Marshall Ramsey

I lugged my book bag up to the second floor of the University of Tennessee’s Humanities Building on that beautiful spring day. It was the last semester of my senior year and I had senioritis big time. The sky was blue and the dogwoods were bursting like popcorn across Knoxville. My speech professor had gray hair and commanded the very tan and drab classroom with authority. She walked willfully as she handed out graded exams. It was our first grade of the class — I knew I had done well. She finally got around to me and placed my paper on my desk. I looked down at my paper and saw a very prominent “95%.” YES!!!!

But my joy popped like a balloon when Dr. Faye Julian looked me square in the eye and said, “You can do better than that.”

“Um, yes, ma’am.”

I guess I could have argued, “WHAT? It’s an A…” But I didn’t. At that moment, the best professor I’ve ever had lit a fire in me. I responded to her challenge. I did better.

See, Dr. Julian believed in my talent. She knew I what I was capable of and challenged me to achieve it. And I rose to her dare.

How many people are like that in your life? How many people expect your very best? And an even better question is this: Are you like Dr. Julian? Do you bring out the best in other people?

I drew Dr. Julian the other day. She’s in a really neat print I did for UT’s College of Communication & Information. You see, Dr. Julian went on to become its Dean before she retired. And I look forward to seeing her again soon.

She saw me speak a few years ago and agreed that I had done better. I, of course, asked her if I was her favorite student. She smiled impishly and said, “Nah. Peyton Manning was my favorite.”

I laughed and wondered, “Did she challenge him to do better, too?”

My cousin Dave did some amazing genealogy work on the Ramsey family. It’s an intriguing read because we never really know much about our families except for a generation or two. It’s like a whole world has been opened up to me. I’m sitting here smugly knowing that I had a great great great grandfather named Benjamin Franklin Ramsey.

How cool is that? Benjamin Franklin Ramsey.

Well, not really that cool at all. But it’s amazing for me to see all these names in front of me. And I wonder. I wonder what ol’ BF Ramsey was like? Did he look like me? Was he artistic. I now know his name. And his wife’s name. But I really don’t know much more than that he lived and died.

My great great grandfather on my dad’s side was J.C. Eckles. I do know about him thanks to his memoirs. J.C. left his mark on Mississippi after the Civil War (and during it, but that’s another story.) He was a Methodist Circuit Rider in North Mississippi and co-found Wood College in Mathiston. He had two daughters, one who was my very talented great grandmother. But he also had a son. A son that I didn’t know about until I saw his grave.

J.C. Eckles, Jr. died at the age of 21 of appendicitis.

According to my dad, he was a very talented and popular young man. He went to college and died on a baseball field from an attack of appendicitis. All that talent. All that potential. Gone. My dad has my great grandmother’s locket. Inside of it is John Charles’ picture. I gasped when I saw it.

My oldest son strongly favors him.

In 150 years, maybe one of my decedents will look back and find my name. I wonder what he will discover about me. Will he find any trace of my existence on earth beyond my name? Probably not. But it makes me wonder what he’ll think about ol’ TM Ramsey.

My dad and I are bilingual. We speak English and football. And on Sunday night, I cherished our conversation.

Our Tennessee Volunteers were on — and they were, for the first time in a while, dominating. We sat in my parent’s den, like I had so many times before, talking blocks, tackles, strategy and coaching.

My dad is getting older. Heck, I’m getting older. A game that I once would have taken for granted became more precious to me. For a long time I have lived far away — our time together is rare. I looked at him sitting in his big brown chair with his white hair. If one of the knick-knacks on my parent’s bookshelf was a genie’s lamp, I’d ask to go back in time 40 years.

But I can’t do that. So I just grasped onto the moment as tightly as I could. And as the final moments of the game ticked off, I wished for more time on the clock. 3…2…1…. Tennessee had won.

We sat there for a minute — and then watched a replay of Tennessee’s 1997 SEC Championship win over Auburn. Sure, we knew the outcome of the game. But the score wasn’t what mattered. It was the time on the clock.

I drive all around the Southeast. I know most of the main and backroads and can tell you, within five minutes, how long it takes to get to any point in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. I’ve navigated snow, rain, fog and wind. I’ve driven in a hurricane (Katrina) and outrun tornadoes. Saturday’s storm near Eutaw, Alabama was the worst I’ve ever driven in. The sky was pitch black, pouring sheets of rain and hammering the Earth with frequent cloud-to-ground lightning. I saw a half dozen cars in the ditch (after hydroplaning) and wondered at the Mensas who refused to turn on their headlights. It was 25 minutes of sheer terror.

