✍ The Bishop and JFK's Rocking Chair / November 2026
~ Fiction ~
Roman à clef, cher!
Created AI-free
by Leonard Earl Johnson
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
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LEJ's Louisiana
a monthly e-column
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Yours Truly in a Swamp
by Leonard Earl Johnson
© 2026, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved❤
LEJ's
Louisiana
a monthly e-column
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Yours Truly in a Swamp
by Leonard Earl Johnson
© 2026, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved
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Yours Truly in a Swamp
November, 2026
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The Bishop and JFK's Rocking Chair
by
Leonard Earl Johnson
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© 2026, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved
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"Oh, Master, make me chaste and celibate,
but not yet!"
Prayer of Saint Augustine
~ Bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430 ~
The Bishop of Lafayette stood at The Rector's book shelf reading titles: THE BOY BEHIND THE ALTAR, by Balthazar Boudreaux.
"THE Balthazar Boudreaux of JFK Rocking Chair procurement? he asked.
"Yes," said The Rector, "and the reader who stilled the air and stirred the crowd at your Birthday dinner."
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THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE, by Saint Augustine (published 397 ~ 400) sat snugly beside Balthazar's tome. Next to that a first edition, EUROPE ON FIVE DOLLARS A DAY by Arthur Frommer (perennially updated since 1957).
"Don't you ever throw anything out?" The Bishop asked.
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| The Rector's French Biretta |
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| Lavender Fields of Provence |
"Today, you can't park your car for five dollars a day!" The Bishop said, dropping his red silk skull cap on top of The Rector's black biretta.
"You hadn't a clue Boudreaux might sound more like Father Gilbert Gauthe than Saint Augustine, Rector? Damnable!"
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"But forgivable, Excellency," The Rector pleaded, hands folded in supplication.
"Don't we both own the Boudreaux book? I remember you purchasing it at the same time I did, at Sacred Heart's fundraiser."
"That may be," The Bishop said, "But I did not authorize its reading to the flock!"
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The Bishop was visiting the Rectory to discuss the seemingly insoluble problem of how to undo that which has already been done.
"Salacious! Reading about 'The Little Boy from Big Mamou,' " The Bishop went on, "before a gathering of Cloth and faithful!"
"You see, your Excellency," The Rector countered, "Balthazar is a published poet. Besides, he discovered the little JFK Rocking Chair presented to you."
The Bishop smiled at the thought of the porcelain rocking chair's addition to his renowned collection of JFK assassination memorabilia.
The Bishop, then a boy of eleven, was there that day in Dallas. The now Bishop of Lafayette was there because his Parents took him.
The Bishop of Lafayette is The Rector's temporal and spiritual leader. In 1963, his Father and Mother drove him from Basile, Louisiana to Dealey Plaza, Dallas, to see President John F. Kennedy get his brains blown out over the midnight-blue bulkhead of his Lincoln limousine. Of course, the boy never forgot it.
He saved his pennant and lapel pin from that day, and over the years he added to his JFK collection until it grew so large that LIFE Magazine once did a two page photo spread about it.
Years later, 1992, the United States Congress established the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection. Complete with a traveling series of public hearings designed to gather, "Assassination information and physical artifacts".
The hearings came to New Orleans, and set up tent in the Old U. S. Mint, on Esplanade Avenue, in the French Quarter. That was 1995. The now grown and rising Prince of The Church, was asked to put his collection on display and say a few words. He did both gladly.
The little porcelain rocking chair is suggestive of one the President was often photographed rocking, flexing muscles injured in World War The Second.
(Parenthetically speaking, Presidents Papa Bush and Richard Nixon said they were not there in Dallas that day. Later they both admitted they had been.)
"But not for any reason some court in The Hague might think," Nixon told America.
Papa Bush also said something in the way of explanation, but no one was ever able to understand it.
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Stepping through the door, Balthazar Boudreaux said,
"Yes, Bishop, don't we all read Saint Augustine?"
By his side stood Hildegard Bottlebrush holding a bowl of French fried potatoes, four wine glasses, and two bottles of a good Pinot Noir.
They all sat down together at a small library table and passed round the French Fries and individual ramekins of mayonnaise flavored with Tabasco Sauce. Hildegard spoke first, while pouring the wine...
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| Parc Sans Souci, Lafayette / photo credit: Leonard Earl Johnson |
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Copyright, 2026, Leonard Earl Johnson, all rights reserved
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🗣😷 ~ ~ ~ LEJ's Louisiana, Yours Truly in a Swamp is a monthly e-column @ www.LEJ.world, Hosted by GOOGLE BLOGGER, and historically at Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans publication of the It is written by Leonard Earl Johnson of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana Readers comments accepted after publication on the First of the month 🗣😷 © 2026, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved |
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