Remembering where I came from

By Mary Jane Holt
Contributing Writer

I should have known better, but I did it anyway. I called Andrea to ask if she thought I was arrogant.

Andrea is one of those friends whom you just know will be honest, no matter what. Honest to the bone. And very opinionated. Don’t ask if you don’t want to know. And she’s smart, too. Very insightful.

I had to be out of my mind to call her. And in all honesty I suppose I was. At some point, in recent days, this whole arrogance issue had bypassed my mind and gone straight to my heart.

It had become a bit of a character-building issue as Andrea would (and did) say.

Why she even talked to me at all, after the way I broached the subject, is beyond me. Thank heaven she laughed when ... okay, here’s how it went:

“Hello.”

“Andrea, am I arrogant?”

“Are you what?”

“Am I arrogant? Do you think I come across as being stuck up?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Am I arrogant? I have gotten the feeling lately that some folks might think I am and it is upsetting me and I need to know what you think. Now I can understand how folks might think you are arrogant, but not me. I mean, after all, you always wear the nicest brand name clothes. Your hair is absolutely perfect. Everything about you is so uptown and together and ...”

“Whoa! You think I’m arrogant?”

“Well, no, but I can see why some folks might think you are, but I don’t.”

“Oh, you can, can you? Maybe this would be a good point in this conversation for you to tell me where you are coming from with all this.”

I supposed at that point that I had better do just that and try to tell her the whole story as best I could, because I had just heard what I had said to her, and I was very thankful she had not hung up on me!

So, I had been asked by several people over the past few weeks to tell them about myself. One person had even suggested that I do it in 25 words, 50 words, and 200 words.

I was having trouble doing that. And if you will recall, I asked you folks to do the same thing a few weeks back. One day while I was thinking about me I had found myself wanting to know more about you.

The responses I have received from you have made me smile, laugh, think and cry. A couple of them opened floodgates of tears.

One in particular came from a 75-year-old gentleman whose note looked and sounded just like something my dad would have typed before his death in 1988. All caps, similar spacing, similar wording. And the note, which I will treasure forever, ended like this: “I could write a lot more, but this will give you insight into the life of people on the other side of the tracks.”

I cried off and on for five hours on the day that I opened that letter. When I was all cried out, I began to pray, “Oh, Lord, please don't ever let me forget where I’ve come from.”

My reader’s letter had prompted a vision of myself coming across as arrogant, stuffy, stuck up, or a bit “hoity-toity” as my humble professor friend Lynwood Montell would say. Not that he said it. He didn’t. He wouldn’t. I’m not.

Or am I?

We all can get too big for our breeches from time to time. I’m sure I’ve been there in the past and I was probably getting real close to being there again before Mr. N’s letter came.

I’ve been talking a lot lately about past accomplishments. I have actually been required to do so because of a project I’m working on. So, I tried to write down my professional history, not like a resume, more like a story. I will tell you why later. My point, today, is maybe it was getting to me. Maybe I was starting to use “I, I, I” a bit too often.

The truth is all that I am, ever have been, or ever hope to be, is because of the tremendous impact others have had on my life, and because of very deep roots that are still planted firmly in rural Georgia. Thank you, Mr. N for taking the time to touch my heart and life so deeply with your recent letter. I, too, “liked it better before.”

Oh, in case you are wondering what Andrea said to me, that would take a column, or series of columns, for another day!