27th Edition - October 2012 by Slidell Magazine

Slidell Magazine Halloween party as a true participant, rather than just a people-watcher.

Or, there was the guy who used velcro to stick a few neon-colored curlers in his hair, and wore old bedroom slippers with a bright ﬂoral-print house dress. His costume? His mother!

And the pictures? They’re priceless and capture the memories forever. Trust me, I never thought of my parents as cool until I saw pictures from their Halloweens past when they were my age.

Kendra wins the costume contest in her “Tacky Bowler” outﬁt

Editor’s Letter By Kendra Maness

“Now about those ghosts. I’m sure they’re here and I’m not half so alarmed at meeting up with any of them as I am at having to meet the live nuts I have to see every day.” Bess Truman, First Lady 1945-1953, on the reports of hauntings in the White House.

Hmmmm, let’s see…favorite holidays? Mardi Gras? Good times…bad hangovers. Thanksgiving? Great food…accompanied by great waist expansion.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Who has time to make a costume? And the “Adult” costume section of your local Halloween emporium is rather…errr…ADULT (if you know what I mean). So, in lieu of buying a costume that shows more skin than a piece of deep-fried chicken, use your imagination. Dressing up for Halloween doesn’t have to be hard. You CAN be creative, cost-conscious and time-saving, with very little effort.

I’ve been to many parties where last minute ideas were turned into brilliant Halloween costumes. An all-time favorite of mine was a friend that took a plain white t-shirt, painted a letter “P” on the front, and used eye-liner to draw a large circle around her eye. Get it? Black-eyed pea. How cute!

As we get older and busier, we sometimes stop doing the whimsical things like dressing-up for Halloween. What fun is that? Don’t be such a grown-up! Think about how much more exciting it would be for your kids to create not only their own costumes, but Mom’s and Dad’s too! Or, how much more fun you’ll have when you go to that

Have fun.

magazine PO Box 4147 • Slidell, LA 70459

www.SlidellMag.com • 985-789-0687

Kendra Maness - Editor/Publisher Editor@SlidellMag.com Graphics: Alan Lossett Contributing Writers: Alex Carollo Gay DiGiovanni Nancy Richardson Carol Ruiz Tom Aicklen Dr. Dennis Peyroux The Storyteller, John Case Storyteller@SlidellMag.com Jockularity@SlidellMag.com Jockularity, Corey Hogue Pet Points, Jeff Perret, DVM DrJeff@SlidellMag.com Frankly Slidell, Frank Davis www.FrankDavis.com Mike Rich MikeRich@mypontchartrain.com John N. Felsher www.johnnfelsher.com

magazine

Valentine’s Day? Well, I’m single so you can guess the answer to that.

I dress up EVERY Halloween. It’s tradition. Whether it’s going to a costume party or simply visiting my nephew before he goes trick-ortreating, I want to be part of the Halloween spirit (what a great pun!).

DON’T ACT YOUR AGE.

Last October, Saturday night, 6pm. One hour until the SMH Foundation’s Mystic Masquerade Ball. NO COSTUME. Taking a quick glance about the house, I did my best Carol Burnett/ Scarlett O’Hara imitation, and eyed the sheer panel curtains hanging in the livingroom. Twenty minutes later, I was swathed in the ﬂowing cascades of fabric, safety-pinned into an elegant robe. I added the curtain tie-back (a gold rope with tassels) as a belt and – voila! I was a goddess!

Christmas? Okay…I really, really love Christmas.

Halloween? Yep! That’s it! Halloween is my favorite holiday! You get all the candy of Easter (actually lots more), all the masquerades of Mardi Gras (and usually the beverages that accompany it), and best of all, you know that Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner!

Your family may have their own trick-or-treat traditions or you may be looking to start new ones. Whatever the case, here’s my advice this Halloween - Be goofy. Make people laugh.

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Extraordinarily Facinating “Ordinary” Person of the Month by Nancy Richardson

oseph and Mary Porter were both born in Slidell, LA, in the area known then as The Village. They were married Jan. 23, 1946, reared 3 fine children and would have celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary on January 23, 2011. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg! What a privilege it was to get to be able to capture some of the memories of this incredibly accomplished and positive entrepreneur, innovator and trail blazer. Mary Porter, now 87 years old, was not only the first Black bank teller at Slidell’s only bank in the 1960’s, but also helped bring an end to the racial inequalities that plagued the African-American community in Slidell. We hope that readers will enjoy and learn something about Slidell that they didn’t know before. Mary has lived her whole life in Slidell, except for a couple of years after her mother died when she lived with family in New Orleans. Her first years in school were spent in a one room school house that was located where Hartzell Mt. Zion Methodist Church is now. Her school years lasted through the ‘30’s and early ‘40’s. From her home in The Village to her school was just a dirt path. As Slidell grew from a sleepy little village to the large city it is today, Mary grew into a woman who shared her abundant gifts and talents with others around her, both Black and White. For someone who could have found many reasons to resent Whites, Mary tells only fond memories of her experiences with the Slidell community. She graduated with honors from the only Black high school in the Parish in 1946, just after the war ended. That one school, then called St. Tammany Parish Training School,

Mary Porter October 2012

was located where St. Tammany Jr. High school is today. Mary remembers, “The kids from The Village had a bus to take them to school. Others from as far away as North Slidell (Alton), Lacombe and Pearl River had to walk.” Her friend, Tommie Smith, who walked from a long distance, felt that since the children from The Village were of mixed race (Indian and White), they were given a school bus. “People back then didn’t have many cars. They rode horseback or horse and buggy to get around,” recalls Mary. For Blacks, it took extra special efforts and dedication to graduate high school in those early years. Many wonderful experiences came to someone with such a positive attitude. “My high school principal, Mr. Brooks, for whom the Robert C. Brooks, Jr. Educational Complex on Sgt. Alfred is named, asked my friend Caroline Gordon and me to go up to Pearl River to teach at a white elementary school for 3 months during my senior year. That was quite an experience. We’d heard

Mary with her staff at the business she and her husband started, Porter’s Delicatessen

stories about how things were in Pearl River and were concerned, but we found the people there were just as nice as could be!” Mary exudes. After that, Mary and Caroline came back to ﬁnish high school with Mary graduating with honors. “When I graduated, people gave me gifts of $1 and even one gift of $5 to help me pay for college, so I went to Grambling University up in North Louisiana for the summer.” One of her professors at Grambling also recognized the special gifts that Mary possessed and asked her to teach her college classes for a couple of days. Mary laughs loudly when she thinks that she actually taught at the college level! “But I couldn’t afford to go any longer than that one summer, so I came back to Slidell.” Back then, if you went to college one summer you could teach school, she remembers. After that, she took some business courses, which came in very handy when her husband and she started their business ventures. “It sure does pay to be smart!” laughs Mary Porter. Waxing philosophical, Mary remembers that Mr. Brooks helped to raise a lot of kids in Slidell. Her principal and mentor died at 102 years of age just a couple of years ago. “He cared about us kids. At a school dance, he would walk around outside with a ﬂashlight and make kids go back inside. He had a nice paddle board which he wasn’t afraid to use. He raised kids strictly, but with love. We can thank Mr. Brooks for a lot of good folks we have here,” says Mary. Having known each other since childhood, Mary and Joseph Porter were married when they were each 20 years old. That marriage lasted 64 years until Joe died in 2010. Mary misses him dearly and emotes, “They just don’t make men like my Joe

anymore! In those days, when things didn’t go your way, you didn’t go running home, you worked it out.” Mary credits good communication and love as the best ingredients for sustaining a marriage. “Joe was a really GOOD man and everyone loved him.” Hard working and committed to family, Joe worked at several places like Chrysler Corporation, Lockheed Martin, and Southern Shipyard. At each of those places, he established himself as someone to be trusted and was therefore able to ﬁnd jobs for many other Black men. “Times were different back then. A lot of men didn’t have jobs. Neighbors shared and took care of each other - Black and White, it didn’t much matter.” But life was going pretty well for the hard working Porters. They opened a little store called Porter’s Delicatessen near the Black high school and sold short order food, sandwiches, ice cream, and soft drinks. They also owned a piece of land in The Village where they operated a lounge. They rented out the picnic area to churches and groups from the surrounding area for the weekend. They also had music and bands and fun. You can still see the picnic area on the northeast side of the new Fremaux interchange. The little blue building that still stands is where the lounge was. “There were a lot more trees then – so nice,” Mary says. The Porter family sold some of that land for a burrow pit to build the interstate.

