The Gift of Cornbread and Family
This week my Papa Johnson would be 109 years old. He left this earth 42 years ago, just a few days before my brother and I were born. Even though I never met him, I know him just the same as I know anyone else in our family, maybe even better than some because of the stories I’ve heard told about him from the time I could remember. The same blue eyes that shine out of his face in pictures I’ve held over the years are the same Johnson blue that shine out of my daddy’s face, and the faces of many of those I love the most in this world… my aunts and uncles and cousins. This week while we were sitting around a campfire together, my daddy told a new story I had never heard about Grandpa Johnson.
Daddy told that when my grandpa was a young teenager the Great Depression had just started and times were hard. Anyone who could find work did and Papa Johnson as a young teenager would go out and get hired on to plow a field for somebody’s farm. Daddy said Papa normally got 50 cents for a whole day’s work to plow a field. He would work all day from dawn to dusk, hitching their mule to the plow. My papa would grip wooden handles, soaked in linseed oil that were sanded and shined to a hardened sheen by time and wear. As the mule would pull the plow in the ground, the dirt would cleave to either side leaving a trench that would hold that families’ future for the next season. At dinnertime, the woman of the house would always hang a handkerchief or a white dishtowel on a fence post so he would know to stop to eat dinner with their family. He said she would cook fried potatoes and onion, field peas with ham, and buttered biscuits.
At the end of the day the farmer’s wife would offer him either the 50 cents promised or a big pone of cornbread and he would always say, “If it’s all the same to you ma’am, I would rather have the cornbread.” My papa would always take it home to his family. He lived with General and Corrie, which was his half-brother and his wife. General had several kids of his own, Garvis, and Thurn and Marion but took my Papa in to raise as his own. Times was hard but family made all the difference. I can picture my Papa now, his neck caked with dirt and sweat, his long legs making strides toward home, whistling an old tune like Red River Valley, holding that golden cake of cornbread wrapped up in a dishtowel, warm still from the oven, with a smile on his lips knowing that he was going home.
No matter where I’ve been traveling in this world, whether it was down the road a ways teaching school or halfway across the country visiting a national park, I’ve always looked forward to home and the family waiting there. The older I get and the more people I know are waiting on me on the other side, the more thankful I am for the promise of heaven. While I am here, I hope I leave a legacy behind for my children and grandchildren like my Papa did and I hope they know every day I work to bring them home the best I have in my hands for them and for their future. I also hope my Papa knows that I sure am looking forward to meeting him. I didn’t know how much he loved cornbread, but the next time I make it, I will surely think of him and his love for it and for family.
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