Let Me Tell You About Betty Kincaid

The reality that Betty Kincaid was made of human flesh and was therefore mortal, matters only in that she could not stay with us forever, but it does not diminish the impact she had on my life; since to me, she was a perfect saint, more heavenly than any angel. I have no idea, honestly; if she had faults and I do not care to hear of them if she did. The first evidence I received that Betty Kincaid was not supernatural came a little after four pm local time today, when her son and my best friend, Raleigh Kincaid, texted me that his mother had passed. The text read: “My mom just passed. We’re all ok.” What is strange to me in the text is that it did not say: “Mom just passed. We’re all ok.” It is as if Raleigh was reminding me that she was never really my mother too. That’s ok Raleigh, but we both know differently. You were texting under awful circumstances, so you are forgiven.

“Betty Jo, Betty Jo,…”

“Yes Ernest, what young man? Oh, my you’ve done it again, you spilled that all over yourself, you slob, what am I going to do with you son?”

“I’m pitiful Betty Jo”…

“Oh, yeah, you’re pitiful alright, either that or you’re trying my patience.”

That’s Ernest Kincaid talking to Betty Kincaid somewhere around 1968 or 1969, as he lay in his roll-away bed on the glassed-in porch just off the eat-in kitchen where Raleigh, Davie, Betty and I would eat our Saturday-morning breakfasts, because I had come home with Raleigh after school on Friday evening.

In the warm months, humming birds fluttered around Betty’s feeders, strategically placed for Ernest to enjoy through the window. The house would have been “mildly cluttered”, although never but a few minutes from being “well-kept”. There were notches on the door jamb to chart Raleigh’s growth. During the years when I spent days and nights there, those marks marched up the door facing well above my head, until they reached six and a half feet tall by the time we were done with high school.

Ernest had been diagnosed with MS not long after Raleigh was born, so he was discharged from the military and he and Betty moved the boys back home to the Cann farm, a farm that sat across the North Fork of the Kentucky river in Lee County Kentucky, just above Saint Helens; and to get to it you had to drive across a rickety wooden/cable bridge. Boards lay on the bridge about wide enough for car tires. Larger vehicles had to take a different road into the back of the farm.

Ernest and Betty lived in a modest brick house about halfway back a narrow paved lane, situated on a large pond, in front of which Raleigh and I dug up the grass for a truck to pour asphalt on, to make us a basketball court. We literally built the court we had so many battles on in the blistering sun or stinging cold.

Betty read her library paperbacks, cooked tirelessly for us, took care of Ernest and spoiled her series of Boston Terriers. She was right around my dad’s age, so nearly forty when I first “came into the family”. By that time, Ernest required a wheelchair and spent all his remaining time in bed. Betty and the boys were adept at wrestling him in and out of vehicles.

The first time I can recall seeing them was when Betty wheeled Ernest beside the bleachers behind home plate at Beattyville Grade school where Raleigh and I played little league. Ernest’s speech was slurred by then, but both he and Betty would yell their encouragement to Raleigh and as I became more a part of the family, to me as well. My parents did not attend our games, so Betty and Ernest were my cheering section too.

After we had spent all of a hot Saturday beating one another senseless on the basketball court, we would head into the house and Betty would be waiting with dinner. She liked to sit down and talk to us while we ate. She would try to draw me out, because for some reason, I had little to say to anyone but Raleigh while I was there. Sometimes I would even whisper to Raleigh that I wanted something passed or needed more to drink.

“Mike honey, you’re just gonna have to be like these two animals here and fend for yourself. Don’t be shy.”

Raleigh and I talked philosophically and about important subjects, trying out the minds we were just coming to know and Betty would listen appreciatively and occasionally interject something that made it clear where Raleigh got his intelligence. I can recall trying to sound as smart as possible when I knew she was listening. I now do that for a living, but I think I first learned it by having her as an eavesdropper.

She would say things to put me at ease while I was visiting, but I distinctly remember she never said: “Make yourself at home” and as time went on it became clear she was far too sophisticated to say that, because she understood the underlying message that comes from it, something like a subtle reminder that as a guest you were not really at home.

After dark and the Kentucky basketball game came on either TV or radio, she popped corn and made us milk shakes. I can recall feeling guilty after a few times of being over there and having popcorn, basketball games and milkshakes with my little brother Earl home in the trailer with none of those things and nothing to do. So, once I was old enough to drive, I would take him with me and Raleigh would sit on him during the game (Raleigh had been abused by his older cousin, so he abused people younger, other than me. It’s a long story, Raleigh’s cruelty to Earl, but it was actually not cruelty, but his way of dealing with someone from my family who was not me.)

Betty would repeatedly tell Raleigh to lay off Earl. “He is never going to want to come over here again, Raleigh Mark. Get off him.”

“But mom, he likes it, don’t you like it Earl?”

Earl looks at me and I shrug my shoulders.

Raleigh: “If he didn’t like it would he come over here?”

Me: “It might be the milkshakes he likes, I am not sure.”

Betty took care of Ernest like a nurse for at least two decades, the prime years of her life. She was so, so smart, so witty, so full of natural charm, as I look back now, and even then, I marveled at her patience and willingness to stay out of the excitement life would surely have afforded someone with her talents. She sang like a bird, but never to an audience bigger than the few of us. She poured herself into raising her boys, letting their news from life at school, ballgames, band trips, or other adventures, be her chance to stay connected with the bustling world off the farm and away from the porch where the man she loved lay.

