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Acklin Boudreaux just couldn’t stop doing things for others.
Whether he was out on the water as a tugboat captain to provide for his family, taking the time to teach deckhands how to navigate those waters or filling in as handyman when he was onshore, the man they call “Capt. Slab” was always tending to those around him.
Acklin grew up in the Montegut/Bourg area of Terrebonne Parish in the back end of the Baby Boomer years. He had to grow up quicker than most, as tragedy struck in the form of his father, Acklin Sr., dying when Acklin Jr. was only 13 years old. The oldest of eight children, Acklin took the responsibility in helping his mother Prilla lead the household.
A few years down the road, he found himself spending time at the pool halls in Chauvin, where he met Evelina Lirette. Well, he actually met Evelina and one other girl one night. Acklin exchanged numbers with both of them, saying one of them “would be the lucky girl” who received a call from him in the coming week.
Evelina’s phone rang soon enough, and the two teens started dating. Time spent playing pool and going to the drive-in theater became a wish for a lifetime union. Wanting both legal and emotional approval from 15-year-old Evelina’s parents about the union, the newly adult Acklin went to them to get their blessings. He soon found out the list of requirements to marrying Evelina was a small one.
“He went to ask my dad if he could marry me, and he was all nervous. Dad said, ‘If you can feed her, you can keep her,’” Evelina said.
Acklin kept feeding Evelina 42 years, and she stayed with him, all the way up until his death. The marriage resulted in two daughters, Nicole and Tiffany. When he was young, he took up different jobs to make ends meet. He was an auto mechanic for a stretch, and he also spent time trawling.
However, chasing shrimp was not his ultimate calling on the water. Acklin found his love soon enough on tugboats, carrying loads all across the country. He started out as a deckhand, working his way up to captain, the post he had held for the last 35 years. With his passion discovered and a drive to provide for his family, Acklin soon found himself on the water more than at home. Seven on, seven off shifts soon became 14 on, seven off.
“We always knew he was working to make sure we had the best. Obviously, we missed him,” Nicole said.
While his time at home may have been limited, it was not lacking in its own value. While Evelina was the lawgiver of the family and ran the affairs of the household, Acklin provided not just financial security but also levity for the Boudreauxs. His time on land soon became open season for Nicole and Tiffany, with their father playing right next to them.
“Dad, it was kind of funny – to us it was, not to Mom – a lot of times he’d come off the boat, all the rules would go out the window. It was let us do whatever we wanted, however we wanted,” Nicole said. “He would leave on the boat, Mom would have to rein us in again. By the time she finally got the law straight again, he was coming home.”
His time at home wasn’t only about adding headaches to his wife’s ledger, though. He also took them away by dutifully handling Evelina’s honey-do list. After he was done repairing everything around his own home, he would move onto his mother in-law’s list of tasks to knock out. As Nicole and Tiffany got older, the lists got longer, but Acklin was more than happy to oblige.
When he was at his “first home,” as his family called his tugboat, Acklin was no less generous with his time. The longtime captain would teach enterprising deckhands about captaining the boat in the same way he learned when he was young. He was the progenitor of countless captains’ careers and earned the admiration of many he worked with. His co-workers also gave him his nickname, calling him Capt. Slab because the quite large Acklin was “a big slab of meat,” according to Nicole.
Capt. Slab wouldn’t just teach young men the ways of the water, though. Nicole said a man told her that her father once taught him how to cook. Acklin took the young man to the galley and said he would show him how to make a stew, which involves making a roux. In the process, the deckhand burned his onions. Acklin looked at him and said, “We’ll just do it again,” and threw the contents overboard. Again they tried, and again the contents went overboard, according to Nicole. On the third try, the duo finally had a stew they could be proud of.
Online postings show the legacy of love and learning Acklin left on the waters. Kelly Babin thanked his old mentor on the departed captain’s online guestbook for his obituary.
“RIP Capt Slab. I’m going to miss you. You made me what I am today in the towing industry. I’m a feather off your wing. Thank you for all you’ve done for me,” Babin wrote.
In November 2014, Acklin and the Boudreauxs learned they would be facing a daunting challenge in the form of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), an aggressive form of brain cancer. According the American Brain Tumor Association, the median survival length for the disease is about 14.6 months. Nicole said her father’s fighting and upbeat spirit kept him around for 21 months, which she considers a blessing.
She said her father never showed signs of being in pain until the very end of his life, even as he lost some ability to move around. He spent as much time as he could with Elizabeth, Nicole’s daughter, whom Nicole called “his pride and joy.” The two would spend hours playing on the floor together and performing for an audience of themselves on the singing program that hooked up to the television, with “I Love” by Tom T. Hall being a particular crowd pleaser.
However, after almost two years of fighting, Acklin finally succumbed to GBM. The man who wanted the best for everyone left a loving family tree in Terrebonne Parish and an equally impressive tree of tugboat captains on the waterways. Capt. Slab died at the age of 60 on August 18, 2016. •
