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Born Modest by Loyal Jones 82 One thing I've noticed about growing up in the mountains is that we ve had such a load of modesty laid on us, we can't even stick to the truth, especially if it casts us in a positive light. We don't ever feel right admitting to anything that might make us look proud of doing something right or being a nice person. I grew up so far back the sun set between our house and the road. We were surely a modest people, but as my father said, we had a whole lot to be modest about. My uncle said that the history of our family could be written on the flyleaf of a pumpkin seed. I've thought about that, and I don't know. It seems to me that we all have about the same amount of history, except that some of us lost it along the way, like pocket knives, tie clips, and that sentimental poetry book Aunt Chloe sent us one Christmas. I remember helping this friend from New England move, and I remarked about a bed that had seemed to be around for a good many years. "Yes," he said. "We come from a long line of people." "Most of us do," I said. That is true, whether or not we can name all of our forebears who walked the earth, toiled, kicked over the traces now and again, dreamed, mourned for something or someone and reluctantly shuffled off this coil. They were probably as serious about what they were up to as we are, were disappointed in themselves at times, or elated when they overshot their own mark. They humped their loads along, being a part of it all, whether or not they are now recalled. The writer of Ecclesiasticus put it best, "some there be, which have no memorial . . . and are become as though they had not been born . . ." but he also said, "Their seed ständeth fast and their children for their sakes. Their seeds shall remain forever ..." The writer spoke ironically when he added, "Let us now praise famous men." So we should praise those who are unremembered. I like to try to imagine those who went before me, the Joneses and Morgans and Holdens and Bâties and Bostons and Weathermans, now forgotten, and even before them, those with single common names before surnames were invented. No one in my family knows where any of our forbears landed in this country or where in Wales, Scotland, England, or Germany they lived before they ventured here. Would we recognize them as kindred? Would we like them? How much of what we are did they send down to us in genes and traditions? Plenty, I suspect. One thing they sent down is a heavy load of Calvinism. It is responsible for most of our humility and modesty and has told us more than we wanted to know about human frailty. I remember this fellow who had a son go to the Eenitentiarv, and he wrote his father, "In ere, Daddy, it's just like it is out there. Us Baptists is in the lead." The men's group at the church gave one of my uncles an award for humility, but they took it away when they heard him bragging about it. We always shied away from praise, as if we thought that if we admitted we were good at something, we'd forget how to do it, or the preacher would make a call on us. So, everybody always had some excuse to cover up any talent he had. A neighbor was a good musician, but he had to protest for a while before it seemed right to play. He'd complain about his banjo not staying in tune or how he'd had an old cold and didn't have any more voice than a bullfrog. This sort of thing went on even if you had just demonstrated that you were good at what it is that you do. If somebody made a fine speech at the Farmer's Federation picnic and was complimented for it, he'd say, "Well, now...

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