I
have no earthly idea how my Mama, Modena Vickery Cobb, whose folks lived in the
rural-as-they-come Reed Creek section of Hart County, Georgia, came to be named for
an Italian city once known principally for producing balsamic vinegar and now
known primarily for producing ultra-high-end sports cars like Lamborghinis,
Maseratis, and, naturally, the Ferrari "Modena 360," which in addition to Ferrari red, also comes in Modena yellow.
Although the Italian connection is rendered a bit shaky by the fact that as a Georgian, Mama was naturally known as "Mo-Deena," I still think it's fitting that she was born on Columbus Day, more specifically, October 12, 1910. That's right, had she not exited this world on February 2, 1989, she would be 100 years old this week.
I often ask my students to try to comprehend
the changes witnessed by people whose lives spanned a particular historical
era. In my Mama's case, she was born
roughly three months after the famous fighter Jack Johnson defeated Jim Jeffries
in a bout that ignited racial violence across the country. William Howard Taft was president and still in
the reasonably good graces of his imperious predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt,
who had recently returned from a protracted hunting expedition on which he
likely slaughtered at least one of every creature known to inhabit the
continent of Africa. It would be four
years before Europe was plunged into war and three more before the United
States was drawn into the conflict that Woodrow Wilson called the "war to end
all wars." Roughly eighteen months later,
according to Mama's recollection, she would stand on the banks of the Tugalo
River and hear the cotton mill whistles in the towns just across the river in
South Carolina signaling the signing of the "Armistice," meaning that
the boys who had gone "over there" would be coming home soon.
There would be other wars of course, not to mention the Great Depression, which---after tying the knot in 1932---she and my dad (who was five years older) would survive pretty much by growing as much of what they ate as they could and bartering eggs, butter, and an occasional ham for necessities they could not produce on their own. She recalled quite well when, as a child, she and her family were out working in the field and saw their very first airplane, but she would live to sit with her son and watch a man set foot on the moon for the first time and later to hop on a big jet on numerous occasions to visit him and his family.
The Russian Revolution was still seven years away when she was born, and she would live long enough to see the Great Soviet dream of empire largely come to grief in Afghanistan. She was ten years old when commercial radio broadcasting began, but she would become a fanatical television viewer and a huge fan of TV remote controls. She delighted in telling of the time when she was hospitalized and her neighbors in nearby rooms were playing their sets at what she considered to be excessively high volume. Upon discovering that all of the hospital remotes operated on the same frequency, she began patrolling the halls "adjusting" the sound levels for other patients who must surely have thought they had experienced sudden and dramatic hearing loss.
She passed on before most of us had ever heard of an Internet, and I'm fairly certain she would have generally disdained it as too trashy for her, although I'm guessing she would've made an exception when it came to Skyping with her great-grandson. (As fascinating as intergenerational connections can be, the times when they are short-circuited are worth pondering as well. I find it mind-boggling, for example, that my Grandma Cobb and I missed connection by nearly thirty years because she died in the horrible influenza epidemic of 1918.)
In the long run, an individual's historical longevity is measured not simply in terms of when they were born and when they died. Rather, it is a reflection of their lasting impact on those who survived them. Using this standard, I would cite the exceedingly long shadow of former UCLA coach John Wooden, who died in June but would have reached the century mark this week as well. My Mama's fame was largely local, of course, but I know for sure that she made it onto the "most unforgettable character" lists of most folks who ever came to know her. As for her impact on me, I tried, however inadequately, to do it justice in the dedication of my last book:
Whatever else may be said of this book, few will deny its ambition. It seems fitting, therefore, that it should be offered in tribute to the person who instilled in me the determination and drive (my strongest suits by far) to undertake such a project. "'Can't' never did anything, Jimmy," she used to say, and I have recalled those words countless times over the years when I had almost convinced myself that I had set my sights too high or overestimated my abilities. Her example spoke to me even more authoritatively than her words, however. Here was a woman with eleven years of formal education who spent the prime of her life on a played-out farm where ends didn't always meet and never traveled more than 100 miles from home until she was in her sixties. Yet her grasp of history and current affairs was encyclopedic and sure, and her love of language and poetry both pure and profound. A skilled seamstress and cook, she was also a natural mechanic [She could have kept her namesake Ferrari purring like a kitten, without breaking a sweat.] and a more accomplished and exacting carpenter than any man I ever saw. She always demanded his best effort from her son, but once she knew she had gotten it, that was always good enough for her.
I don't have any illusions about making it to a hundred. In fact, the next couple of weeks look pretty shaky, but I do know that however long anyone who knew my Mama lives, she will too.
