Down in the Mississippi Delta
We’ve all heard that old saying: “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”
Tossed around casually, it rolls off the tongue light and quick, but it catches you with a slow, heavy, weight. That weight presses us down as we hold onto the American dream that if you just work hard you can overcome and achieve anything.
But what happens to the person who has neither boots nor straps?
More than thirty years ago, down in the Mississippi Delta, I met a child. No older than twelve. He lived in a little, old wooden shack nestled between a cotton field and a long, narrow dirt road.
When he walked out of that shack that day he was shoeless and wore a pair of old tattered cut-off shorts. Drooping loosely from his shoulders was a torn, light blue t-shirt with the word “SOJOMAX” emblazoned in big, bold red letters. His hair was uncombed and full of tightly curled naps, resembling a congregating colony of bumblebees. I’m sure he felt the rocks beneath his bare feet as he slowly made his way down the gravel driveway. His dog, Smokey, followed close behind. It was summer; the sweltering Mississippi sun beat down on the backs of our necks.
At the end of the driveway, we crossed that narrow dirt road, his toes sinking into the dust like sand on a beach. We stopped at an old rusted mailbox, leaning as if hanging on for dear life; a slight breeze could have blown it over. He pointed beyond it to a well-worn path winding through waist-high grass down to the creek’s edge.
He said excitedly, “That there creek is full of big ol’ catfish. I go fishin’ there sometimes.” We laughed; Smokey peered up at us with a blank stare.
The door of that rusty old mailbox screeched like fingernails on a chalkboard as he yanked it open to retrieve a stack of letters and flipped curiously through it. To his surprise, one of the letters was addressed to him. Eyes wide, a smile spread cheek to cheek when he realized the letter was from his school. Summer break had begun some weeks earlier, so this must be his final report card.
“I just really enjoy learnin’,” he looked at me and said.
He was a diligent student who rarely missed a day of school. Years of watching Reading Rainbow, whose host LeVar Burton explained the joy of reading, made him fall in love with books. That and Bob Ross’s show, The Joy of Painting, held his fascination in an unbreakable grip for hours on end. Every day when he got home, he’d go straight to his room to do his homework. He lived in the middle of a cotton field; so, what else did he have to do with his time?
Standing next to that tired, rickety mailbox, he could barely contain himself. He couldn’t wait to tell his parents about his final grades, how well he’d done, and that he’d be moving on to the eighth grade.
In his excitement, he dropped the rest of the letters in the dirt. They rested beside his bare, dust-covered feet; Smokey curiously sniffed each discarded envelope. The boy ripped open the letter, scanned his report card, and with pride read each grade out loud: “A, B, A, B . . . F?!”
The expression on his face morphed from excitement to shock, confusion, and finally disappointment.
“This can’t be right,” he exhaled in a slow, low, barely audible whisper.
Though he’d done everything right — completed all homework assignments, passed every exam, and rarely missed a day of school — his math teacher nevertheless gave him an “F.” The realization that he’d have to repeat the seventh grade began to set upon him. In the middle of that dirt road, beneath the weight of that sweltering Mississippi sun, he collapsed to his knees, and he cried. He began to give up. Smokey plopped down beside him and rested his furry head on his lap as tears dripped down the boy’s cheeks.
I hope you enjoyed this post — if you want to connect, you can reach me here via email at ty@typinkins.com or connect with me on social: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Also, you can purchase my book, 23 Miles & Running, on Amazon.
