Chapter One
The Origins of Paradise a hand-scrawled letter dated october 4, 1990
To my Grandson Justin Pitre,
I’m sory that I don’t write or spell so good but this is something I wanted to
put down on paper. Yor PawPaw is getting to old to fish but I appreciate how you
still try to get me to the camp. I still like to go out there and sit in my
rocking chair on my front porch. I guess I don’t mind my beer neither. You know
that porch got to have the pertiest view in South Louisiana. We’ve had us some
good times out there and caught us some fish. You keep on catching them because
yor Daddy and Momma like them redfish and speckle trouts. Me to. Can you believe
I will be 89? When I was 79 I didn’t feel like an old man. But now I feel old as
the swamp and I don’t remember everything good as I used to. So before I get to
old to write clear I wanted to let you know I’m giving you the camp and all the
land around it. I’ve talked it over with yor Daddy and he thinks this is right.
He likes going to the camp ever so often but he wulnd’t know what to do with it.
Nobody loves the place more than you and me. You were perty much raised out
there. You know when I bought the place 62 years ago from the sugar company I
gave pennies an acre for it because people then didn’t think the marsh and swamp
was worth nothing. But swamp rats like us know that’s not true. That cypress
grove we got on the north side got trees older than me and you put together. You
ever seen more spider lilies in the spring than what we got out there? That bird
fellow who come out long ago told me that he went all over the country down in
Florda to that place called the Everyglades and didn’t see nothing there that we
don’t have at Crawfish Mountain. In the old days, I trapped so many muskrats in
our marsh that people thought I had me a muskrat ranch hid someplace. Not too
many places have muskrats left but we still got some and some otters to. And
more gators than you can count. Funny I spent my life trapping and hunting and
skinning them critters but now I just get a kick out of watching them. I only
have a few things to ask you. I know the little shack is not the pertiest but I
built it good with my own hands. If it burns down or if the hurricane comes and
knocks it down I want you to build it back facing like it was, with the front
porch toward the Gulf and the back porch facing our swamp. I don’t know about
heaven but if there is a heaven that’s where yor Mawmaw Myrsa is. So that’s
where I’m planning to go when I die (though maybe I’m not in charge of that.)
Its nice to think me and her could be sitting up there together and see you
looking out at the same things we saw. I know I don’t probly need to say this
but don’t let nobody mess with our marsh and our swamp. A lot of that prairie
out around us is going to hell and sinking but our land is good because we
always kept it just the way God made it. Don’t sell the camp to nobody, neither,
no matter what they say they will give you. I never told you but I had more
offers to sell the place than crawfish got legs. I know a lot of those rich
sports up in Black Bayou town would pay an arm and a leg to put a fancy hunting
camp on our land. But when I first paddled around our island all them years ago
I knew there were things about that place that money can’t buy. And you won’t
find a chenier that’s higher nowhere. Twenty five foot isn’t much to people who
live in hills or such. But out in that flat country, where hurricanes can bring
a lot of water, its as close to a mountain as you going to find. I don’t have
the spring in my step I used to but maybe we can go to the camp on my birthday
if it don’t turn to cold. One day you probly going to have to put me in that old
wheel barrow and push me up the ramp from the dock. That’s going to be a sight,
huh Justin?
Yor PawPaw who loves you,
Jack Pitret
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Crawfish Mountain
by Ken Wells
Copyright © 2007 by Ken Wells.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Random House
Copyright © 2007
Ken Wells
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-375-50876-9