Mary along with fellow members of the Silhouettes Social and Civic Club After putting in a full day at his regular job, Joe would work evenings and weekends at the lounge there in The Village. He and Mary would take turns working there until 10pm or so on weeknights and stay open till all hours on weekends. Mary says, “As I poured another beer, I kept thinking that I’d sure rather be at home right then!” But it was the family business and security for their future, so she took her turn. Never shying away from an opportunity to learn something new and have new adventures, they also owned and operated a Dairy Queen. Meanwhile, Mary did a little radio program at WBGS (which stood for Bill Garrett Slidell, of course). “I interviewed new pastors, new teachers, returning military men, and announced birthdays and anniversaries. I even did commercials for Haas’s Five and Ten Cent Store.” At ﬁrst the program ran for 15 minutes, then went to half an hour, and ﬁnally, with demand so high, it went for a full hour on Sunday mornings. “They told me that I got more mail than anyone else at the station!” laughs Mary. “I did that for about 3 years in the 1960’s,” says the delightful Ms. Porter.

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One day, seeking a new venture, Mary went to see if she could get a job at the only bank in Slidell, The Bank of Slidell (later First Bank and then Chase) located near where the Slidell Police Station is currently. She was told that the all-White bank was not hiring. She greeted the bank teller, an acquaintance of hers, Betty Dossett, and left quietly. Betty’s grandmother, Mrs. McDaniels, owned a clothing store where Mary’s mother had worked, so Betty knew Mary Porter. The bank’s owner, Mr. Eddings, thought it was time to integrate his bank (remember, this was in the 1960’s) and had been looking for just the right person to hire. After interviewing Mary Porter, they all agreed that Mary fit the bill perfectly. Telling Mary that she had a job at their bank, they asked if she could start the next day. Mary told them that she would be delighted but, she said, “I had to make arrangements for the Dairy Queen which we still owned.” She started her new career in 1970 and, over her 15 year tenure, she worked her way up to being the first Black teller in Slidell. It was a sweet and fruitful venture for both the bank, the Porters, and Slidell. Betty Dossett recalls, “Mary was one of the finest Christian workers we ever had. She got along well with everyone.” While working at the bank, Mary was able to make connections for Joe to work at

SE BROW & SHOP

the new Lockheed Martin plant after the Chrysler plant closed down. “Those folks at the bank - Niki Jenkins, Larry Breland, Jewell Cunningham, Adrian Innerarity, Jeanette Ladner and many more - didn’t treat me any different than anybody else.” She retired from the bank to care for her grandchild so that her daughter, Janine, could go back to work at Stone Pigman in New Orleans, where she worked for over 35 years. To help ameliorate the financial difficulties that deserving Black students had in getting an education, Mary helped organize the Silhouette Social and Civic Club in 1956, the purpose of which was to help graduating seniors who were entering college. Members raised funds to support this worthy endeavor for 55 years, finally disbanding in 2010, seeing less need now than there had been in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s.

health issue; namely TIA’s (mini strokes), which have affected her memory, making it difﬁcult to think of the words she wants to say. And, of course, she misses her lifelong companion - her beloved Joe - so very much! Still, Mary is happy to talk about her life and accomplishments, and is quite proud of the contributions that she and Joe have made to the quality of life in Slidell, speciﬁcally to the betterment of Slidell’s Black community. As well she should be!

The Porter family is like a great gumbo -Creoles and Whites and Blacks all mixed and blended together. “All three of my children married very good people with good jobs, with no divorces,” Mary justly boasts. Her family takes good care of her now. And the delight of her life seems to be her adorable great-grandson, Aayden. As Mary Porter enters the ﬁnal years of her trail-blazing life, she suffers from some

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In honor of Halloween, and with apologies to Mr. Poe, I’d like to present this month the following poem I found in BARK Magazine. Before anyone fires off an angry e-mail, let me state for the record that this poem is offered with tongue planted firmly in cheek, and I firmly denounce the anesthetic and surgical methods described herein. And so, with the disclaimers out of the way, please enjoy.

By Edgar Allan Pug (aka Jessica Swaim).

So intent was he on snipping precious parts not meant for clipping, That he scarcely heard me yipping, yipping as my ﬂesh he tore.

Once upon a table shiny, while I trembled, meek and whiny, Under a dizzying dose of chloroform too pungent to ignore,

Written there, upon his pocket, in red thread that seemed to mock it, Such a name upon his smock— it shocked me to my very core.

While I slobbered, half-sedated, certain something grim awaited, Sure enough, the vet I hated paraded in and closed the door.

Shocked was I, and stirred and shaken, shocked and shaken to my core, Not to mention, very sore.

“Booster shot,” I ruminated. “That is what this visit’s for. Just a shot, and nothing more.”

When at last the nightmare ended, gradually my stitches mended, Due to tender care extended by the owner I adore.

While I let my thoughts thus wander, Doc examined me down yonder, Leaving me not one bit fonder of the guy than theretofore.

Nonetheless, I felt quite bitter, for no stud was ever ﬁtter, And I’d only sired one litter, With a chocolate Labrador,

Long he eyed me, clearly scheming, scalpel lifted, cruelly gleaming, All the while, his face was beaming, dreaming of his evil chore.

Six puppies with a Labrador her human family called S’more, Who birthed them on a hardwood ﬂoor.

What, I wondered, had he meant when, just before he’d closed the door, He’d whispered to me, “Nevermore.”

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Rest assured I’ve not forgotten him who did the deed most rotten, Leaving me with balls of cotton, at the fertile age of four, A fate that I could not ignore when, at the fertile age of four, My love life ended evermore. Though fur grew back that once was shaven, On my rear is still engraven, On my tender groin engraven, In that spot erstwhile so sore, Words that cause my loins to quiver, heart to break, and spine to shiver, Loud and long, I cried a river o’er that deed I yet deplore, Words etched by the carving maven, craven surgeon I abhor: “Neutered by Yul Suffermore.”

Now that I am ten years older— hard of hearing, stiff of shoulder— Memories grow ever colder of my youthful days of yore.

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Krewe of Selene Poker Run • The Dock

Slidell Newcomer’s FREE Craft Show Harbor Center

Saints vs Chargers Home • 7:20pm

Saints @ Buccaneers AWAY • Noon

Saints @ Broncos AWAY • 7:20pm

Olde Towne Street Fair

MON

Ambassador Meeting NOLA Southern Grill Noon

Education Committee Chamber Boardroom 8:30am

Restaurant Roundtable Chamber Boardroom 8:30am

Halloween Storytime Ages: 0-5 WEAR YOUR COSTUMES! Slidell Library 10:30am

Associated Wholesale Grocers Job Fair Harbor Center 8:30am-6pm

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For More Info:

Bayou Jam Vince Vance & The Valiants 5:30-7:30

“Pippin” Slidell Little Theatre • 2pm

Bayou Jam Mike “Soulman” Baptiste 5:30-7:30pm

Saints at Green Bay AWAY • 3:25pm

Bayou Jam Redline • Heritage Park 5:30-7:30pm Home & Garden Show Castine Center

SUN

Storytime Slidell Library Ages 2-3: 9:30am Ages 3-5: 10:30am

Technology Committee Chamber Boardroom 8:30am

Grand Re-Opening Reine Diamonds 3-5pm

Seniors Day

TechSmart Harbor Center 8am-4:30pm

St Tammany Parish Fair October 3-7 Parish Fairgrounds, Covington

Cole Bros. Circus Harbor Center

Small Business Council Chamber Boardroom 8:30am

Halloween

Chamber Luncheon US Congressman Steve Scalise Pinewood Country Club 11:30am • Resv Req’d

Athena Award & Luncheon Harbor Center 11:30am Resv.Req’d

WORK$Pays Job Fair Slidell Municipal Auditorium 10am-1pm Storytime 10 Slidell Library Ages 2-3: 9:30am Ages 3-5: 10:30am

WED Family Storytime Slidell Library 6:30pm

Chamber Golf Classic Oak Harbor Golf Course Registration 11am Tee time 12:30

The Accidental Artist Opening Reception City of Slidell Art Gallery 7-9pm Show runs until 11/30

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Save Your Family Treasures Preservation Advice Slidell Library 10am-2pm

Pearl River Roller Derby Harbor Center • 6:30pm

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Family Storytime Slidell Library 6:30pm Cole Bros. Circus Harbor Center

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ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW • MIDNIGHT

Camellia City Farmer’s Market Every Saturday Olde Towne

ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW • MIDNIGHT

“Pippin” “Pippin” Slidell Little Theatre • 8pm Slidell Little Theatre • 8pm

“Sylvia’s Spooktacular” “Sylvia’s Spooktacular” Cutting Edge Theater • 8pm Cutting Edge Theater • 8pm

