RoseWattleWriting

It’s the year 1984. Apple Macintosh computers were introduced, Ghostbusters was released, Hulk
Hogan defeated the Iron Sheik, and in March, JoJo was born. He is the first child of his parents,
and because he was given the same first and middle names as his uncle and Great-grandfather,
they called him JoJo. JoJo was born into a family from Mississippi, and, like most economically
disadvantaged families from the South, they were a very large, religious, close-knit, and, in this
case, led by JoJo’s Grandfather James Earl Kight.
To understand Jojo, you would have to know James Earl Kight. James Earl was a no-nonsense
man from Mississippi who grew up in the Delta as a sharecropper. James Earl would often tell
Jojo stories of when he was a child, his family worked for a cotton farmer, and that they were so
poor that they would have to borrow money from the owner of the land in the winter to make
ends meet and pay it back in the summer by working for the farmer. Or how the first time he had
ever watched television was when he was 21 years old. Years later, James Earl would move his
family to Memphis for better economic opportunities and start a landscaping company, where
Jojo would work on weekends and in the summer, developing a strong work ethic to please his
grandfather. James Earl may have seemed to be a tough, humorless, hardened old man with what
the family called a mean bulldog look upon his face, but there was something about the slight
smirk, teary-eyed look, along with the compliment of “I’m proud of that boy,” that James Earl
would give Jojo after a hard day’s work that absolutely drove something inside of Jojo. There is a
story that James Earl spoke about for years about Jojo. It was a Friday evening with the last cut
of the day being a 5-acre job that James Earl called “the Ponderosa.” As James Earl takes the
riding mower off the trailer, the tire pops. James Earl tells Jojo to just cut what you can with the
push mower, and I’ll be back, trying to get the tire fixed. Given how late it was on a Friday, it
took James Earl several hours to find someone to fix the mower’s tire. When James Earl returned
with the riding mower ready to cut the 5-acre “ponderosa,” it was already mowed. Jojo, knowing
that this act of hard work would please his grandfather, cut a 5-acre property with a push mower.
James Earl was not only pleased with Jojo, but it was something he never ceased to bring up at
James Earl’s family fish fries with a slight smile on his face, with watery eyes, saying, “I’m proud
of that boy.” There was something about his grandfather’s approval of his work ethic that carried
over throughout Jojo’s life. Although it has come in different forms, such as awards or accolades,
the thing that drives Jojo’s work Ethic is the chase for that slight smirk and watery eyes, and
James Earl saying, “I’m proud of that boy.”
Somewhere along the way, many years before Jojo was born, James Earl found religion in the
form of the Pentecostal Church. He worked his way through the ranks of the Pentecostal
organization and became the pastor of a small church in the Frayser neighborhood in Memphis,
Tennessee, on Whitney Ave. It had such a profound effect on Jojo’s life that, after 20 years
without visiting the church, he could still remember the building’s address: 1946 Whitney Ave.
But it wasn’t the building, but rather the people, the relationships, the atmosphere, the fish fries,
the revivals, the singing, and the feeling of being a part of something bigger than oneself that
instilled all of this in Jojo. And it was all centered around James Earl. James Earl was not a man
of wealth and didn’t have much in the way of materialistic things, but he was always happy to
give. He knew what it was like to struggle, and he wanted to give in any way that he could. On
Sundays, James Earl would take Jojo to the church on Whitney Ave, and they would make, as it
seemed to Jojo at the time, hundreds of Bologna sandwiches and Kool-Aid, and take them
downtown to feed the homeless. As Jojo passed out the Bologna sandwiches and invited people
to church, he would look over to his grandfather and get a nod and a slight smirk in James Earl’s
watery eyes, with James Earl saying “I’m Proud of you boy,” which was a sign to Jojo that what
he was doing was something bigger than himself, something that helped people, and it made his
grandfather proud.
After James Earl passed away, most of the things that were centered around him began to fade.
The close-knit family, the fish fries, revivals, and most of the things that made Jojo feel like he
was a part of something bigger than himself. Shortly after the funeral, Jojo joined the military,
serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and later joined the police department. This was Jojo’s own way
of serving his community and doing something greater than himself, the way that James Earl did.
However, amid the landscape of radical politics, Jojo began to question his position and his life.
Would James Earl approve? One day, while in uniform at work, Jojo walks into a restaurant and
sees a familiar face. It’s a man whom James Earl met while handing out Bologna sandwiches in
downtown Memphis. Lee Brown was a homeless man who had a mental illness that prevented
him from doing many “pro-social” things, such as maintaining employment. When James Earl
would try to get Lee off the streets and let him live at the church on Whitney Ave, Lee would
succumb to the things that he had little control over and end up right back on the streets.
Nevertheless, James Earl would always take Lee right back in for many years. Fast forward back
to the familiar face, it’s Lee Brown. Jojo knew him as a child, so Lee didn’t initially remember
him. As Jojo walked up to him in his police officer’s uniform, he said, “Lee Brown.” With a
startled look on his face, Lee says, “Yes, officer. Is there something wrong?” Jojo goes on to tell
Lee about his grandfather, “Brother Kight,” and they begin to enthusiastically reminisce about
the days of old. He wanted to know about how Jojo’s life had turned out, and Jojo told Lee about
his escapades in Europe and the Middle East, as well as his time with the Police Department. At
the end of their talk, as it was time to go, they both got up from the table and gave each other a
hug. Lee Brown shook Jojo’s hand and said, with a slight grin and watery eyes, “Brother Kight
would have been proud of you, and so am I.”