Background

He was born August 19, 1932, in West Monroe, Louisiana, youngest of the five children of William Godbey Jasper and Grace Ewell Baker Jasper. His older siblings included his brother Roy (1930-2001), Joan (1927-2002), Doris (1922-1986), and Joyce, his only surviving sibling, who will be 85 next month.

His parents grew up in East Texas; Willy was born in Ennis, which is just south of Dallas, but at some point I think the family must have moved to Marshall, or close by, since that's where Grace was from. Willy worked for a variety of newspapers in East Texas before landing at the News-Star and Morning World in Monroe, Louisiana, in 1929. Monroe was undergoing a bit of a boom at the time, being the center of what was then the world's largest natural gas field, but it didn't last.

Paul always told us that his parents never loved him, that he had a bad ear infection as an infant that resulted in a ruptured ear drum and all night crying for days on end. Doris, his sister, who was nearly 10 when Paul was born, told me this theory was all a bunch of piffle, that no father ever loved a baby more than Willy loved Paul.

Still, he was, apparently, a sickly child, and not remotely athletic, unlike his older brother, Roy, who was robust, enthusiastic, and a natural athlete. I never could tell whether he idolized his brother or was insanely jealous of him, probably a combination of both. I do know that he felt like Roy never stuck up for him when he was being bullied by other kids, which he took out on me when he felt like I wasn't sticking up for my (barely) younger brothers. And I know he resented Betty, Roy's wife, who had no time for Paul and who wasn't inclined to share Roy with his kid brother.

Paul told a story of playing croquet with Roy and the other kids one summer day. I don't know who did what exactly but in the crux was that Roy took off running and Paul, crawling through a hedge in hot pursuit, was whacked square in the forehead by a croquet ball Roy had sent tumbling back his way. Paul yelled bloody murder and started chasing Roy with the croquet mallet, only to be grabbed by Willy, dragged into the house, and spanked ("whipped," Paul insisted) thoroughly, with Grace holding him down.

The injustice of it. He was the one with a knot on his forehead the size of a grapefruit, yet he was the one being whipped, and his mother, far from defending him, was helping his ogre father by holding him down.

I think the story summed up his relationship with his family of origin. He perceived himself as unwanted, unloved, and he made up for it by ostentatiously being the black sheep, the beer swilling, cigarette sucking ne'er-do-well youngest son of a couple of strict Southern Methodists.

I'd like to say that in the end he worked through all of that but in fact he never did. He told me once that he drank (to excess, on a regular basis) so that he could "forget," although he never specified exactly what it was he was forgetting. Unfortunately, as is the case so often, it seemed to have the opposite effect; thanks to the alcohol, he was never able to work through it, and as a consequence he was never able to let go.

If I had a time machine...