Her dignity and worldliness stood out by contrast, the few times when she was around my parents. She was nearly as firm a believer in the Bible as my dad, but she was not a fanatic and she had read widely other than the Bible, and was far better educated generally, having grown up in a family with a good deal of coal money; but most importantly, she had manners and social graces my family could observe, but hardly describe.

Betty doted on me as if I was her son. I think she thought I was perfect the way I thought she was until one day when on the drive home from college, Raleigh and I had our worst fight, maybe even our only fight ever. When he got home, she recommended we both go for counseling. She must have been distraught and I found it hard to face her afterwards, knowing I had not lived up to her expectations.

She was proud of Raleigh and he and I competed for her approval. He was wicked smart in every way, but between the two of them; they had me so pumped up with belief in myself, there was precious little difference between us on school performance. He sang and I sang too. He even wrote in our senior memories book that his dream was to someday sing better than me. If you have heard Raleigh sing you know why I bring that up. He and his mother believed in me so much, they could not even hear how much more resonant his voice was, or at least they never pointed it out to me.

Betty was the strongest-willed person I have ever met, other than my father. I was unable to be around her much for the last few decades, due to my moving away. But, I have stayed in touch with Raleigh and his admiration for her is roughly the same as it was back when I came to respect her so immensely. Her passing is going to be rough for Raleigh, and I know that is almost always true when sons lose mothers, but the bond they established during the years I was there as witness, was much like a story that might well have been written by one of the Brontes, Jane Austen, or George Eliot. The stuff of literature, really; the sort of literature she read while waiting for Ernest’s next request.

I told Raleigh in the last few weeks, after Betty had fallen and her health was in severe decline; I needed to write her a letter. I suppose this is that letter. She will not read it, but one night when Raleigh was there in the hospital beside her bed he texted me that he was there and I texted back for him to tell her I loved her. He texted back that she said she loved me too. She is enough like Raleigh and I like to think me too, that she meant what she said and she knew I meant it too. That’s something at least, right?

I spoke to the faculty at another University earlier this week and during my presentation, I compared the servant mentality of many faculty members I have known to that of Betty Kincaid, in as much as they are like her in making the decision to devote their life to service.

Betty Kincaid, you were a true servant of others on this earth. You have earned your rest. Thanks for demonstrating how to live a great life in ordinary, and sometimes trying, circumstances.

Betty Kincaid, I love you.

Let Me Tell You About My Friend, Jason Ashcraft

Young Mr. Jason Ashcraft, the oldest son of two of my oldest friends, Phil and Denise Ashcraft, today turns an age many people pretend to be years later; 29, or twelve days older than our daughter. The plans Jason announced when they were about five years old, in the backseat of our car, driving through the Smokey Mountains - for he and our daughter to marry and live in the woods; never materialized, so to be perfectly candid, I don’t trust the guy. He wound up marrying someone far superior to himself in intellect, physical attractiveness and personality, but gees, a promise is a promise, right?

A couple of months before his wedding on December 3, 2005, I was at a shopping mall in Tampa, Florida killing time after attending sessions at a conference when my cell phone rang and it was Jason asking me whether I would be willing to sing Elton John’s “Your Song” at the ceremony. I said yes, even though as I have gotten older my singing is pretty much limited to the shower or while driving. If I did a less than satisfactory job, which could be the case, since it was after all a song by one of Jason’s favorite artists and I was not sure of my pitch on all the notes for whatever reasons, then let me just say right here, that is my revenge for him breaking his promise to my daughter. His dad noticed that Denise, Jason’s mom, was crying while I was singing and told her he didn’t think my singing was THAT bad.

In case you could not tell, I have tried to be funny up until now, but I do have a few serious things to say. Somehow Jason has been able to land jobs that me and a lot of the boys I hung around with as a kid would have killed for, jobs having to do with college sports. Right now he has a job where he has to follow the Xavier men’s basketball team all over the place writing up reports on what happens. Once we saw him on TV sitting at a press table in Gainesville, Florida, at the Florida-Xavier game and I texted to see if that was him in the blue shirt down in the corner behind one of the goals and he texted back and said, yes, that’s me. How cool is that? This coming week he flies to Spokane for a game and it is always something neat and interesting with his job.

I have trouble keeping up with Jason when it comes to talking about movies, TV or really esoteric stuff on practically any subject. With his dad as a social studies teacher and his mother so fully aware of everything going on in the world, he could not have turned out any differently. I still enjoy trying to talk to him though, given that I am in the field of education and I am supposed to know a lot of the stuff he really does know.

Jason is a pilot, a motorcycle rider, and the husband of an equestrian. They also have cars, so if it has to do with transportation, he and his wife pretty much have it covered, from horses to planes. Jason, here’s the link to Amazon’s array of Segways:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=segway&x=0&y=0

In closing, let me say, I am thrilled that Jessica, Jason’s wife is such an understanding person, given my joking above and also, that my daughter does not do the whole Facebook thing.

Happy Birthday Mr. Jason, age gracefully the way your wonderful parents and I are.