Cutris Marcello Sr.
September 6, 2018
Tarpons hopeful for renewed success in 2018
September 6, 2018
Today I am adding pictures from last week’s story so you can cross index. If you have already used the paper to wrap peelings after a shrimp meal, all I can say is “Bon Appetite.” Reading is nice But shrimp to a Gajun as the “Big Bop-per” sang is “Hello Baby-You KNOW what I like.”
My dining companion web future Thibodaur City Judge Charles Leblanc (d,-fl-A-08X father of the Honorably John E. Leblanc, Lafourche Parish District Judge, but all that’s too formal, we were just Charlie and Lee.
We met late one night at KTIB when he and I were writing a Christmas theme d campaign song (which was still in vogue) for Leonard Toups who was running for Mayor of Thibodaur. We had written the song to the tune of “Jingle Bells” and it went “Let’s be free, let’s be free, and vote far number three” (Mr. Toups’s number.)
Mr. Taupe, who was never seen without a three piece suit was having a blast and he said, *We need jingle bells” as he picked up a tray on a desk with a pile of paper Blips. “O.K. Boys.” he said “empty your loose change into the basket. We will have bells.” With Charles Leblanc beating an a garbage can with Coco Cola rulers (I’ll tell you about that one day and the blotter and the pencil in a Coco Cola envelope that came once a year to school kids’ delight)
Mr. Leonard Toups was shaking the tray with paper dips. and loose change, I was on guitar and vocals and we three recorded a campaign song that night Mr Taupe was elected and became one of Thibodaur’s great Mayors and until none nobody knew the story. The song writing team of Martin, Leblanc and Toups never made another record.
Jennys Cafe and J.F.K.
Jenny’s was a small cafe in Thibodaux across the street from the Lafourche Pariah Court house where a good friend and I were eating on a day that, as President Franklin Roosevelt once said about Pearl Harbor would “live in infamy”.
Jenny, the proprietor would sit at her counter playing pinochle with lawyers and customers until all her diner b were in. She had already prepared lunch except for the main item, which she had bought that morning, either chops, hamburger steaks or whatever, and the card game went on until every diner was seated.
If she had bought 12 units and 12 customers were seated, good, everyone got a chop If 24 dinars happen to come in everyone got half a chop. If only 6 came in. expect the same menu the next day.
Courthouse workers, lawyers and prominent business leaders were regular customers and same times played cards into late afternoon.
We were ready to eat and only 3 were seated so we each got a chop. Suddenly Dave Robichaux. an oil lease broker, former Assessor and active politician, entered* went in the kitchen and turned the radio on. This was not unusual because at Jenny’s people came and went all the time and diners and card players rarely noticed or raised an eyebrow.
Everyone was served and Jenny and her entourage were back at the card game. Robichaux turned up the radio volume slammed hand loudly an the counter and shouted: “Listen, listen … the President has just been shot in Dallas, Texas.” It was November 22, 1963, about 12:50 pm.
Stunned, everybody gathered around the radio and the news continued to get worse until Walter Cronkite announced “President John P. Kennedy died at 11:90 pm Dallas time. 12:30 Central Time.”
Stunned, everybody gathered around the radio and the news continued to get worse until Walter Cronkite announced “President John P. Kennedy died at 11:90 pm Dallas time. 12:30 Central Time.”
An eerie silence and gloom filled the room.
Charlie and I got up and started back to the courthouse. I felt a tear but Charlie was crying as he loudly said: Them SOS’s. They did it. They finally did it”!
Who he had in mini Fll never know, and the rest of the day web a blur, but it made me realize what I already knew, that my friend Charles Leblanc was a kind, gentle and caring per-son. I was fortunate to have had him as a friend. BYE NOW!
‘Stunned everybody gathered around the ratio and the news continued to get worse….’
In this week’s column, Mr. Leray Martin talks about where he was during one of the most memorable days in the history of the United States – the day John F. Kinnady was shat and killed
