Mincey’s Musings
Year Two, Week Twenty-Three

One of the professors in my doctoral program at Lincoln Memorial University once gave us an assignment entitled “This I Believe About Educational Leadership”. I am thinking there is a website or blog called “This I Believe” to which people can publish their beliefs on certain topics. The importance of the assignment was to teach that what we believe guides our life decisions and impacts not only our own but others’ lives for better or worse.
Earlier this month, I attended a family engagement conference. The keynote speaker was George Ella Lyon who published an article titled “Where I’m From: Inviting Students’ Lives into the Classroom” (A Publication of Rethinking Schools from “Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-Racial, Multicultural Education and Staff Development” © 2002 Teaching for Change).
In her article, Lyon published a self-written poem titled “Where I’m From”. She included in her article the poem “I Am From Soul Food and Harriet Tubman” by Lealonni Blake. Ms. Lyon invited us to write our own “I’m From” poems to share with our table mates, all of whom were strangers to me except for my friend Sara Collins who attended the workshop with me.
I didn’t have a great deal of time to reflect on my poem, but I wish to share with you what my writings in this column have revealed to me about “Where I’m From”.

I Am From . . .

God
created in His image, fearfully and wonderfully made.
ancestors from Adam through Frank and Mary Sampson Mincey,
most unknown to me.
stars that twinkled above the roof and beyond the steeple of
Maynardville Baptist Church as my mother walked me down the sidewalk on a cold winter night.
sunlight streaming through amber-colored Gothic stained glass, brown after
dark, creaking pews, a baptistery painting that went nowhere.
hymns sung by faithful saints, David’s organ playing, thrilling my soul with
“Heavenly Sunlight” and ‘glory divine’.
the Word delivered by Wolfenbarger, Knisley, Mitchell, McCoy, and
Perry, always pointing me back to my Creator.

Early experiences
dirt by the side of Thunder Road, covering my sweaty young body and lungs
in billowing clouds of dust as it sifted through my fingers
on hot summer days.
a bobby pin stuck into an electrical outlet in a bedroom on Academy Street
and the dangerous electricity tingling up my left arm.
coal piles in the front yard and skinned knees from falling from the porch
into the pile.
a mouth full of septic contaminated mud resulting from a fall from the back
porch.
effects of parental alcoholism, early evidenced as my father and half-brother
fought on the front porch with coal buckets.
stereos and old country music and gospel records.

A dearly loved old house
my childhood home, estate of another family, no less loved by me.
smell of old pine and dust.
windowpanes that admitted light but distorted views.
summer heat and winter air conditioning.
fire playing on dark ceiling from the damper of a Warm Morning
coal stove on a cold winter’s night.
doors papered and duct taped to trap heat and insulate against cold.
imagination that could transform my childhood home into a church,
school, doctor or lawyer office, jail, store, etc.
the all-to-real outhouse and chamber pot.
the baby casket in the unfinished room above the living room.
lighted picture of Jesus that could not prevent sleepwalking and fear
of the dark.
soup beans, killed lettuce, stewed and fried potatoes, cornbread.
old books and first home library.
endless playing school.
Good, faithful protector Brownie, boyhood’s best treasured friend,
though fearful of storms, soother of tearful eyes and injured
feelings, long-gone but ever present in love and memory.
the Maytag® wringer washer and clothesline.
baths in the number two washtub.

Summers of joy and anticipation
niece Sheila and her yearly visits.
fireflies in baby food jars.
sunsets and dreams of the future.
visits to the three Knoxville aunts.

School days
Ms. Edna, Ms. Geneva and Headstart.
Ms. Hazel and her flyswatter.
Ms. Leah and her bolo paddle.
Ms. Florence and her love.
Ms. Wanza and her math.
Ms. Polly and magic markers.
Ms. Marie and cursive.
Momma Wanda, still not pushing up daisies.
Ms. Buckner and pronouns.
Ms. Warwick and the bones of the body.
Raymond Johnson and three ways to work every problem.
Ms. Crass and the presidential election of ’76.
good mornings from Kate Ray.
perennial Ms. Murr and Duck Duck Goose.
Ms. Griffith and Making Music Our Own.
Ms. Betty and the wonderful library smell.
Abraham Lincoln discovered and loved.
autoharp, keyboard, 16 millimeter/filmstrip projectors and record players.
pull-down maps.
friends, frenemies, and acquaintances.
asbestos covering on pipes (some of us not dead yet).
swinging under the elm tree.
puppy love secretly from afar.
cursed rides on number 12.

There is more that I could write, but lack of time constrains me to finish for tonight. Perhaps someday I might add more to this poem. I encourage each of you to undertake this exercise. It will cause you to rethink your past and help you better understand how you came to be the person you are today.