Lafourche votes down renaming library
April 5, 2017
Teens charged after allegedly spraying woman with pepper spray, then stealing her car
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Welcome to a new column about people I have met and events I have encountered during my 47 years in the Lafourche Parish Court House and a lifetime in the music business.
In 1963, I wrote a column for the “Lafourche Parish Press,” called “File Gumbo”, which lasted until the Lafourche Comet bought out the Press, merged it with the Comet, and eliminated my column. Thus, ended my first venture in journalism.
I must have been good because only 50 years later, I was asked to write a column for the “Lafourche Gazette,” a newspaper delivered free to homes and businesses from Central Lafourche to Grand Isle. I called it “In a Small Pond” and Gazette Editor Vicki Chiasson and I estimated it could last a few months, but the readers enjoyed it and it lasted two and a half years, 123 columns total.
Actually, I had another journalistic episode. In 1947, I met Joe Silverberg at the Golden Meadow Youth Center, which was an old Cajun style house next to the Catholic Church, and he asked me to write the “Lower Lafourche News” column. (“Lower” was distasteful; today it’s “South” Lafourche). I got paid by the line, so when I ran out of stuff like “Mr. and Mrs. Frank Boudreaux motored to New Orleans last week to meet Sgt. Frank, Junior,” I wrote stuff like, “many Lower Lafourche bucks was lost on the Louis/Marciano fight”.
Mr. Silverberg called me and said I was “Padding” and he fired me, so technically I was fired twice by Mr. Silverberg. I lost $2.50 per week. We later became friends. I wrote several guest editorials for the Comet in the 1960’s and 70’s.
I retired as Assessor of Lafourche Parish on December 31, 2000 after 16 years in office and 47 years in that office. After a few years, my Wife, Dot, had enough of me afoot, in her way with books and junk stacked throughout the house, so we compromised. (A compromise at my house is – we do it her way, so we built an addition to our house for my “man cave”.)
It was soon filled with hundreds of 78s, 45s, LPs records (remember those), musical and electronic stuff and everything I had accumulated in 47 years in the Assessor’s office. My grandkids forced me to buy a new computer and iPhone, because they were ashamed to admit that their Grandfather was not “online”. I complied, joined the Wi-Fi generation with Facebook, Amazon, Pandora and all the other stuff necessary to join the “Now” generation, but I soon remembered that no matter how many gadgets I acquired, I was still the “Then” generation – way, way back “then”.
One day, I was invited to a meeting at the South Lafourche Library with Mr. Paul Chiquet, Branch Administrator. He wanted to build a glass exhibit to put my political and musical mementoes on display. There were two other exhibits which coincidentally were for my two best friends, Vin Bruce and Dick Guidry. Dick is deceased and Vin remains my only best friend still alive. The board’s original offer was to bring me to a taxidermist and have me stuffed. Thinking that might not be too much fun and possibly painful, I declined and we agreed on just the mementoes.
That same day, Chiasson asked me to write a few columns for the Gazette and that’s how “In a Small Pond” was born. It prevailed for two and a half years.
But now, we’re back!
Next week: How I got in touch with a Cajun boy from Cut Off who is Managing Editor of “The Times”, formerly “The Tri-Parish Times” a subscription paper, but very reasonable at $9.99 per year. It covers Lafourche and Terrebonne news, government and beaucoup sports. He accepted my offer to write a column for them and I named it “Leroy Martin”, a brilliant decision. I’ll tell you how that came about and a little more of my history next week, but now I’ll leave you with my tip of the week. Always remember, you pinch the tail and suck the head, not the other way around. BYE NOW!