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Olde Towne Street Fair

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“Pippin” Slidell Little Theatre • 8pm

Keep Slidell Beautiful 20 Golf Tournament Pinewood Country Club • 11am

“Pippin” Slidell Little Theatre • 8pm

Don’t Miss It! Ronnie Kole’s Louisiana Music Hall of Fame Induction Sunday, November 4 • 1:30-3:30 Slidell Municipal Auditorium Tickets & Info: www.LMHOF.org

NOVEMBER

Rumble On The Gulf

Business After Hours Lowry-Dunham, Case & Vivien 5-7pm

Business After Hours NOLA Southern Grill • 5-7pm

Dine & Discover Workshop “Long Term Care” Chamber Boardroom • 11:30am

Job Fair 12 Public Policy Committee 13 Slidell Newcomer’s FREE Craft Show The Castine Center Chamber Boardroom Harbor Center 10am-2pm 8:30am HT Redfish Tournament HT Redfish Tournament HT Redfish Tournament The Dock, Slidell • 12noon The Dock, Slidell • 12noon The Dock, Slidell • 12noon

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11:30am - 1pm

Harbor Center, Slidell

Wednesday, October 5, 2012

$35 per person $29 Chamber members Register Early ! www.estchamber.com

Athena Awards Luncheon

SMH Women’s Health Alliance Health Fair 10am

Seniors Day

“Louisiana Golfer’s Paradise” Author RT Tulley Slidell Library 6-7:30pm

Bras for a Cause Northshore Harbor Center 6-9pm

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O C T O B E R

Looking For History

If you have read some of my stories, you know that the idea for that story was often born from a cemetery or the grave therein. Why? Because a cemetery is where the history is. No doubt other stories will originate there.

The story you are about to read was inspired by visits to a cemetery in the rear of a rural church I attended as a child. As you will see, each grave that I describe has some unique story behind it; a story that has long outlived that person buried beneath. No doubt there are interesting stories that could be told about any of these graves; but many have never been told and the lives of the deceased have all but been forgotten.

When we travel, especially to old communities in New England, we always visit the oldest cemeteries we can ﬁnd. There is something about the way people take care of these sacred places that says something about the community.

The Tour I go in the fall and spring. Summers are too hot and winters are too cold. I have been attracted to these grounds of repose all my life. Daddy once said, “Son, you will get there soon enough so why spend so much time there?”

Willie Sutton was a famous bank robber back in the gangster days. He was once asked why he robbed banks. His philosophical answer “That’s where the money is”.

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I never imagine myself there, dead, beneath the ground, but in my mind I do see myself strolling along the sloping terrain and reading the tombstones. I see it in my mind in the summers and winters, and then in the fall or spring I will visit in person. It is an annual pilgrimage for me. I have a favorite cemetery where some of the people rest that I never knew, but some I did, and some are familiar to me because of the stories that have been handed down. In many cases, these are the most interesting because it allows for the imagination to polish the story and make it more interesting in the present than it was in reality. Or maybe not so.

The people I knew, whose remains deteriorate (or have long ago deteriorated) in the box just below, I am cognizant of something about them and they are a chapter in my life. To me, a cemetery is like the table of contents in the front of a long book. Each grave represents a chapter, a time in my life, a memory of someone or a memory of a story about someone. It is a memory on which my mind reﬂects. It represents a time and place. Then, I move to the next grave or the next chapter. Some of the graves, as chapters in a book, have little meaning or worth. They are just taking up space, worthless space, but I assume (just as the writer of their epitaph intended) they had some value to someone for some reason. Some that are buried there are my relatives and died many years before I was born. I have heard their stories so much that I confuse myself as to what is probably true and what is embellished. I learned a long time ago that people usually don’t speak badly of the dead; so what I know is most likely the good half, or maybe the good tenth, of their life. My walk is methodical but not chronological. Even though I usually start in the older section, there are recently dated tombs there - as if in death, families still try to stay together. There the stones are larger. And since I never knew these people, my mind conjures ideas of their life based on the size or elaborateness of the stone, the inscription, and how well the site is taken care of. The inscription, unless unusual, means nothing. It is placed there by the survivors and is, in my opinion, for the survivor’s benefit. I give extra thought to those monuments, pieces of art, that were once so beautiful, but are now uncared for. How could this happen? This person’s family must have been prominent and wealthy. Most likely, the family moved from the community and there are no longer any relatives who care, or even know, about its existence. There could be other reasons - disagreements over wills, or other family disagreements. The grave seems to be neglected as punishment for this happening. The oldest grave is in the upper left corner of the cemetery (that would be the southwest side) and is surrounded by the greatest number of cedar trees. It is the grave of Earl Shivers, who died in 1868. The inscription reads, “Killed by Carpet Baggers.” As the story goes, Mr. Shivers came from a wealthy family but he was the least prosperous and the least ambitious of the three brothers. The family had holdings that the Carpet Baggers wanted to control and this was the source of a lot of contention between the two factions. Finally his brothers, sickened by the direction of the new South, decided to move to Brazil and start a new life in a new country. Earl quickly squandered the property and even burned some of the buildings to keep it out of the hands of the Carpet Baggers. Presumably, for this he was killed. 13

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Take Great Grandpa Jim for instance. He is the one with the obelisk statue under the single cedar tree. His inscription reads, “A Man Of Peace.” The truth was the only peaceful thing he did was refuse to join the Confederate Army (or the Union Army for that matter). He hid in the woods for the duration of the war. After the war, he was constantly harassed by the White Knights for being a deserter of the Confederate Cause. Several of his hecklers met strange accidental deaths, but his inscription had long been in place before his children revealed that he was the source of the mishaps. Then there is Ezekiel Atwood. He died in 1899. His inscription simply says, “He Died.” There is evidence that at some time there was more to the inscription, but it had long ago been crudely gouged out of the marble. It is my understanding that he was killed by his brotherin-law, when he was found with his brother-in-law’s wife, his wife’s sister, in a non-Christian situation. In revenge, his wife had the stone inscribed, “He Died While Fornicating.” I have reason to believe this is not a true story. Marvin Brister has a simple concrete cross with just his name. I know that he died in an explosion of a steam engine at McCaffrey’s cotton gin in Bogue Chitto. The explosion left him burned and pinned under a heavy piece of steel machinery. Attempts were made to free his pinned leg but they were unsuccessful. As the spilling scalding water boiled the skin on his body, he begged for someone to kill him. Several men pulled their pistols but none had the courage to pull the trigger. Finally, the doctor arrived and amputated his leg with a bucksaw. He was dead before the surgery was complete. The first grave to the right as you enter the road that divides the cemetery into two parts is a site that is referred to as “the grave of the unknown hat salesman”. There is no marker at all. This unfortunate was killed in a one-car auto accident just a few hundred yards from where he is buried. The accident happened on what was then called the Jefferson Davis Highway, but is now know as Old Highway 51. It was in the early 1920’s, and he was buried before he could be identified. After about a year, it was verified that he was a Stetson hat salesman from Texas. His family

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came to visit the grave at some point in time and his name became known. But a stone was never placed, and his name faded from memory as those that recalled it were buried in his proximity. Over in the very corner, the north upper corner, there is the grave of Private Joel Williams. Joe was killed in Vietnam in 1970, but his body was not recovered. His mother, already a widow, held to the belief that his body would be returned, so she had a grave dug and had a concrete vault constructed inside. It was covered with wooden planks. But occasionally the planks were removed and it was filled with water to be used as a crude baptistery for the church located just across the small creek. Most of the time however, it stayed empty for years awaiting a body that would not arrive in her lifetime. After some years she died. It had been her family’s practice to pour a concrete slab over each of their graves. It was decided that while pouring hers, and the fact that Joe’s body would probably never be found, to pour a slab over his also. The church now had an indoor baptistery. In 1993, the Vietnamese government gave a box of remains to the United States Government. The remains were sent to Hawaii and identiﬁed as Joel Williams. In 1995, the concrete slab was chipped away and the few bits of remains from one of the county’s few heroes were laid to rest. The concrete was repoured.

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I always conclude my tour by a visit to the graves of my grandparents. There is nothing unusual about their markers but something is unusual about where they are buried. At ﬁrst they were buried in a different cemetery, but years later, their remains were moved to be near their relatives. As I said, “Even in death, families still try to stay together.”

