COCONUT JOHNSON

COCONUT JOHNSON
Remembering my friend who still lives even though he passed away several years ago. 
Harry Bissoon 9/25/2025

In the deep stillness and quiet of the early morning, long before the cock crowed, the village came awake! The dark blackness of the night was set ablaze as kerosene lamps flickered and danced in unison as if to defy the brilliance of the sun that would rise beyond the eastern horizon,just across the calm waters of the mighty river. 

The crackle of wooden fires broke the morning silence! It was the beginning of another day in the lives of villagers who prepared for arduous work in the fields of the sugar plantation. 

Pots and pans made joyous sounds as wives hurriedly made meals for husbands and sons, and even for themselves, in a frantic rush for all of them to be on time to catch the plantation lorry which took them from their homes to their tasks in the fields. 

Mr. Johnson was up before anyone else. He would sit in the dark blackness of his porch, looking into the night, ready to join the lorry, as the village came alive.

He lived alone in a one bedroom, converted estate lodgie, for which he paid a  weekly rent to his landlord who had bought large blocks of these lodgies from the sugar plantation. 

COCONUT JOHNSON, as he was fondly called, rarely cooked during the work week but took immense pleasure in watching the flickering fires of the open firesides, anticipating the sumptuous meals being prepared. 

He was, as many referred to him, the village jester and story teller. He  was loved by all. Little children flocked to him on Sundays, when he took immense pleasure in telling forgotten folk tales of his people and the small village in which they lived. 

His fellow workers always took food for him when he worked in the fields. Nonetheless, he took a small saucepan,every day, of his favorite delicacy - grated coconut with brown sugar, which he gladly shared with his work colleagues. 

I miss his deep sense of community commitment and a genuine love for everyone.

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