Papa John Charles

Think the correct year of his birth was 1898, not 1895.

My great-grandfather grew sugarcane and a variety of fruit trees on the Charles small farm. Figs, persimmons, kumquats. Is mirliton a fruit or a vegetable? One of many questions I should have asked him while we sat beneath sticky summer moonlight. I’d also ask him to tell me the story of the move from Virginia to Louisiana when he was a boy.

An additional correction: this photo must have been taken in a cooler month. Only explanation for my wearing long pants and hair not wild from running, skipping, jumping, or lying in the grass. There was a rooster who’d chase me, and a young black bull who couldn’t be bothered. With a simple look in my direction, he told me all I needed to know. Keep my distance.

All of St. Martinville tracked Papa John’s whereabouts long before mobile phones became a thing. “Yeah, saw his yellow Toyota parked outside the grocery. He ahright.”