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"Live Slow"

Joe is a great friend of mine. He retired from a good job, took another one part-time, and works as much as he likes. He’s active in a prison ministry, grows a huge vegetable garden, and takes care of his mother-in-law. Joe goes on lots of vacations, spends time with his grandchildren, and looks out for his friends. Despite his busy life, he

by Mike Rich

wears a baseball cap that says “Live Slow”, which pretty much sums up his approach to life: stay active, be involved with people, and serve others…but slow down enough to enjoy it all. Joe doesn’t know this (until he reads my article), but his lifestyle can teach us a lot about how to build ﬁnancial security. Consider the following “live slow”

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Retirement Planning • 401(k) Planning • 403 (b) Planning • Estate Planning • College Savings Plans Proﬁt Sharing Plans • Advisory Accounts • Brokerage Accounts • Traditional IRA • Roth IRA • SEP IRA Simple IRA • Annuities • Disability Insurance • Life Insurance • Long Term Care Insurance Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a registered investment advisor, member FINRA/SIPC.

money ideas from Joe and those of us here at Pontchartrain Investment Management: 1. Invest for the long haul. If you start early, the greatest gift you have as an investor is time. It’s not fast and it’s not magic, it’s just math. Think about this: a 25-year old who invests $300 a month at an average 6% rate of return can amass about $600,000 in 40 years. That’s real money, and $500 a month makes her a millionaire. It doesn’t happen overnight, you have to be consistent, and it helps a lot if you have an advisor to help you manage risk. No matter the amount of money you have to work with, practically anyone can use this strategy, and the best time to start is today.1 2. Protect what you already have. Most insurance strategies are designed to work in the slow and steady way: you pay a little over a long period of time for the privilege of having a big pot of money to protect yourself and your assets. And, in some cases, you can even protect assets while you build them. For example, whole life insurance not only provides a death beneﬁt, it builds cash value to boot, and you don’t have to die to get to it. The beauty of this strategy is that, once the interest and dividends2 on your cash value are credited to your policy, they’re yours, and you can access the money in several ways for any number of needs, including extra income in retirement. 3. Start a plan for building a pension for your later years. Ask yourself this question: “When I’m no longer working, will my basic living expenses be covered completely by guaranteed

income?” If the answer is “no”, listen up. Given the miserable prospects for the health of Social Security, our guess is that most of us are going to need a reliable source of guaranteed cash flow to supplement or replace the government’s program. “Reliable source” means money that never runs out for as long as you live. If you don’t have an employer pension (and many of us don’t), build one for yourself by using an annuity. If you don’t have a lump sum to get started up front, fund your pension over time by making regular contributions. This strategy can work really well if you give it some time. If you do, we think you’ll enjoy getting a check in the mail every month during retirement for as long as you live.3 Just a thought. 4. Spend some of your money on fun things and the people who are important to you. For the past several summers, my family has taken a vacation on the Florida Gulf coast. For one week in June, we turn off the cell phones, unplug e-mail, and forget about work, school, and doing the yard. But, as sick as it might sound, I start getting nervous a couple of weeks before the trip. After all, how will the world function without me? What if a client calls? What if the stock market goes nuts and I’m not in my office? What if, what if, what if? And, what about the ton of money we’re spending on the condo, food, frozen margaritas, banana boat rides, and tacky tourist souvenirs? Well, Live Slow Joe finally convinced me that I’m not the General Manager of the Universe, my partners can handle my clients while I’m out, and spending a few bucks on a vacation won’t ruin my retirement. And, I’ll admit, listening to the squeals of delight from my grandchildren as they play in that sugar-white sand is the stuff of memories. Yes, there is something good about living slow every now and then. If you want to get rich quick, Andy, Chris, Lee, Steve, and I are not in that business. But, if you want to work on a financial plan that plays out slow and steady, we’d love to visit with you, so call for a complimentary appointment.

Tell ‘em Live Slow Joe sent you.

Pontchartrain Investment Management 2242 Carey Street Slidell, LA 70458 985-605-5064 Securities and Advisory Services offered through LPL Financial, a Registered Investment Advisor, Member FINRA/SIPC This is a hypothetical example and is not representative of any speciﬁc situation. Your results will vary. The hypothetical rates of return used do not reﬂect the deduction of fees and charges inherent to investing. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal.

Dividends, if any, are not guaranteed.

Annuities are long-term investment vehicles designed for retirement purposes. Gains from tax-deferred investments are taxable as ordinary income upon withdrawal. Guarantees are based on the claims paying ability of the issuing company. Withdrawals made prior to age 59 ½ are subject to a 10% IRS penalty tax and surrender charges may apply. Riders are additional guarantee options that are available to an annuity or life insurance contract holder. While some riders are part of an existing contract, many others may carry additional fees, charges and restrictions, and the policy holder should review their contract carefully before purchasing.

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide speciﬁc advice or recommendations for any individual

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Frankly By Frank Davis

Pumpkin Patches, Jack-O-Lanterns, Ghosts, and Haunted Houses All my life as a city boy, I was always under the impression that pumpkin patches—we always called ‘em “punkins”—were found amidst vast tracts of farmland on the country outskirts of rural towns. I can also remember growing up, even way back in the neighborhood on the poor side of town, where every shanty had either a beautifully (or grotesquely) carved jack-o-lantern that was positioned on the wooden steps in front of the house. Another thing - it wasn’t until much later in my youth did I come to realize that some folks actually believed and admitted to seeing ghosts - other than “Casper.” And there really were places in our neighborhood where each of us kids had convinced every other kid on the block that a certain house down the street was truly and actively haunted! Today, though, if I look over the “haunted list” posted on the Internet, a number of the alleged places are (and always were!) restaurants that once served (and still do) the best oyster poboys, red beans and rice, and barbecued shrimp even constructed! That in itself was enough for me to delete those spots off my haunted list! But let me digress and start with the legendary “pumpkin patches.” Unless we city boys had the opportunity to take a school sponsored ﬁeld trip to a nearby farm where the farmer grew gobs and gobs of pumpkins in his ﬁelds, most of our token Halloween props came from the only pumpkin patches we ever knew—the front lawns of churches, entrances to grocery stores, back lots at the farmers’ markets,

“neutral ground space” leased by the Rotary, Lions, or Jaycee clubs where their members staged their weekend club fundraisers. Later in life, though, when we made family road trips that took us past vast countryside fields of orange orbs scattered about did we blurt out. . .”Whoa! What are those?” We immediately learned that the pumpkins we were accustomed to seeing at the churches, grocery stores, back lots, and neutral ground fundraisers actually had their origin in an out-of-the-way, little, Podunk, country town somewhere between Slidell and, say, Ville Platte or Bunkie. That was our pumpkin reality check! But wait a minute. Pumpkin origination was not the name of the game at that time. We, as kids, just wanted to stop wherever piles of pumpkins were stacked so that we could score a real jack-o-lantern for Halloween. Pumpkin origination would come later in science class in fifth grade. The only thing of importance to us was that we hurry and get our pumpkin home so that good ol’ Uncle Louie could carve out a scary face for us. By the way, once we did move up to fifth grade, we learned conclusively for the first time that some pumpkins (the big round ones) are the traditional jack-o-lantern pumpkins, and other pumpkins (the little guys) are pie pumpkins. Actually, we learned that ALL pumpkins were edible, but unlike the stringy jack-o-lantern kinds, it was the small, creamy, pie pumpkins that produced the ideal ingredient for pumpkin pies, pumpkin soup, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin chili, pumpkin lasagna, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin flan, pumpkin cake, pumpkin scones, and over 500 more pumpkinbased taste-treats. But don’t take my word for it—those actual recipes are listed on Google. At this point, let me move onto another significant icon of Halloween—ghosts!

I can only give you a secondhand accounting of their existence because personally, I’ve never ever seen one! I’ve seen UFO’s over Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. . .but I’ve never seen ghosts. But let’s visit the obvious and familiar: - You got your infamous Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow; - You got whatever those things were that popped out of the noise pattern on the TV in the Poltergeist movie; - You got those supposed occupants that had the lead roles in “The Amityville Horror”; - You got “Beetlejuice”…I think everyone considered him to be a ghost; And—of course—you got my all-time favorite, “Casper, the Friendly Ghost. “ You’ll notice that I’m gingerly sidestepping the presence of legitimate ghosts in Slidell, even though I’ve been told that they are here—in numbers! I actually do have a local listing of over 30 habitations that I received from a couple of supposedly authoritative sources. But. . .Since they include a few popular restaurants, a couple of old theatres, some recognizable but abandoned buildings, and one or two hotels, plus many, many private homes, I’ve opted (since none of them can be indisputably conﬁrmed or documented) not to mention them in this story for fear of a visit and subpoena from my old friend Morris Bart. Of course, if somehow you feel that you really need to get closer in touch with the Netherworld, you can plan a trip to Slidell’s “Warehouse of Terror” on Howze Beach Road—that’s the same place, I believe, that sells ﬁreworks during the Fourth of July and New Years Eve and pianos the rest of the year. I haven’t been inside during haunting time but friends did attest that the place can scare the bejesus out of you.

