A Friend That Will Be Greatly Missed

On July 30, Mr. Clyde Wilson, Editor/Owner of the Tombigbee Country Magazine stepped over into his final resting place. He was a friend to so many of us. Through his magazine he communicated to America some of the finest country messages, thoughts, recollections, and photos found anywhere.

He encouraged many of us “would be writers” to express ourselves and then published them in TCM. The magazine was a collection of stories from all different points of view, different topics, and from different sections of the country. Mr. Clyde published them for all fifty of these United States to enjoy.

We have truly lost a great editor and a fine gentleman.

Ralph Jones
Managing Editor
The Bodock Post
Pontotoc, Mississippi
editor@bodockpost.com

Bob Jackson ~ 1940 - 2009

The sixties were tumultuous times for many Americans and were especially trying for me. The sixties were filled with protests and demonstrations for “Civil Rights” characterizing the norm for much of the decade.

I graduated high school in 1960 and began attending junior college in Senatobia, Mississippi. After completing two years of college I enrolled at Ole Miss the same year James Meredith decided he wanted to become the first Black student to enroll in The University of Mississippi. A riot ensued.

Disillusioned by the use of U.S. Soldiers, National Guardsmen, and Federal Marshals to break the resistance of citizens and politicians who opposed desegregation of The University of Mississippi, plus the imposition of martial law on campus, and having personally run short of financial aid to continue my college education, I dropped out of school at the end of the first semester of my junior year at Ole Miss.

On a personal level, things could have been gloomier, though at the time I could not have imagined them so. I don’t recall who told me about a supermarket in Tupelo that was soon to open and was in need of meat cutters, but it was probably my dad, and it’s likely he was told this by a salesman visiting Dad’s grocery store.

With a grand opening slated just days away, the new Sunflower Food Store on West Main in Tupelo may have been desperate. I was hired on the spot, without prior supermarket experience. Oh, I knew how to cut meat as well as anyone, but my experience had been behind the service counter of my dad’s store in Pontotoc. Supermarkets and self-service meat departments were just evolving and would soon revolutionize the retail grocery industry.

Bob Jackson was the market manager of the Meat Department. His was a winning personality, and he appeared confident in his managerial position. Our introduction was mostly a “Hi-how-are-you,” and I was soon put to work trimming ham steaks.

The older gentleman that hired me was the store’s meat supervisor. His name was Charlie Muse, and he was Lewis Grocer Company’s expert on self-service meat, having helped inaugurate the concept in Virginia a few years earlier. I must have impressed both Bob and Mr. Charlie.

A few hours after I had been hired, Mr. Charlie pulled Bob and me aside and said to me, “You know what you’re doing, so we’re giving you a 25¢ per hour raise.”

It doesn’t sound like much today, but in 1963, it amounted to a 25% increase in pay from $1.00 per hour to $1.25 per hour.

I only worked one year with Bob Jackson before returning to Ole Miss, but in that time we became good friends. Bob was the bright spot in my otherwise drab year. Bob and his wife Mitzi had me over to their house for supper a few times when Bob and I worked together. It was in their home that I first enjoyed cracker salad, a concoction of fresh tomatoes, salad dressing, and crumbled crackers.

Bob and I kept in touch after I returned to college. I would stop by the Sunflower store to visit him whenever I was in Tupelo. When I asked him to be one of my groomsmen in 1967, he readily accepted. After Barbara and I married, we’d occasionally visit Bob and Mitzi in Tupelo.

As the years flew by, Bob changed jobs, going to work for Frito Lay as a route salesman, and for many years worked the area route that included Pontotoc. I saw Bob more frequently during his Frito Lay years, and while he’d changed jobs he never changed. He remains in my mind one of the most personable individuals I’ve ever known. Oh, it could be he thought I was funny looking, but whenever we ran into each other, he always had a smile and warm greeting for me. But, I saw him being that way with others, so maybe it wasn’t just me.

Bob’s son became a Christian counselor, whose work kept him in Tupelo for a few years but later required him to leave Tupelo and Mississippi altogether. Bob and Mitzi packed up and left with them. They wanted to be with their only child and with their grandchildren, and thought nothing of moving to Minnesota, Washington state, and later Colorado.

Fortunately, by this time in Bob’s life, he’d discovered the Internet, and we were able to stay in touch electronically. Bob and I exchanged a lot of emails through the years. I always enjoyed his perspective on political topics we were interested in, and I loved getting pictures of his family in his emailings.

