AS THE SEASONS SHIFT from hot sun to cool autumn days, my mind’s eye turns to Septembers and Octobers past. I think particularly of my Zeringue grandparents, who lost their daughter (my mother) Therese when she was only 37 years old. They mourned and wept as we did, and with my father, they loved, taught, and reared us as their own.
Papere taught us to plant a garden, including picking and how to cook in cast-iron kettles. He carved army men for us from bits of wood and made whistles from palmetto fronds. We rode the mule-drawn sled from Cabanocey to Graugnard’s store, and if we were good, which was generally not the case, we got a piece of penny candy.