And if you want to get more “true to life” and a whole lot more realistic, word on the street is that just across the lake from Slidell you got “The Mortuary.” When I was growing up in New Orleans, I remember it being a former funeral parlor and crematorium— Schoen’s, I think—that truly, truly became haunted after it shut down! If you decide to make a visit there, drop me an email and let me know what you think of it - cuz you’ll never ﬁnd me in there! So here’s my autumn suggestion: Come Halloween, round up the kids and take them to a pumpkin patch, buy them a jack-o-lantern, carve out a ghoulish face on it, have Momma or Grandma make a taste-tempting “punkin pie,” turn off all the lights in the house, and tell a couple of ghost stories, convincing them that sometime between dusk and dawn something is really going to go bump in the night, and. . .

Have A Happy Halloween! Frank’s Buttered Pumpkin Casserole with Slivered Almonds 1 (2 pound) pumpkin, young and blemish free 1 large yellow onion, ﬁnely chopped 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted 1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper 2 whole eggs 3/4 cup whole milk 3/4 cup ricotta cheese 3/4 cup roasted sliced almond

First, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Then coat a large baking pan with vegetable oil or spray it with Pam. At this point, cut the pumpkin in half and remove the membrane and seeds. Then create a number of 1/4 inch thick slices, which you peel and place into a large bowl. This is when you toss the pumpkin meat with the chopped onion and the melted butter. Then season the meat with salt and white pepper. All you do now is arrange the pumpkin elegantly in a prepared baking dish. The only thing left to do is bake the dish in the preheated oven, initially for 30 minutes. Then in a roomy mixing bowl, beat the eggs with the milk and the cheese, evenly pour the mixture over the pumpkin, scatter on the sliced almonds, and continue baking for 20 minutes more, or until the casserole comes out golden brown. ENJOY!

acombe

Lacombe has an indeﬁnable quality. There is a mystical, almost spiritual aura that permeates this lovely area that makes it special. Lacombe is a remarkable place; truly remarkable. Those who know it need no one to explain it. It is a felt presence. Lacombe is extraordinary in many and various ways. This one-ofa-kind place in Louisiana is special and irreplaceable. It is the enchanted land across the lake.

To some, it is hallowed ground; the place where their ancestors lived—those who would not be moved, their bones are buried here; their spirits still trod the fields and forests, the bays and bayous; we are influenced by their words and deeds; their ideas and vision linger on and sustain us; we walk in their footsteps. It is truly our legacy. I feel, along with many, and with much justification, that Lacombe is a sacred place. Indeed it may be sacred to the Choctaw people from all over the Gulf South for Lacombe is where the Choctaw Renaissance began. Lacombe is the heart of St. Tammany, the only Louisiana parish named to honor the venerated Amerindian, the noble Tamanend, patron saint of the American Revolution. Our part of the northshore is where Louisiana began in 1699, when Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville and four Canadian coureurs de bois, were our first tourists to spend the night of March 28 on Goose Point in Lake Pontchartrain near the mouth of Bayou Lacombe. Louisiana’s first colony began in 1705, when Governor Bienville sent French and Acolapissa families to establish a trading outpost on Bayou Castigne to supply resources to Nouvelle Orleans. By 1723, Lacombe 20

The Legend and the Legacy By Tom Aicklen

was supplying lumber, bricks, charcoal, marine stores, shells, lime, produce, hides, baskets, and other raw materials to the south shore.

Through our conducted tours tourists can explore, experience, and enjoy the history and cultural heritage of the Bayou Lacombe Choctaws.

Lacombe’s French heritage goes back 313 years to 1699; its African roots to 1723; its British heritage to 1763; its Spanish legacy to 1781. Two hundred years ago, Louisiana became American as part of the United States. However, Lacombe’s Maya-Chacta connection may go back perhaps 1,300 years. Its First American heritage extends back thousands of years.

Follow in the footsteps of ten thousand years of history where the First Americans followed wild game; where European and American explorers sought fame and fortune; where pioneers carved out a nation.

The Lacombe Heritage Center, which sponsors seminars and presentations, invites visitors to “come for the facts; stay for the legends.” Sightseers can hike, peddle or paddle some of the same trails once used for trade and travel by the Choctaw and Acolapissa Indians.

It was along the wild shores of Lake Pontchartrain that American naturalist, botanist, and possible gatherer of covert intelligence for the patriot cause, sailed on his way to the Mississippi River in October of 1775. It was off these pristine shores that the small armed schooner MORRIS of the ﬂedging Continental Navy engaged in battle the British frigate WEST FLORIDA in September of 1779. Visitors to the Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge can see these historic sites simply by driving to the end of Lake Rd. Other than by boat, this is the only place where people can drive to see the undeveloped northshore of Lake Pontchartrain as it has been for hundreds of years. The extensive wetlands, lagoons, marshes, prairies, and savannas of the 18,000-acre refuge are our environmental treasures. They encircle the northshore like an ecological necklace. In the center, like a precious emerald pendant, will be the 27-acre Francois Cousin Bayou Heritage Park. This magniﬁcent recreational resource is one of the Heritage Sites planned for inclusion on the Choctaw Nature Trail, the Bartram Wilderness Adventure & Resource Restoration Trail, Le Tour d’Iberville, the American Wetlands Birding Trail, and the North American Bluebird Trail

joining Lacombe, Louisiana with our twin, Lacombe, Alberta in Canada. It is also part of the Louisiana Scenic Bayous Byway, which extends across the Florida and River Parishes from the Pearl River to the Mississippi.

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ALONG THE BAYOU The bayou and the marsh are integral cultural components of the picturesque Chacta/Creole Village. Lacombe is physically located on undulating ridges of Pleistocene windborne particulate; a silt called “loess” that was deposited tens of thousand years ago; blown in from the Great Plains during the last ice-age when much of the world’s fresh waters were locked up in ice sheets miles-thick that covered most of North America as far south as present day Chicago. Once a distributary of the Pearl River, Bayou Lacombe now gurgles up from a spring near Talisheek. Flowing clean and clear over undulating beds of gravel, the leftover of glacial moraine debris, the stream ducks under Hwy 36, then is crossed further down by a small bridge on LA 434 where it is a little broader and deeper in spots, and the current in the shoals has an urgency to it. Further on it cuts through clay bluffs ridged with pine, holly and yaupon. The water ﬂows briskly over miniature rapids of gravel and clay, leaving ripples in the sand bottom. It tumbles next over dark wet logs and jams of driftwood, and only when it reaches the tannin brown,

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leaf-stained pools does it pause long enough to circle slowly before continuing on. Leaving the low bluffs, white sand beaches, still pools and rushing water, it abandons its status as a stream, and adopts the cool dark water characteristic of the true bayou. The trees also change. They are now of the swamp: tupelo, bald cypress, swamp maple, sweet gum—they press in and arch over the mysterious waters in a green vault, casting a filigree of lacy shadows on the murky surface, where seldom does the sun fully penetrate. Unseen beneath the eddies of the blossom-speckled shallows, aquatic denizens of the swamp populate and procreate. Hidden in the deep shades of the dense green shore, behind the leafy screen of foliage, eyes watch, staring and unblinking—cautious, alert. At this point the banks of the bayou become indistinct, composed not of earth, but of grass and tree roots. A fragrant lily reflects its bright whiteness on the black water, admiring itself. Limbs of young cypress hang low, dipping occasionally into the water. Pollen floats in green and yellow swirls, antiquing the reflected mosaic of leaf and sky. A leaf, losing its grip on life, falls, gently settling into its watery grave. It 21

