March 20: "Spring Broke''

Spring Break is over.

Technically, I guess it was over Friday afternoon since weekends are “free time’’ even when school is in session.

Saturday, I mentioned to someone that I had been on spring break and she said, “Gosh, I wish I had a Spring Break!’’

My response was that she might just as well have had mine, seeing as how I didn’t make much use of it.

No, Spring Break came and went. I have no tan to show for it. But, then again, I have no hang-over, either. So I guess you would call that a wash.

My intentions were two write three papers. But as of this writing, I’ve written only one, although I’m pretty well into the second. I fear the third will have to wait. It’s not a problem, since none of the papers are due anytime soon. I just figured writing the papers would help fill the idle hours. Somehow, the hours got filled anyway.

On Monday, I drove to Tupelo to visit my sister. I had dinner there and spent the night.

The next morning, I paid a visit on a childhood friend, Terry Harbin.

Terry, his sister, Shirley, and his parents – Jack and Olean – once lived on the little street where I spent the first 14 years of my life.

Terry, two years my junior, is an elementary school principal. He lives out in the country in a beautiful home. His parents live in a nice home a few paces out his back door. We sat in his living room and caught up with each other’s lives. We both have two kids, roughly the same ages.

While I was there, one of his little dogs, a long-haired, red-coated Dachshund, happily leaped into my lap and smothered me with kisses for the entire length of my visit.

The little dog reminded me of something. Not long ago, I had this wonderful dream about a beautiful woman who loved me. She also had a little red dachshund. In that dream, the little dog smothered me with kisses and panted happily as I rubbed his belly.

And then it was over. Dreams end without warning, you know. Even the good ones. Especially the good ones, I think.

When my lease is up in July, I believe I am going to find a little place that allows dogs. I’m going to get a little dachshund of my own. I think maybe I won’t be so lonesome with a little dog to love on. At least that part of the dream can come true, I reckon.

After Terry and I caught up, we went out back and paid a visit on his folks. Jack is 78 now and Olean is 75, they told me.

It’s funny. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how young they were when I first knew them. I am 51. The Harbins moved into the neighborhood when I was about 3. That means they were young couple in their 20s when they moved into the neighborhood. I had no awareness of that at the time, of course. When you are kid, it’s almost as if parents don’t have ages. They are just parents. They are all equally ancient in the eyes of a child.

After a nice visit, I met Margaret Parker for lunch at Old Venice. Margaret is still as tall and thin and pretty as she was when we were high school classmates, which would be irritating if it weren’t for the fact that she is so genuinely kind.

After lunch, I met up with Julie Jackson Herring and Anne Cooper Owen, who were both “home’’ for a few days. We met at Horton Nash’s organic farm out on Mt. Vernon Road. Horton is Julie’s son.

I arrived there first, and was able to convince Horton to give me a tour of his gardens. He has about a hundred different varieties of organic vegetables planted and he patiently explained to me the various strains and told me about his plans for new crops now that Spring is on its way.

As he talked, I thought how my dad would have loved to have taken this tour. Of course, he would have been astonished at the notion of organic gardening. It was a completely foreign idea to men of my dad’s generation.

I don’t know that he would have bought into any of Horton’s ideas, impressive as they seemed to me. But I bet Horton and my dad would have found some common ground. Like Horton, my dad was a man of the earth. Growing things was something he felt deep down in his soul.

I’d like to think that Horton might have left my dad with a few tips he would have embraced and employed. And I also like to think that my dad could have enlightened Horton on some methods that were never written down in any book, mysteries handed down from one farming generation to the next. Yeah,I think Horton and dad would have gotten along famously. They share a love of growing things that transcends generations or methods.

When Julie and Anne arrived, we sat in the living room of Horton’s little house and talked about nothing and everything. Julie and Anne have been friends forever. That’s a special thing. Somehow, those kinds of long friendships between women have a depth and resonance that male friendships can’t approach. At least that was my thought as we sat and visited.

I came back to Starkville late that afternoon.

Over the rest of the week, I didn’t do much of anything. Check that. I didn’t accomplish much of anything. Somehow, I managed to go to the gym twice a day without losing a single pound. How is that even possible, I wonder.

As I mentioned earlier, I wrote one paper and started on another.

Oh, I also wrote a letter to Moses.

I had heard about Moses from a new friend I had met at church a couple of months ago. Last Sunday, Rob and I had lunch after church and he happened to run in to Moses’ mother as we were being seated at the restaurant. He excused himself to go over to her table. He returned a few minutes later and told me about Moses.

Moses had worked for Rob there is his hometown of Maben until one night, in a fit of jealous rage, Moses burst into a trailer to confront his two-timing wife. He barged into a bedroom and shot the two occupants, presuming one of them to be his wife and the other to be her lover. Wrong room. The woman died, the man was injured, but survived. Realizing his mistake, Moses kicked in the door of another bedroom and found his intended victim. He shot her dead.

“He was one of the best workers we ever had. He had never been in any kind of trouble, no kind of trouble at all,’’ Rob said sadly as he finished the story. “For two minutes in his life, he lost control. Two women are dead. He’s serving a life sentence. Just think: Two minutes.’’

I thought about Moses as we had lunch. Then I asked Rob for his address in prison.

Wednesday, I sat down to write a letter to a stranger, a murderer serving a life sentence. What do you say?

I recalled my own time in prison, a four-month sentence that seemed like an eternity at the time. Four months seems a quick as a hiccup to Moses, I bet.

Moses is 32 year old and serving a life sentence. That could be another 40 to 50 years. I can scarcely imagine it.

But I wrote anyway, on the chance that simply writing would bring him some comfort.

I remember what a treasure it was to get a letter when I was in prison.

To an inmate, a letter means you are still a unique human being with your own identity. That’s something you don’t get in prison. Everybody dresses alike, eats alike, lives alike. It doesn’t take long to lose all sense of your identity under those conditions. A letter reminds you that you are your own person with your own history, a history of good things and not just the bad thing that sent you to prison.

I guess maybe my own prison experience awakened empathy for Moses. I imagine that there must be times when he thinks his life has been wasted. I imagine he plays over in his head the events that led to his current condition. I imagine that he is lonely.I suspect there are times when he is low on hope, that he often feels unloved and unloveable.

I know something about that. Sometimes, I still feel that way.

So I wrote a letter to Moses and told him I’d try to send him a little commissary money, not much, of course. for I don’t have much to spare.

I included my address and said that I would like to hear from him. Of course, Moses doesn’t know me from Adam, you might say. So it’s really up to him.

So that’s how I spent my Spring Break.

It wasn’t exactly a beach in Florida.

But it was pretty good.