2011 - Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science

Never Killed No One
John Corbin Evans
Granddaddy turned left onto County Road
779. This road is peculiar in the way
that the left side of the road belongs to the Fulton
family and the right side belongs to Granddaddy.
Granddaddy travelled 779 in an unforgettable faded
white 1991 pickup truck, one with four doors,
four-wheel drive, and a decade’s worth of stains
smudged across the red velvet interior. When
I rode with Granddaddy, his mouth oozed Levi
Garret chewing tobacco as he tried his hardest to
spit into a Pepsi bottle. He told me he bought the
extended-bed truck so he could fit more of my
tools in the back, and I doubted his hollow but
stern voice, thinking he was a joker. I soon realized
that Granddaddy wasn’t a fan of jokes, but he was
fanatic about one saying: “Hard work never killed
no one, but I’m going to see how close I can take
you, boy.” He always concluded with a chuckle.
My most frequently used tool became my best
friend the summer after I turned nine years old.
He was the best friend I have ever had because I
could tell him anything and he would never say a
word to anyone. The Kaiser blade, or “sling blade,”
was very sharp on both edges of the blade but the
handle, normally a meter in length, was shortened
just for me to use in the farthest pasture from the
house. Granddaddy owned forty-three acres of
land and a small portion of it was covered in oak
and pine timber with a thick impenetrable layer
of briars and undergrowth. Well, almost impenetrable:
I spent my summer clearing almost an acre
of undergrowth. All day, the blade sang me soft
“swish, swack” melodies, only taking breaks for
me to clear the briars from its path before it continued,
“swish, and swack.” The day would always
end with Granddaddy telling me that I’d only
worked half as hard as he had to work at my age. Of
course, I hoped this was an exaggeration but I had
a churning in my gut that told me it was not a fib.
Granddaddy told me work was good for my soul.
I begged to differ—but not aloud. Granddaddy
would sit for hours on a parked ’73 John Deere and
drink my only jug of water for the day. He smirked,
made snide comments like, “103 degrees feels good
with that Mississippi humidity, don’t it, son?” All
the while, he barked orders about, “Pile that brush
on top and lay all the tree trunks that same direction.
Don’t forget to place the brush under the trees
so they’ll burn after dinner.” I worked until blisters
festered on my hands, busted open, bled onto the
handle, and then callused over before Granddaddy
had offered me gloves. This may sound like crude
child labor, but in our family it’s the way to learn
hard work and determination.
Now, I’m seventeen, using a Kaiser blade of a
different sort: my brain. The briars I fight are in
the form of Calculus II integration, history of the
English language, z-scores of standard deviations,
and American Government. I am in my senior
year at the Mississippi School for Mathematics
and Science, or MSMS for short, and it is gutwrenching.
Each individual class is as demanding
as the others. My typical core classes like American
Government are just as rigorous as my dual-credit
classes like University Calculus 2. Every night
and morning I use my “Kaiser blade” to cut down
homework and study, “swish, swack.” Hard work,
time management, and determination to succeed
are the keys to unlocking success at MSMS. How do
I know? Well, I’ve opened the door of success.
I am grateful for the summers I spent manhandling
the Kaiser blade and dripping beads of
salty sweat. MSMS presented me with a challenge
even Granddaddy couldn’t give me: two years worth
of academic briars. Through the strength I learned
the summer after turning nine years old, I have
accomplished more than I thought I possibly could
before graduating from high school. It hasn’t been
easy, of course. Then again, “hard work has never
killed no one”—yet. n
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