Why? Because my family was with me. All I hold precious was sitting in a vehicle under my control. And the weather was starting to rock our van.

Yes, I said van. We have a 2014 Honda Odyssey for a family truckster. Say what you want to about vans, it’s the safest thing I’ve ever driven. We had a 2005 Odyssey for nine years. And absolutely loved it. This one is better in every way. I was thankful for good tires and traction control. And praying I wouldn’t need the airbags.

I chanted to myself, “Dear God, get me through this storm.”

My wipers were beating like John Bonham’s arms. My heart was keeping rhythm. A truck driver, who apparently had a death-wish, zoomed past us, dousing our windshield with an opaque spray of death. The interstate went to one late at the Tenn-Tom waterway. How I didn’t crash into the barrels is a mystery to me. Lightning struck the bridge, causing my heart to stop.

As we broke free of the storm’s grip, the sky was an eerie shade of orange (thankfully not green — no hail was in this storm). The rain swirled in the sky, doing an exotic dance before it fell to the ground. It looked surreal. If I hadn’t been so focused on the road ahead of me (why do people REFUSE to turn on their lights?), I would have marveled at its beauty.

My wife drove through Birmingham (I needed a break). We saw rain shafts coming from the storms that looked like non-spinning tornadoes. I never saw a rainbow after the flood, though. I guess our survival was sign enough that we’d live to fight on another day.

Today is Cowboy Day. It also is, “So hot your back sweats day,” too. But I digress.

I stood outside my son’s elementary school, in the sun (I don’t do well in the sun), watching adorable second graders march outside in their best cowboy garb. They bubbled with excitement. Second graders are good at bubbling. I only wish I had their energy.

Their little voices made a sweet cacophony. Then the chatter was broken with a familiar voice, “THAT’S MY DAD!”

My youngest, a boy who has shown me the true meaning of overcoming obstacles, was grinning from ear to ear. He had seen me before I had seen him. It was a moment of joy I can’t quite explain.

I stood next to a PLS workout friend whose older daughter has been valiantly been fighting leukemia. I thought of David and Sheila Wilbanks who were preparing for their son’s funeral.

As I watched my son dance joyfully with his partner, salty water flowed down my cheek. It might have been sweat. It might have been something else.

I’ll never tell.

It was about this time nine years ago that I heard a voice cry across the newsroom, “There’s water on the second floor of the Beau Rivage.”

That was the moment I knew the Mississippi Gulf Coast would never be the same.

And it’s not. Gone are the middle-class homes that used to dot the beach. New flood plain maps and sky-high insurance rates took care of that. The might oaks still dot the coast, but they were thinned out by the salty surge and high winds. (and bulldozers cleaning debris.) Claims have been settled and lives have moved on. There has been growth north of the flood zone and along 1-10, but the high cost of insurance bedevils many residents.

The scar still remains along the Coast. And it burns.

In Jackson, we had a 12-hour wind event like I’ve never seen. I nearly was crushed by two falling trees while driving home during the height of the storm. And I saw an interstate road sign fly off its posts. My house, thankfully received little damage. But many of my neighbors weren’t so fortunate. (Oaks seems to take it harder than the pines did.) I had a pile of debris in my yard over six-feet tall.

We learned a lot after Katrina. One, is that civilization won’t keep running very long when you don’t have electricity and gasoline. Life began to shut down quickly in the days after the storm. Two, if you had a plan before Katrina, it wouldn’t work afterwards. The storm was too big. Too devastating. Bureaucracies like FEMA struggled to fulfill their mission. Private groups (including many faith-based organizations) filled in the cracks. The importance of flexibility and change was taught. (A lesson hammered home during the Great Recession.) And three, we learned that when things get bad, we get good. The outpouring of help after the storm was nothing short of a heaven-sent. On this ninth anniversary, let me say thank you to ANYONE who volunteered to help us after the storm. Heroes after Katrina were average people who saw a need and filled it. They soothed our wounds with hard work and compassion.

We also were taught another valuable lesson: The cavalry won’t come right after a monster storm. We have to be prepared to survive on our own for at least 72 hours. And we must heed official evacuation orders.

Yes, the Gulf Coast is changed. We all were who went through that storm. But the lessons we learned from Katrina will stick with us forever. And like the mighty oaks that line the beach, the Mississippi Gulf Coast survived live another day.