ﬂoats for a time but soon, absorbing more and more water into its tissues, it disappears below, to add forever its body on the soft bottom to the billion score already gone before. A moccasin slips from the fetid ooze and cuts a wake through the water, its body twisting and writhing like the coils of the bayou itself. Schools of mullet patrol the bayou, only their goggle eyes above the surface. Suddenly, the green shade lifts as the bayou widens. The banks slope up grassy sweeps of lawn dappled with dark and light of pine shadows to stately mansions framed by even statelier live oaks, or to cloister the comely cottage. Wharves and boat houses dot the course of the bayou as it comes closer to Lacombe. The freshening breeze from the lake is felt hurtling itself up the open expanse of the widening bayou, creating bumpy little ripples to reﬂect the dazzling sunlight like thousands of watery diamonds. Resident’s homes are enfolded under the spreading fern-covered branches of thousand-year-old live oaks on secluded acres and in cloistered glens of sweet-scented magnolia, or tucked away in the piney woods. Residents stroll through the leafy caverns of

horary ancient live oaks draped by Mother Nature with long grey strands of Spanish moss, waving in the gentle air like gossamer curtains; or, in the still, hot bake of summer after a furious rain, dripping and glistening like diaphanous stalactites hanging from the cavernous domed ceiling of massive limbs. Further on the bayou looks under the Highway 190 bridge at the machinery

now rusty and useless, the tender’s house broken-windowed, open to birds and wind and wasp. Further on, Bayou Rouville joins the ﬂow just around the bend where Main Street dips its asphalt into the water. Next the old 1906 railroad swing bridge of the Tammany Trace is the last man-made impediment to the scenic expanse as the bayou widens and the character of the shore changes, becoming cypress and marsh, where gaunt, moss-bearded trees hold withered limbs out to the sky, as if in

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supplication, like some ancient Chacta shaman beseeching the Great Spirit for favor. The lower reaches of the bayou are the widest with their lazy serpentine twists and turns less frequent and more gentle. Bayou Lacombe meanders past pristine banks of marsh grass, vast, big-sky prairies and the wetlands that are not really land or sea, but each still vying for their supremacy. Flowing marsh grass alternates with tall stalks of cane along the sloughs and lagoons were mosquito hawks, like an armada of World War I biplanes, perch motionless, each atop a single stalk of cane. Redwing blackbirds abound, and the dens of nutria crowd together in little village-like groups. The bayou lies warm and sunny in the wide expanse between marshy shores. An occasional gar boil or jumping mullet breaks the placid surface; the slap of bass and the sound of reds feeding in the shallows punctuate the hazy quiet of late afternoon. In the distance dark clouds roil up to gather into a flashing summer storm over Lake Pontchartrain. Before Katrina and federal indicted progress wiped them away, the bayou was home to battered fishing camps and boats as weathered as the men who manned them. Friends, characters, and extraordinary, ordinary men and women who were part of the Lacombe heart and soul for generations, are now only part of my memory of this area in the mid to latter part of the 20th century. Still, the bayou goes to keep its appointment with the lake. The Americans who used to make this area their home were, depending upon the season: crabbers, fishermen, shrimpers, trappers, or hunters. They are gone now; removed by time, death, and circumstance; replaced by others who don’t know this land or its beauty. bureaucrats with career agendas. There is salt in the lower reaches of the bayou as it nears the lake. The gulf pushes inexorably into the estuarine system of the lakes and marshes. Wetland losses in parishes which border the gulf affect us also. Their loss is our loss. A mound of “rangia”, the familiar

In Lacombe we have historic sites and buildings, archaeological sites, gardens, homes, Historic Oaklawn; all precious resources jealously guarded from exploitation by the citizens who love and protect it and wish to preserve it.

LACOMBE ATTRACTIONS: SCENIC PLACES: Bayou Lacombe, Lake Pontchartrain, Cane Bayou, Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine, iconic Live Oaks on Lacombe Ridge, Fish Hatchery Rd., Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge. HISTORIC PLACES: Historic Town site of Oaklawn, 9/11 Live Oak Grove Living Memorial, Bayou Lacombe Rural Museum, Huey P. Long Fish Hatchery, and USFWS Bayou Gardens HQ. PARKS: Fontainebleau State Park, Northlake Nature Center, Francois Cousin Bayou Heritage Park, John Davis Park, Keller Field. HERITAGE TRAILS: Le Tour du Iberville, Choctaw Nature Trail, America’s Wetland Birding Trail, North American Bluebird Trail, Bartram Wilderness Adventure & Resource Restoration Trail, Fontainebleau Arts District, Lacombe Cultural Heritage Corridor and Business Enterprise Zone, Peter Cousin Cultural Heritage District, Louisiana Scenic Bayous Byway. EVENTS: Krewe of Chahta Mardi Gras parade, Party on the Pointe, Bayou Lacombe Crab Festival, La Toussaints, Santa on the Bayou, 2013 Rouquette Bicentennial Celebration. CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS: The Lacombe Heritage Center, Concerned Citizens of Lacombe, Lacombe Economic Area Development, Choctaw Heritage Indian Enterprises and Folklife, Men of Our Town, Keep Lacombe Beautiful, VFW 8290, Phenomenal Women of Lacombe, Chamber of Commerce.

edible lake clams we use to shell our roads, piled up perhaps 200-years ago by the Indians, supports a ragged growth of cedar, oak, hawthorn, witch hazel, and palmetto. It is now much diminished by hurricanes and the erosion of decades. A last bend, and then the wide, lapping waters of Lake Pontchartrain greet the bayou. A sandbar to the left of the channel keeps boats well to the right and close to the markers. Across Ok’wa’ta, the Choctaw name for the lake, just 15 miles from Bayou Lacombe to Bayou St. John, is the urban metropolis of New Orleans. It was Lacombe and Bonfouca, that supplied the raw materials that built the city.

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Ethan Hart Excellence in Youth

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Some old, some young. Some scrawny, some brawny. Some will run into a burning building to save a family, some will stand up to a bully to protect their fellow students. This is the story of a hero in training. Ethan Hart just started his sophomore year at Lakeshore High School. He ﬁnished his freshman year with a 4.0 grade point average. He plays baseball on his high school team and softball in a church league with his dad. Like most 15 year olds, he’s counting down the days until freedom, when he can take the driving test and get his driver’s permit. Unlike most 15 year olds, Ethan can tell his friends that he trained at an FBI Academy over his summer vacation.

by Alex Carollo

In June, Ethan attended the prestigious Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Academy Youth Leadership Program in Quantico, Virginia. The program, hosted by the FBI National Academy Associates (FBINAA), gives high school students from around the country the chance to attend a week long training camp each summer. To attend, each student must demonstrate high academic standards and show good citizenship in their communities. They must also be nominated by an FBINAA alumni. “I went through the FBI National Academy back in 2008,” said Ethan’s dad, Captain Will Hart of the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Ofﬁce. “Only a quarter of one percent of law enforcement agents are selected to attend. Sheriff Jack Strain nominated me and I was one of the lucky ones who got to go. It was an honor.” Since his dad attended the FBI National Academy, Ethan was also interested in going. “Ethan and I had a conversation about the Youth Leadership Program after I graduated. He seemed interested, but I would never want to push him into doing things that he didn’t want to do,” said Will. “Last year, he told me, ‘Dad, I think I’m ready to go the National Academy. Let’s ﬁll out the application and see what happens.’” Getting selected to attend the academy is not an easy task. Once nominated, each local chapter of the FBINAA can choose only one student from all applicants to represent their district. Once the chapters submit their nominations, the FBINAA reviews each chapter’s candidate and chooses which students will attend. After the application process and a battery of interviews, Ethan was invited to attend the Youth Leadership Program. He was the only student from Louisiana selected. “I couldn’t believe it,” said Ethan. “I asked my dad, ‘What should I do to get ready?’” “I told him to start waking up early and start running,” laughs Will. “And that’s what I did,” replied Ethan. Ethan joined 60 other students from around the United States, and even a few from other countries. The Youth Academy was held over an eight day period in June and included over 60 hours of classes taught by FBI agents and Academy members. “I woke up at 4:25 every morning and I set my alarm clock at the loudest setting,” laughs Ethan.” We made our beds, had PT (physical training) for an hour each morning. They had a good breakfast. They had everything you could think of, healthy and unhealthy choices.”

