Carney Mimms – 50th Reunion Essay

Carney Mimms

94 Watchung Avenue, Montclair NJ

Montclair, NJ 7043

carneym@mac.com

862-266-4033

Spouse(s): Laura Kaufman (1989, divorced)

Child(ren): Rachel (1992)

Education: Yale BA 1969, Duke Law School 1975

National Service: US Army Reserve, 1970–1975

Career: general practice of law, Anchorage, Alaska, 5 years; book and newsletter editor, 20 years; IT consultant, 10 years

Avocations: writing, bicycling, martial arts, Jewish studies

College: Jonathan Edwards

I’m pleased to report that I’m still enjoying a bountiful harvest from the seeds planted when I was at Yale. Of course, some took longer than others to germinate and sprout!

Perhaps the most surprising of these was my decision, after many years of study and preparation, to leave my Protestant upbringing behind and become a Jew. I started on the path in the familiar way by marrying a Jewish woman and agreeing to raise our daughter as a Jew. What I could not have foreseen is that, at the age of 64, years after my divorce from my wife of 20 years, I would leave the sidelines by entering the mikvah and emerge reborn. A few years later, I celebrated my bar mitzvah. For this transformation, I am deeply grateful to my many Jewish friends at Yale and most of all to my roommate and mentor Frank Aronson. I’m sure they all continue to be as astonished by my conversion as I often am. The only one unsurprised is my daughter Rachel, now 26, who has been a pillar of support through my whole journey.

Almost as surprising to me, though less so to some of my friends and colleagues, has been my emergence as a writer of poetry and creative nonfiction. I’m sure my freshman literature teacher, Mr. Faulkner, will be pleased to know that I have taken seriously his class-ending admonition, “Gentlemen, read your Bibles!” though I have since exchanged the King James version for the Hebrew Torah. He did his best to improve the awkward prose I brought with me from high school but wasn’t around to repair the damage done to my writing by law school and years of practicing law in Anchorage, Alaska. My writing improved markedly when I left the practice of law to join a small publishing house in Manhattan in the mid-’80s but it wasn’t until I left that job that I found my voice and began to write out of my heart and soul.

Among the interests I pursued at Yale, the ones that took the longest to return were my amateur musical pursuits. I joined the Yale Precision Marching Band freshman year and later the Yale Concert Band and then put my drumsticks aside after graduation for more than 30 years. I then joined the Community Band in Montclair, New Jersey, where I now live and have been pounding away happily ever since. Just lately, I joined a local men’s barbershop chorus. I’m sure the Whiffenpoofs and their ilk had something to do with that one!

Some of my life’s path led directly out of Yale, of course. I wrestled as a freshman, then joined the fledgling Yale Judo Club under the tutelage of our Korean sensei, the redoubtable In Soo Hwang. That led to a lifelong pursuit of martial arts mastery through judo and into aikido and various forms of karate.

Like all of you, my life has been full of twists, turns, and surprises—not all of them had their origins at Yale. Just lately, love has come into my life in the person of my girl Ruth French, bringing new adventures on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. As I look toward the 50th anniversary of our graduation, I feel blessed.

See you all at the reunion!