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Ernest J. Gaines of Pointe Coupee Parish and the World
Once upon a time and far away (Louisiana) I won a writing award of minimal distinction and, worse, no remuneration.
However, I was privileged (along with some thirty or more other young men and women) to enjoy a pleasant hour or so with Ernest Gaines at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, now the University of Louisiana Lafayette.
Universities, like banks, change their names and their galactic overlords so often that, as a friend says, they should display their names as Velcro banners.
Professor Gaines, natty in his beret, was happy to visit with us, indulge our foolish questions, and give us sage advice, and enjoyed himself immensely.
Born as a sharecropper’s son in the Jim Crow time, young Ernest was not permitted to attend high school in his home parish, and so was sent to live with relatives in California. After high school he did his time in the Army, and then on the G.I. Bill attended San Francisco State and then Stanford University.
He was successful but loved Louisiana and so returned home to teach at the university and to buy some of the land he and his ancestors had worked. He contributed to his community through many gifts of service, and the lad who was not permitted to attend high school (though he was expected to join the Army) became a man whom governors were pleased to visit, metaphorical hat in hand.
Professor Gaines’ books include The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Gathering of Old Men, and A Lesson Before Dying, some of which were made into films. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, with Cicely Tyson, won numerous awards, and the underrated A Gathering of Old Men is equally brilliant.
But what if Dr. Gaines, writer and professor, had never achieved the honors he well earned? What if he were Mr. Gaines, a neat old man who worked at the grocery store? Would he have been the same avuncular, industrious, thoughtful, considerate, Louisiana-loving man rocking a cool beret?
You bet he would. Some dullard with a limited vocabulary wrote that he was an icon, which is the sort of pointless filler language used by people who don’t even know what an icon is. Ernest Gaines was not an icon; he was what he would have been in any circumstances in life: a good man.
Professor Ernest J. Gaines, a child of Pointe Coupee Parish and then its patriarch, died last week. We can’t visit with him now, but we still have his books about good and brave people in hard times.
Come to think of it, he kindly signed a copy of A Gathering of Old Men for the students of Kirbyville High School and sent his good wishes to them. I hope it is not reposing in dust on the library shelf, but instead is now well-worn from many readings.
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