Ethan attended eight hours of classes each day, on various topics such as criminal justice, constitutional law, juvenile violence, police organization, and leadership. After classes, the students ate dinner and had recreational time where they played sports and explored the FBI campus. Lights went out promptly at 10 p.m. Ethan and his classmates went on field trips to Washington D. C. where they were given behind-the-scenes tours of the White House, the FBI Academy, the Library of Congress and the U.S. Capitol. “We were able to explore things that few people get the chance to see,” said Ethan. “We saw how the monuments are all connected by underground tunnels. We saw the statue of Huey P. Long that Louisiana donated and we stood where George Washington is supposed to be buried in the Capitol. It was a cool experience.” Ethan was even able to shoot an MP-5 semiautomatic pistol on the shooting range. “You could switch it to automatic,” said Ethan. “They called it ‘ROCK ON’ mode. It was cool.” Another experience was witnessing FBI agents training at the infamous Hogan’s Alley. “It was the coolest thing on base,” said Ethan. “It’s a town that’s a few blocks large. There are banks, diners, even a movie theater. They have actors who are engaging with the agents during these training exercises. They had helicopters landing. It was crazy.” One of Ethan’s proudest moments was one of the final challenges, a 4.1 mile run across the Marine Corps obstacle course known as the “Yellow Brick Road.” “We climbed walls, ran up stairs, climbed up ropes, stopped and did push ups. But it was more mental than it was physical,” recalled Ethan. “We did it as a team. There was a kid with asthma who was having problems, and we stayed behind to help him complete the course. It was the ultimate team building experience. ” Ethan and his team completed the course in 48 minutes. As is tradition, everyone who completes the “Yellow Brick Road” earns a coveted yellow brick. “It’s not about finishing first or last. It’s about team work. You don’t leave anybody behind,” said Will, who also completed the obstacle course when he was trained at the Academy in 2008.

Ethan says that the FBI National Academy Youth Leadership Program was the experience of a lifetime. “I learned so much there. It was an honor to be chosen and to represent St. Tammany and Louisiana,” said Ethan. “But it was the people that I was with that really made it special.” “I tell you what. I am so proud of my son,” gushes Will, as only a father can brag about their son. “That he got accepted into the Youth Academy, that he received a yellow brick and that he graduated. He’s a great kid, a great student and a great son. I couldn’t be more proud of him.”

After Hours Mechanic

“I called my dad when I crossed the ﬁnish line,” recalls Ethan. “We were all singing ‘Rocky Mountain, Take Me Home.’” “I remember receiving that phone call really early in the morning,” laughs Will. “‘Hey dad, guess what, I got a yellow brick just like yours.’ And I tell you what. I’ve never been prouder of my son.” The Harts are now a two brick family. They are displayed right next to each other at home. “I think mine is nicer than his,” jokes Ethan. “Sure it is,” laughs Will. Will travelled to Washington to see his son graduate. Ethan’s grandparents, Bob and Sheila Schaefer, also attended, just as they had attended their son’s graduation ceremony four years earlier. They booked their tickets two month before training even started. After the ceremony, Will and Ethan stayed a few extra days in D. C. where they visited the Lincoln Memorial, the Holocaust Museum, the different war monuments and the Police Memorial. “Every time we go to D. C., we pay our respects to the men and women who lost their lives,” said Will. “I don’t care how hot it is or how cold it is, we are going to pay our respects.”

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Honey Island Bandits There’s gold and legends in them thar swamps! By John N. Felsher

Legends and swamps go hand in hand. The vast Honey Island Swamp east of Slidell, along the Pearl River system on the Louisiana-Mississippi border, abounds in legends of gold, blood and death -complete with tales of occasional sightings of its own hairy foul-smelling “Bigfoottype” swamp monster. Place names like Black Bayou, Wastehouse Bayou and Devil’s Elbow indicate possible clues to the dark, mysterious past of this primordial wet wilderness of bogs, bayous, rivers, sloughs, hidden lakes and impassable marshes. Steamboat Bayou, in the middle of the swamp, perhaps hints of some unfortunate river craft. Other stories tell of a Union gunboat supposedly sunk somewhere in the lower East Pearl River during the Civil War. Technically, “Honey Island Swamp” deﬁnes a wetland about 20 miles long by seven miles wide between West and East Pearl Rivers north of Lake Borgne. The 35,000acre Pearl River Wildlife Management Area contains about half of it. Bradley Slough splits from the main Pearl River channel east of Talisheek, La., to create West Pearl, which carries the major ﬂow southward from that point. Between the two main channels, a labyrinth of streams creates a

latticework of bayous and ditches winding through cypress and gum swamps before gradually transitioning into fresh and then brackish marshes. One of the least altered river wetlands in the United States, Honey Island Swamp merges into adjacent wetlands in a ribbon of wilderness that stretches almost from the Gulf of Mexico to Jackson, Miss., and fans out through southeastern Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi. The Bogue Chitto National Wildlife Refuge preserves 36,000 acres north of Honey Island, really a cluster of lands broken by myriad streams. Part of the 18,000-acre Big Branch Marsh NWR sits adjacent to the southwestern end of Honey Island Swamp. While civilization chips away at the swamp edges, this soggy no-man’s land of murky water and giant cypress trees eerily festooned in Spanish moss changed little from the hand of man over the centuries. However, storms like Hurricane Katrina occasionally tear it up, alter the flow of streams and reconfigure parts of its geography. Over time, the capricious current of the rivers, especially West Pearl, periodically fills in some streams with silt, cuts off other streams that become lakes and busts through swamps to create different channels.

Even today, although the refuges and wildlife management area attract thousands of hunters and ﬁshermen each year, few people venture far off the main waterways. The vast, boggy interior of the swamp remains relatively undisturbed by humans -- and could possibly support some type of bigfoot creature if such a thing existed. The swamp deﬁnitely holds populations of deer, alligators, wild hogs, bobcats, snakes, snapping turtles, various birds and many other creatures great and small. While this primordial setting continues even in this day of satellite imagery and global positioning system waypoints available instantly over the Internet, the isolation of the swamp made the perfect hideout for a host of unsavory frontier characters who didn’t want to attract much attention to themselves. One such notorious 19th century outlaw, James Copeland, frequently used the swamps to hide himself and his ill-gotten treasure between robbing forays. Copeland and his gang of robbers, bandits and cutthroats terrorized the settlers in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in the 1840s and 1850s. The Copeland Gang used Picayune, Miss., near the swamp edge as a base of operations between raids. Firmly believing the old

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adage that dead men tell no tales, they left few witnesses to report on their activities. In his book, “Pearl River Highway to Glory Land”, Samuel G. Thigpen quotes from a confession Copeland dictated while awaiting execution in Mississippi. Of one witness who asked too many questions about the gang, Copeland said, “He met up with my brother and myself. Our two rifles made clear fire and we left him in a situation where he told no more tales.” Later in the confession, Thigpen quotes Copeland as saying about another witness, “We waylaid him and fed him with the contents of two double-barrel shotguns and put him in a nearby swamp.” In another part of the confession, Copeland told of squeezing the breath out of a man and leaving him to feed the buzzards, according to Thigpen’s book. Few banks served the local citizenry in those days when the Gulf Coast marked the frontier. Settlers seldom trusted banks anyway -- even if one did serve the local population. In the days before electronic deposits and transfers, people often preferred to keep their life savings in gold, silver or other precious metals buried somewhere near their homes. This made easy pickings for ruthless bandits like Copeland and his band of renegades. Whenever the law became too hot on their trail, the gang would disperse and disappear into the recesses of the nearly unexplored vastness of the nearby swamps. Few people dared venture into the dank, primeval wetlands to search for them. If the alligators, snakes or other swamp dangers didn’t get them, the guns of Copeland’s men certainly would. In one instance, Thigpen writes, the gang came into a large sum of money in New Orleans. How they came to possess such a fortune isn’t recorded by history, but it certainly caused speculation. Surely, few citizens believed the gang members earned it by sweating honestly. To throw heat off themselves, they shipped their golden loot to Mobile, Ala., in whiskey barrels. The gang rendezvoused in Alabama a year later to retrieve the treasure. Several people became suspicious. Copeland and his men killed them and fled to their base near Picayune, Miss. Eventually, Copeland built a house along a creek near Picayune. According to legend, he buried the cache of cash somewhere along the creek or, perhaps, in Honey Island Swamp. Only Copeland and two gang members knew where they buried it.

