father. J. C. said he married to get away from home. There were times in his childhood, as the stories go, that Dad mistreated J. C. and his siblings, possibly before and after Dora Mincey’s death. J. C. never told me, but he never denied that he told Dad when I came along as the only child from his second marriage that he was going to treat me better than he treated his “first kids”, and that if he didn’t J. C. would deal with him. I have no reason to doubt this. Dad only whipped me one time, and I deserved it. Dad’s whipping with that blue yardstick was like touching my hand to a hot stove, once was enough. I didn’t need a second lesson.
According to J. C., Pa Mincey never liked him. He told a story that Pa Mincey was hateful with him. J. C. said he thought to himself, “You ol’ @#$%^&*, I’ll get even with you for this.” J. C. told me about knocking Pa Mincey’s hat off by hitting him in the back of the head with a rock sometime later. J. C. chuckled when he told me, “The ol’ @#$%^&* never did like me after that.”
J. C.’s first marriage ended in divorce, the first of a few in our family. It seemed he was just too young to really know what all marital commitment entailed. He and his first wife had no children.
I’m told that our father Frank Mincey really liked J. C.’s first wife because she “babied” him. Dad once wanted to stay at J. C.’s house. J. C. told me he told Dad that he was more than welcome, but that the first time he got drunk he was out the door. And there came a time when Dad did get drunk, and J. C. invited him to leave. I believe the story goes that J. C.’s first wife tried to “take up” for Dad, but to no avail. As far as I ever knew, J. C. did not hold with alcoholism, though I knew him to take the occasional social drink.
J. C. once told me that Mother Mincey always taught the children not to be bitter over things their father did to them, that no matter what, he was still their daddy. All of Dad’s children came to see him fairly often throughout the year and at every Christmas, always bringing him a gift.
And J. C. and Dad never held grudges against the other. J. C. was a sentimental person with a giving nature. He named his only child Dora Rosemarie in memory of his mother. He purchased a new tombstone to replace his mother’s original weatherworn marker. He also bought a tombstone for Pa Mincey’s brother William L. Mincey (Uncle Bill) who had lain in a grave marked only with a white plastic cross for probably five decades. J. C. never forgot his roots. When I was nine years old, J. C. took me with his family on vacation to New Orleans. That was the first time I was ever outside the state of Tennessee. When Dad was suffering from the esophageal cancer that would claim his life, J. C. bought him an air conditioner for the living room so he would be more comfortable. There are countless stories told by others of how J. C. would inconvenience himself to help even strangers when their cars would break down. Though J. C. was, according to his daughter, “A legend in his own mind,” he was not a braggart. But J. C. could spin a yarn. He could tell a story about something ordinary and make it the funniest thing ever heard. Oh, how I’d like to hear his laugh one more time.
Probably the saddest thing about being the only child of a second marriage that began twenty years after the end of the first is the great number of years between my age and the age of my siblings. Dad’s youngest child by his first wife is twenty-two years older than me, the only child of the second marriage. The gap in my childhood was significant, as every sibling I had on my father’s side had children before I was born (except J. C.). It’s still a family joke that I have nieces and nephews older than me. J. C. took me to Shoney’s with him when I was maybe seven or eight years old. We remembered in later years how he had fun trying to convince the waitresses that I was his brother. J. C. was known in that establishment to be such an exaggerator that they didn’t believe him. He got one of the waitresses to flirt with me—she called me her “cherry boy”. That was the first time I ever had much female attention targeted toward me, and it amused J. C. that I was so discomfited by it.
As time went on, the age difference between my father’s remaining children became less of an issue. For about the last three years of J. C.’s life, he and I vacationed, just the two of us. We traveled literally from coast to coast. We once drove across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, turned around, and began our return journey across the south. We’ve been as far north as Niagara Falls, as far east as Charleston, South Carolina, and as far south as Florida.
I could tell several tales of our adventures, but time and other considerations will not allow. I do remember once we stopped to eat at a Cracker Barrel. The hostess who seated us was an older woman, and she was either having a bad day or didn’t like her job. She started walking us to a table, and on the way J. C. saw another table he liked. He said, “Hey, lady, hey, lady, why can’t we sit over there?” She turned on J. C. like a rabid dog and said, “Hey! Hey! Don’t you yell ‘hey’ at me! Do I look like a cow?”
This lady does not know how lucky she was. I held my breath, waiting to see what my dear brother would have to say to that. He just looked at her and said, “What am I supposed to call you when I don’t even know your name?” She hatefully replied, “You could say ‘Ma’am’, anything except yelling ‘hey’ at me. I’m not a horse.” Yet another opening which my brother ignored. When she seated us and walked off, J. C. looked at me and said, “What in the @#$$ is wrong with that %^&* woman?”
There was another incident at which I was not present at which a waitress at a Shoney’s told J. C. that he was harassing her. J. C. always, but especially in his younger days, loved to flauntingly flirt with waitresses, and he prided himself on being able to say anything to any of them and get by with it, when others who said the same thing would get into hot water. He did come close at times to exceeding the limits of tolerance. To the waitress who said she was being harassed, J. C. said, “If I was a woman and had a face that looked like yours, I’d be glad if anybody’d harass me.” J. C. said the poor waitress ran off crying and reported him to the manager. Unfortunately for the waitress, J. C. was a long-standing customer, and the veteran workers, manager included, were wise to his ways.
J. C. continued to eat at Shoney’s regularly for the rest of his life, long after the accusing waitress was only a memory in a story about J. C. Mincey.
J. C. was mischievous, but he did not have a harm bone in his body. He enjoyed life, though he never ceased asking many of the great questions that have no answer, at least not in this realm of existence. Brother, I hope you’ve got your answers and are at peace in the everafter with our other departed friends and loved ones.
Until next time, dear Faithful Reader, a parting word of wisdom from my world of email.

Death is the number 1 killer in the world.