Bob began having heart troubles, before he turned forty. His heart attacks and surgeries are too numerous for me to recount, and while I never questioned him about his faith, I have the impression that his oft-failing health contributed to him developing a closer walk with our Lord. After moving to Colorado Springs, Colorado, Bob became a volunteer for the Christian ministry, “Focus On The Family,” something he enjoyed immensely.

Bob and Mitzi moved back to Mississippi a few months ago, in part to be closer to other family members and in part because of the medical treatments needed. When I learned a few days ago that Bob was back in the hospital, I presumed he would survive another procedure, as such was his history. But, this time it wasn’t to be. Maybe, he was tired of fighting, or maybe his body simply gave out on him.

One thing I’m sure of is where he is today. And, if I know Bob Jackson, he’s having the time of his life now that the time of his life is over.

Home Renovation - The Bookcase Project

It seemed like it took the better part of the day to add the crown molding to our bookcases in the master bedroom. But, it probably only took about five hours.

My day began shortly after seven o’clock with me finishing up trimming the tall shrubs around our house. After that, Barbara and I mounded up most of the wood chips from a tree stump in the backyard that we had ground up last week, following getting a couple of trees removed the prior week. Yeah, I was surprised that my wife wanted to work in the yard.

The condition of our garage has been an embarrassment to both of us for too long, so once we were done with the wood chips we started piling boxes of odds and ends into the back of my truck to haul to the dump. Our painter had left the lids on the empty paint cans following our recent room-painting project so they had to be set aside for another day, as the lady at the landfill won’t allow sealed paint cans past the checkpoint. Yeah, I could have hidden them in plastic bags, but I didn’t.

We did stop by the hardware store to buy some wood stain to use on the crown molding that was delivered Friday afternoon to our then messy garage. We couldn’t get an exact match, but found something close enough and then drove on to the landfill to unload half a pickup load of “junk.”

Barbara and I stained the crown molding and the pieces we’d asked the lumber company to cut for use as book-stops. These are wooden slats about forty-eight inches long and 3/4 of an inch wide and perhaps a ¼ inch thick. Once that chore was complete, it was time for lunch.

Dot Bell came over after lunch to show us a new outfit she would be wearing Sunday evening at a reception in her daughter’s home in Germantown, TN. She also wanted to see what we’d done to the house during recent weeks of painting, flooring, carpet replacement, and rearranging. Dot liked what she saw, especially the living room which is now more conducive to sitting and visiting than before.

I had just left the house to go cut Sarah’s yard when Barbara phoned to let me know Keith Thomas was on his way over to miter the crown molding for us. Keith has all the “man toys” to make quick work of mitering, and he used a newly purchased electric brad gun to nail the crown molding in place. He even cut the book-stops to the lengths I needed and ripped off a couple of strips of plywood for me to add as a cover plate on top of the bookcases. He might have been at our house an hour, but I spent the next couple or so hours staining and installing the cover and the book-stops. Without Keith’s help, I would not have finished the bookcases Saturday.

I should mention the bookcases were custom built for our prior house on 8th Street, but we dismantled them and moved them to our present home, before we sold the 8th Street house. The late Oakley Hooker made them for us when we closed-in the carport in the early eighties. In our old house, the bookcases were on either side of the arched entrance inside the new den off the living room.

At our present location we had placed the bookcases in our master bedroom with one on either side of the doorway leading into the master bathroom. When our renovation project began, we had to dismantle the bookcases and cabinets once more. Rayanne suggested they might look good on a different wall as a side-beside unit.

Once the new carpeting was down, we started reassembling the bookcases as Rayanne had suggested. I was concerned that they might not mesh or marry well, but I was able to use my somewhat limited carpentry skills to line up the pieces rather nicely.

I was doing okay until I decided the upper portions need to be screwed together. The well-seasoned wood was giving my somewhat dull drill bit a run for its money. I don’t have a C-clamp anymore, so I was using one hand to pinch the sides together and pushing the drill with all my might using the other hand.

I failed to consider the drill would eventually push through both pieces of wood. A longer drill bit would have probably run my middle finger through and through, but the one I was using only got part of the way through the bone in the middle joint of my middle finger. Boy did that ever hurt!

The longest wood screw in my arsenal wasn’t long enough for the job, so I drilled a larger hole and inserted a bolt with a washer and nut. With everything as snug as possible, we set the bookcase against the wall and secured it. I don’t know who’ll move it next time, but I’m predicting it won’t be me.

Barbara is all smiles with the appearance of our newly ‘crowned’ bookcases, and the books-stops are a nice touch. And, my drilled-into finger is healing nicely. However, there’s a section close to the first joint that doesn’t have any feeling in it. Happily, I made it through the project without serious injury, which is yet another reason for smiles and thankfulness.