How I became so Pragmatic
by Pat Darnell
I heard rumors all my young life. My Grandfather whom we called "Old Pop," Lloyd Orion Hynds, was in the final stages of life, giving up the ghost, to cancer. That was in 1979, and to my recollection Old Pop was always a bit rotund, and dogmatic. He had many professions, and many mannerisms that puzzled his family and friends. He was an enigma to his own children, but he let some of his grandchildren into his methods and moods. It was natural for me to go to be with Old Mom when Old Pop died. I had been chosen the day after my birth, I suppose, by my Mom since she named me Patrick Hynds Darnell.
As grandson, when I had stood next to Old Pop, I felt a change in atmosphere. He always wore clean, pressed, smooth white, lapel shirts, with a soft tank-top tee-shirt under. He tucked those into his clean black pants, held in place with black belt. He had a large nose that held up his trifocals, and a bald head. I learned later he just didn't like hair, so he shaved his head. Otherwise he would have had a full white bonnet of hair like his "Hynds" relatives I would meet in his wake.
As I stood by his coffin to view my Old Pop, I turned to Auntie Fran Hynds and said, "Wow, when Old Pop gives up the ghost, he really gives up the ghost." Fran got it, and gave me the twinkly smile she should have patented when she was alive.
He had lost so much weight, I was a bit stunned to see him so thin lying here, in state. But I knew the condition of his body was now an empty vessel. Old Pop had put his affairs together much earlier.
You see, Old Pop had become a fisher of men at age fifty. He preached a rural route on Sunday mornings, at three Methodist churches. Old Mom held fellowship in her own Hynds Circle, a women's Methodist group that today is still going strong. And now in 1979 he had prepared to pass on to his next stage of life. That is when I learned more about much, while being around my cousins and second cousins, at Old Pop's funeral.
Old Pop and Old Mom had lasted through rural farming existence, urban living, very hard financial times, and now Old Pop had returned to his roots.
Old Pop and my grandmother, "Old Mom," lived in lots of places. Hyndsver was their home. Hyndsver, a Burroughs of Martin, Tennessee, is the location of the original Hynds family farm. It also remains the site of oldest family cemetery, although still farmed by owners, they are no longer named Hynds. But there remain plenty of Hynds around town.
Hafford Hynds sat next to me in the kitchen, talking with me at the funeral home. He was my second cousin, only he was thirty years my senior as it turns out. He had panache like Old Pop did. However I could never pinpoint the family trait that kept popping up in my new found Hynds relatives.
So later I had a chance to sit with Old Mom. I talked about how much I enjoyed meeting all my Hynds "distant" relatives, like Hafford. Old Mom is so quiet and deliberate that I always know that what she says to me will be a humdinger of a thing. A thing to not forget: a remembrance. She didn't let me down this time:
"Those Hynds boys, they are so clever," said Old Mom. It was my affirmation. My mom handed me her maiden name, so that I am Patrick Hynds Darnell. Since a name is supernaturally important to me growing up, ... I had to know the Hynds trait as it pertained to my own preamble and someday eulogy of life. Says Old Mom, so say we all: "We of the Hynds and affiliated clans have a clever gene."
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(Carol, Mary : Weakley County Coordinator. © 2001-2009 by MaryCarol Weakley County [SOURCE]: This is truly a Tennessee Volunteer web site, many kind Weakley County Cousins have volunteered materials and time over the years to make it what it is today. You will find LOTS of old photos.)[HERE]
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