Donald Gaspard
August 11, 2018
4 Surprising Insights Into Life With Parkinson’s Disease
August 13, 2018
Four National Guardsmen boarded the DC-47 the next morning since the Fort Riley airport was defrosted.
I still had “San Antone Rose” in my head Donald and Jerry were writing letters to their girl-friends who I could tell they already mired very much.
As Donald and I left the plane, we saw and Felt snow for the first time instead of from the window of a DC-47, so we did what came naturally. We started a snowball fight. When our instructor asked why we were wet we answered “we slipped in the snow” (It had not snowed in Lafourche since the 1800’s).
Dorothy, we are in Kansas!
I wont bore with how the school went except to re-cap and let you know we all got certified.
The hardest task for me was to qualify with my rifle but as I did to enter the National Guard I relied on my ten years practice with my Red Ryder B.B. gun and manual, which, was almost like the army one. It worked bath times.
Now, the recap!
Lights out on a strict schedule, smoking regulation without exception.
Book work. Home work. Tape at nine, reveille always as the sun shines
Learn to shoot canons and ride in a tank
Crawl on your belly. Through wire battlement
Corny and jesting, our tale has no glory,
Except that we passed, and that is our story.
(Well you knew you weren’t reading Longfellow)
Finally it was over. Dorothy, we are no longer in Kansas!
We got back home, same DC C-E to Lafayette and Donald had arranged for his future wife to meet us and drive us bock home. The first Monday night back in Thibodaux Captain John Marcello called us in and said; “Congratulations on getting certified Ledet and Mar-cello, here are your 2nd Lt. Bars. You 4 were not picked at random. Turns out 15 others applies for the school hut Ledet and Morello were more qualified and I saw a dedication in Martin and Owens, and although Martin is a jokester sometimes, I detected a leadership quality in him and I was right. You all parsed and did not embarrass me. You two will be commissioned when the next positions open. In the meantime you will be promoted to Sgt. and take charge of your squads, Martin your soft job as Company Clark is war. You will learn to be a soldier. Dismissed”
The first position came over a year later and three monu-mental events happened to me in between which changed my life and which I will detail next week.
Hera is more about my friend Donald Owen Donald passed away with Parkinson’s disease in recent years, a great loss to our community. He and his father. Richard Owen, sr. ran a retail clothing store, and Donald took over when he died. Their store was on the batture in Golden Meadow next to the High School which had to be moved when the G.M. seawall was built Donald relocated and later went into the lumber business. Since his father was called.
“Ba-Gin,” his oldest son Richard Jr. was called “Tee-Bagin” He sold cars with his sister Shirley and Cliff Easerman. Jr. and the Easermans lived next to Tele-mark Cheramie whose daughter Mildred was in my graduation class She was one of the brightest student and became a teacher and later married Easton Pitra Easton became Principal of South Lafourche High School They are still alive and well at this writing and are outstanding citizens of the community.
Genealogy 101 class dismissed! (Sorry, but I drifted away X Just cue mere thing about Donald. On our long air flights he liked to tell jokes about his life in a clothing store One was about one of his customer to whom how was trying to sell a dress to “Donald. I did not like that dress when you tried to sell it to one last year, nor the year before” Embarrassed. Donald told me that from that day forward when a certain clothing season, he would gather: all that season is clothing and sell them to a mass marketer who then resold them to barging clothing stores Next week, two great events in my life BYE NOW!
In this week’s column, Mr. Leroy Mart’s tells of his tales in the military, as well as giving information about his dear friend, Mr. Donald Owen.
