Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Thirty-Eight

Practically my entire life has revolved around school. I have practically no memories of life before school. I don’t think life for me actually began until I attended two weeks of Headstart just before beginning first grade in 1971.

I think I was about seven the first time I remember visiting Uncle Rob’s house. Uncle Rob Mincey was my father’s half-brother. I remember Rob’s wife Roberta feeding me spaghetti and meatballs. I remember at the time thinking how wonderful that food tasted. In my later years, I am sure that was a can of Chef Boyardee®, still one of my favorite foods even now.

Family legend has it that if Rob or Roberta had to “break wind” or “let a poot” (there are less polite words for flatulation), the gassed party would go to the door and aim his or her posterior toward the outside so as not to smell up the house.

Unfortunately, the next time I saw Roberta was in her casket at Ailor’s Mortuary. Her passing in 1972 was my first of many experiences with death in the family, a great many of them at that same funeral home. It was fashionable in those days to take pictures of the deceased in the coffin, and I have a black and white picture that my mother carefully kept until she died.

Rob and Roberta lived next door to Aunt Carrie Larmer. Aunt Carrie was Rob’s half-aunt by marriage, not blood kin to him, but a full sister to my maternal grandmother, who was Rob’s stepmother (try figuring that one). I remember Aunt Carrie calling me to come down the hill to her house so she could give me a peacock feather. Aunt Carrie lived alone with her daughter, my cousin Bea. Cousin Bea now lives with my cousin Jimmy Munsey not far from where I grew up on Luttrell Road.

Rob and my dad loved to whittle sticks of cedar into shavings. Rob and Dad visited each other quite often, and they would while the hours away as they talked and whittled the cedar into shavings. Neither ever attempted to make anything—the fun was in the shaving. Both always wore overalls.

It is therefore no surprise that Rob’s house always smelled like cedar. What a fresh, clean smell. Though now a widower, Rob kept a very neat house. I don’t know if Roberta’s death had anything to do with it, but Rob sold his house and moved just a few miles away to Liberty Hill, within sight of the IGA, not long after Roberta died. I remember going to Rob’s house several times while he lived at Liberty Hill.

And then there was the day that we went to visit and were introduced to Rob’s new wife. Her name was Tootie. It was to be many years before I came to know this was a nickname—her real name was Barbara.

Tootie was a warm, friendly woman. She could talk a mile a minute! She and my mother both loved to dip snuff, so now Mother had someone to talk to at great length when we visited. There is an art both to country talk and enjoyment of the “fragrant (or tasty) weed”. Tootie paid one of her highest compliments when she once said, “I bet Carrie Larmer could spit ten foot!” Dad liked his tobacco, and I think Rob chewed also, but I’m not certain, though they were somewhat more reserved in their spitting.

Now when we visited during warm weather, Mother and Tootie would sit on one end of the porch and dip and spit, and Dad and Rob would sit on the other end and chew and whittle. So, what did I do, you might ask, as there were no children around? Rob had a wonderful porch swing, partially covered with peeling blue paint. I happily passed my time enjoying that wonderful piece of porch furniture.

When it was winter, we would sit in the room between Rob’s living room and kitchen around the coal stove. Rob had a neighbor named Margie Capps. She had two very young boys. I remember once she walked with her boys to the IGA and brought me back a Creamsicle®. I think maybe she did that because she bought her boys ice cream and didn’t want me to feel left out.

Sadly, I never saw Margie again. She died not long after that. I never knew what became of her boys. I accidentally found her grave one day when I was “killing time” in Liberty Hill Cemetery.

Tootie also had a sister named Lissie. I really liked Lissie. She was also a talker! She was at Rob and Tootie’s house a lot after Rob was diagnosed with cancer. Now, everybody had somebody to talk to. Dad had Rob, Mother had Tootie, and I had Lissie.

Rob passed away in July, 1978. Aunt Duskie called about five o’clock one morning to let us know. Dad got dressed and went to his house.

Everybody thought Rob had lots of money, including my Dad and Tootie. After Ailor’s came to get Rob’s body, Dad and Tootie went to the bank. They knew which bank he used, especially since I mistakenly received a box of his checks in the mail. (Rob’s full name was Robert L. Mincey, and I was and am Ronnie L. Mincey. I remember thinking how nice it was that the bank had sent me such a nice box of checks to play with!)

All Dad and Tootie found was an emptied account! It seems Rob closed his account some time before his death, and no one knew what he did with his money. My mother always suspected that he gave it to a neighboring woman with whom he had fished many times throughout the years.

Rob’s funeral was held at Black Fox Church, where many preachers had presided over the older members of his and Dad’s family who had passed. I remember a wonderful quartet sang at his funeral, though I don’t know who they were. I remember being so impressed with the hardwood floors inside the church! I also remember right before the lid was closed on his casket for the final time that E. J. Ailor took off Rob’s glasses and laid them on the pillow next to his head. When I told my aunt Duskie this later, she said she didn’t remember it. I’d say it was because she was upset—that was one of the few, if not the only, times I ever saw Duskie cry.

So, Rob was buried next to Roberta forty years ago in the Cabage Cemetery, of which he had been a trustee and where many of my relatives rested who passed before I was born. The second of three family portraits of my mother, father and me was taken in the cemetery on the day of his burial.

All I have are memories. My sister recently shared a picture of Rob with me, but it is small and he is not easy to see. I honestly don’t remember much about how he looked, and I was shocked to realize that I probably wouldn’t recognize him if he came back from the grave. In the picture, he is short and “sandy-headed”, wearing his ever-present overalls.

After Rob’s funeral, I was to see Tootie only once more. This was at Cooke’s Mortuary. It had been so long since I had seen her that I did not recognize her. I heard that she passed away several years ago.

I never saw Lissie again. I heard about Lissie’s passing and I determined to go to the funeral home to see her. I went to Cooke’s on the appointed day. I even went early on the day of the funeral, but there was not a soul (living or otherwise) in the funeral home while I was there. I figured that they had already left to take her to the church for the funeral.

Later, I found out why—Lissie was never at Cooke’s but at Ailor’s!

These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter . . . I go somewhere to get something, and then wonder what I’m “here after”.

However, I realize it is a lot better to be seen than viewed.