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One gang member devised a crafty, if unscrupulous, plan. He sold a farm he didn’t own to a man named James Harvey. Harvey paid the man in cash for most of the price and issued an IOU for the remainder. The outlaw then sold the IOU to the two fellow gang members who possessed the treasure maps before disappearing with the cash, making out like a bandit, literally. The two greedy outlaws then went to Harvey’s home demanding final payment. They threatened to kill him if he didn’t pay. Harvey, by this time realizing that he had been slickered, would not allow the same gang to swindle him twice. He told the two outlaws to return in the morning because he didn’t have the cash at the time. He would pay them then in gold, he said. The outlaws cursed and threatened some more, but agreed to return in the morning. As anticipated, the bandits returned in the morning seeking the precious metal. Instead of gold, Harvey presented them with another type of soft metal – lead delivered from his guns. He killed both outlaws. According to Thigpen, the parents of one of the dead outlaws offered a $1,000 reward for Harvey’s head, a huge bounty in those days. Copeland, rife with an uncontrollable obsession for revenge and enticed by the $1,000 bounty, sought to collect. Harvey wised up and disappeared. Copeland and his gang found Harvey’s home empty and decided to wait. The gang stayed in Harvey’s house for several days. While he was away, the gang helped themselves to Harvey’s food stores, building a fire to cook it. Smoke pouring from the chimney of what should have been an empty cabin alerted Harvey to their presence. Before returning home, Harvey raised a posse of armed men. In the ensuing gunfight, Harvey and a gang member named Pool died. According to

Thigpen, no one wanted to bury Pool so the buzzards ate him where he fell. Copeland and the rest of his gang scattered, escaping back into Honey Island Swamp. Authorities issued a warrant for Copeland’s arrest in connection with his participation in Harvey’s death. By the time Mississippi authorities caught up with Copeland, he was already serving time in an Alabama prison for crimes he committed in that state. Undaunted and eager for justice, Mississippi authorities were waiting when Copeland walked free from the Alabama prison after completing his sentence there. The state of Mississippi tried and convicted James Copeland for numerous crimes, then hanged him on October 30, 1857.

In the past century and a half, storms like Hurricane Katrina and dozens of others, human development, canal digging, channelization, ﬂoods and a multitude of other causes irrevocably changed the landscape. Even Copeland himself would probably not recognize where he buried the treasure, if he actually ever did! Perhaps the gold remains today exactly where Copeland hid it, waiting for some lucky person to stumble upon it. Perhaps someone will provide deﬁnitive proof that the Honey Island Swamp monster really exists. While the gold and the swamp monster may or may not exist, Honey Island Swamp remains a rich environmental treasure that should stay forever wild. If for no other reason, it reminds us of what once was, and a time that can never be again, on the Gulf Coast.

A major frontier social event, the execution attracted many past victims of the Copeland Gang and their families. All had stories they could ﬁnally tell publicly. The vicious marauding of James Copeland and his band of thieves and killers touched nearly all area residents. Finally, with the reign of terror from the swamp ended, few mourned its passing. According to legend, Copeland lost his treasure map somewhere in his travels long before he lost his life. Since the other two bandits who helped bury the treasure died in the gunﬁght with Harvey before they could reclaim the gold, Copeland carried the secret of the golden hoard to his grave – if it ever really existed. For more than a century and a half, treasure seekers searched the swamps and nearby creeks for the legendary golden cache. To this day, no one ever found a single nugget or coin.

A native of Louisiana, John N. Felsher grew up in Slidell. He’s a professional freelance writer and photographer with more than 1,750 articles in more than 120 magazines to his credit. He also co-hosts a weekly outdoors radio show every Thursday from 12-1pm Central on WNSP 105.5 FM in Mobile, Ala. Among other things, he’s the National Fishing Writer for Examiner.com. Contact him through his website at www.JohnNFelsher.com.

Health & Fitness By Dennis M. Peyroux D.C.

t is estimated that one million Americans will experience an automobile accident at a cost of over $30 billion annually. The majority of those individuals will be involved in an accident involving a whiplash injury. The most recent studies which investigated this type of injury implemented high-speed cameras and sophisticated crash dummies. The results of those studies have determined that after a rear impact collision, the lower cervical vertebrae (lower bones in the neck) are forced into a position of hyperextension while the upper cervical vertebrae (upper bones in the neck) are in a hyperﬂexed position. This results in an abnormal S-shaped curve in the cervical spine after the rear impact that is different from the normal motion. It is thought that this abnormal motion causes damage to the soft tissues that hold the cervical vertebrae together (ligaments, facet capsules, muscles). Most people simply think of neck pain, but that’s only one symptom. Whiplash is more than just neck pain. Other very common symptoms include headache, pain, or a pinsand-needle sensation in the shoulders and arms. A detailed research study found the following additional symptoms can occur. It also includes the percentage of victims having each symptom:

Lightheadedness - 60% Must focus when walking - 25% Giddiness - 27% Imbalance in dark - 21% Increased neck pain - 60% Falls - 15% Moving quickly - 36% Clumsiness - 30% Stress - 21% Motion sickness - 25% Standing/sitting up - 57% Problems with vision/eyes jiggle - 21% Neck positions - 42% Blurred vision - 38% Falling/veering to one side - 23% Headache - 56% Vague imbalance - 19% Decreased concentration - 35% Unsteady - 52% Sweating - 30% Imbalance - 25% Confusion - 21% Trouble with stairs - 21% Nausea - 40% Fainting - 15%

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People that have had a whiplash injury are more likely to have degenerative disc disease. Very often, the initial pain of a whiplash injury subsides after a matter of weeks or months. However, 40% of people are still experiencing pain one year later. Those individuals that are fortunate enough to have their pain go away quickly often assume they are ﬁne. Research has shown this is not the case. The majority of these people will continue to struggle with normal activity unless they have some form of spinal molding to correct the abnormal curve due in the cervical spine. Chiropractic is THE only proven effective treatment. In 1999, a landmark comprehensive study was performed by the highly regarded British Journal of Orthopaedic Medicine. The study found that “Chiropractic is the only proven effective treatment in chronic cases of whiplash.” The study went on to find that 74% of chronic cases of whiplash that had previously failed to respond to conventional treatment, improved under chiropractic care.

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Music notes

by Gay DiGiovanni

was a shy kid with no musical talent, and have always been fascinated with musical performances. Listening to my mother’s opera while we cleaned the house every Saturday made me aware of the grand scope of performance. Opera just seemed so dramatic. Hearing the Beatles and folk songs on the record player made me long to see how the musicians actually performed. When I went to my first big concert in college, I saw “America” perform the songs I knew by heart. But, I couldn’t really see them, because I was so far away from the stage. Although it was fun, I didn’t “get it”. They could have been puppets on a string. It wasn’t until I visited New Orleans during those college years, that I saw a great performance close up. My friends and I went to Preservation Hall because we all heard that this was

sidelines, or on our sofas, not many of us can say, “I could do better than that!” We watch for the thrill of that astounding great play, and then ask “How did they do that?!”

the place to see authentic New Orleans Jazz. In the dark, cramped hall I saw grizzled men blow and strum and sweat as they produced the delicate, intricate dance that is Jazz. Wow! An answer to my quest, and then, I want more. Performance is the key. Athletes take their natural physical talent and dedicate years to practicing, learning, and working to be the best. Thousands watch them perform on the court, ball ﬁeld, and grid-iron. As we sit on the

I think the analogy is the same for musicians. I recently watched Rocky Denney playing harmonica. I saw big, burly hands engulﬁng a microphone, a hidden instrument, and half his face. What I heard was a complex and rapid fire succession of notes bending and blending into a blues melody that captured my soul. I tried to play a harmonica once, and I know you breathe in and out to produce different notes through impossibly tiny holes. But I am utterly confounded and must ask “How did he do that?” For me, musicians make magic.

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Slidell Music Where & When

When I moved to Slidell 22 years ago, I revisited the New Orleans Preservation Hall for Jazz and since then, have patronized many blues joints in the Quarter. I have enjoyed classical performances at Loyola’s Roussel Hall and concerts at UNO’s Lakefront arena. And who can live here and not go to Jazz Fest, the French Quarter Fest, and enjoy Slidell’s own awesome musical talent showcase, Bayou Jam? There is truly an abundance of venues to see great musical talent. It seems I can’t get enough of the variety, creativity, and just plain skill that local musicians offer. As previous editions of Music Notes pointed out, music touches your soul. It is the universal language and every person can relate in some way. Even my deaf friend that loves to dance the Irish jig feels the pulse and rhythm of music. Music plays with our emotions and when I see a live performance, in a small club, I want to sit right up front. I am enthralled as I watch the saxophone and trombone players, drummers, guitarists and vocalists create and improvise with every song. These talented people love what they do. When David Hyde closes his eyes as he plays the bass, I feel his bond with the music and the muse that is inside him. When Tom Collins wears his white fishing boots and struts on stage, there is joy in that step. I could give you pages of examples, but instead, I invite you to find your own experience. We have something special here. Our Louisiana soul is spreading throughout the world. Not all musicians can make it big and travel the world. Most are guys and gals that have day jobs so they can support themselves and their families. All of them play for the joy of it, but it is difficult to play to sparse audiences. Their talent and hard work may not demand thousands of spectators, but they will touch each one of you when you come and watch. I suggest tuning in to the moment. Watch intently and listen as the music is created just for you. You will feel a connection to your soul and that joy will expand and envelop you. Please, reward these musicians by clapping loudly, and go see them again and again!

ER OCTOB

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s ! Don’t Mis

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