A few years ago, I sat on the back porch of some relatives’ home in Mississippi whom  I had not seen since about 1970. This meeting was part of my trek to learn more about my Southern roots, with the goal being to write a brief, non-genealogical book about that aspect of my heritage. There were plenty of kin who remained in Mississippi for generations, yet my grandfather, grandmother and two sons, one of which was to be my dad, moved to San Antonio in about 1920. I posed the question, “Do you know why all the other McInnises stayed here but my grandpa moved to Texas?”  Their response serves as a reminder that sometimes reality changes dreams and plans.

“Not sure. I imagine it was for the same reason a lot of people moved on. They got tired of the smell of donkey farts.”  I had to chuckle at the clarity of the truth.

Grandpa, like most from that area, was a farmer…of plants and chickens. Preparing fields for planting was done by plow pulled by a donkey. Apparently, the aroma is as undesirable as the view. I wouldn’t know. Most people nowadays wouldn’t. They would, however, understand that there are times in life that well-thought-out plans that were once considered rock solid are no longer valid thanks to subtle or profound changes in conditions.

I am confident that there was more involved than bad smells for grandpa to uproot his family, leave behind his kin and head west to the unknowns of Texas. Whatever the combination of forces that compelled the changes, the lesson is clear: life is about change and we, ultimately, are not in charge of the changes, only of our responses to them. Resilience matters.

Grandpa did not leave hard work and farming behind. He died when I was three, so I have no answers to the multitude of questions that I have for him, about him and about life in those times. As I recall the story, McInnis Road in San Antonio started as a gravel road that the county put down so grandpa could get onto his property when the weather was bad. I jokingly remind my sons that it is a dead-end road; however, when grandpa acquired the land to primarily raise chickens (another connection to the McInnis way in Mississippi), I imagine the acreage represented an accomplishment, not a dead end.  I don’t know if people who operated largely in the subsistence mode had plans in the way that people think of them nowadays. While people are consumed by the idea of having, mapping and achieving plans in these times, the plans of yore seem to have often been to work hard enough to take care of their families.

Life happens. Plans change. It has always been so. We can gain a lot of wisdom by absorbing the lessons that are the trials and experiences of those who came before us…decades, generations and centuries before us.

And yes…I did write the book: Discovering Mississippi…Discovering Myself:  A Journey Four Decades in the Making. I hope that I never forget the lessons learned.