The Swamp Man & the Icon

Black Guidry is used to celebrities who visit him and commune with the alligators on his “Cajun Man’s Swamp Tour” out of the Bayou Black Marina in Gibson.

Australian crocodile man Steve Erwin was one.

Brad Pitt hasn’t made it yet though Black is hoping one day he will.

But one celebrity guest touched him in an unusual way. Which is why, when he heard that actress Ann B. Davis had died at the age of 88, it was more than a news story.

Ann Davis played Alice, the smart-talking, wisdom-dispensing, unflappable housekeeper on the 1960s classic television show “The Brady Bunch,”

Which ran in prime time from 1969 through 1974. I struggled through my teens in tandem with the oldest Brady kids, three boys and three girls blended into a family when their respective parents married each other.

You know the rest of the story – the Brady dad and his three boys, four men living all alone, and the mom with her three flaxen-haired daughters.

Alice was the buffer between the kids and the parents, and often the buffer when disputes arose between the children themselves.

As a kid, I firmly wished that a grownup as cool as Alice could live in my own household. And I am sure I wasn’t the only one.

The writers of the series created the iconic character. But it was Ann Davis who brought her to life, made her bigger than life, and that’s what made her so great.

“The Brady Bunch” was out of prime time for 33 years when Black headed his 50-foot touring vessel to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to meet an excursion barge full of tourists and give them a first-hand look at western Terrebonne’s natural wonders, a task he cherishes and which he continues with to this day.

The excursion people told Black that Ann Davis would be on the tour. She showed up with her twin sister, and they got on board the boat like everyone else.

Black, ever the entertainer, told his swamp stories and sang “You Are My Sunshine” and Ann and her sister clapped along in time.

It was a warm autumn day and there were still alligators to be seen, and Ann thrilled to the sight along with everyone else on board Black’s boat.

“She loved that,” he said. “She was really excited and she had a really good time. I used to like her on the show. She was one of the more interesting characters.

She had a way about her, flippant but still very nice, a little bit sarcastic but not too sarcastic. “

When celebrities are on board Black doesn’t make a big fuss.

“These people want to enjoy what they are doing, the sight-seeing and the touring,” he explains.

When the tour was over Black delivered his guests, Alice – er, Ann – and his sister included – to the big river barge that had been waiting at the Intracoastal the whole while.

But then something special happened.

Black was told to wait. Alice went onto the barge and a short time later she gifted Black with a $5 bill as a tip, a personal show of appreciation for the good time given.

A lot of people who go on swamp tours don’t tip at all – even though they certainly should – and Black doesn’t expect gratuities although every little bit helps

“The fact that she gave me that $5 bill that means to me that I really did a good job, because people don’t do that,” Black said. “I get a lot of tips but for someone of her stature to go out of her way once she got on the barge, that says something.”

He listened as a television news report re-announced word of the death of Ann Davis, at the close of a particularly busy day.

“I wish I would had kept that bill,” he said.