As Louisiana College was dedicating a marker on its campus a while back honoring the late Gov. Jimmie Davis, a birthday celebration I attended for the ex-governor came to mind.
Some of Davis’s friends put on a big shindig at Shreveport’s Strand Theater for his 98th birthday in 1997. Political consultant Ted Jones invited a few of us from Natchitoches to the event.
Country music star Merle Haggard highlighted the program. He joined Davis in singing You Are My Sunshine, which Davis wrote in 1939.
It became one of the most popular songs in history and has been recorded by numerous performers, including Gene Autry, Bing Crosby, Lawrence Welk, Doris Day, Nat King Cole, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan.
At 98-years-old, the governor’s best singing days were behind him, but he was still a good storyteller.
He said it was getting harder to do some of the simple things in life like tying his shoes. “When I finally get down there,” he said, “I look around for other things to do while I’m there.”
Davis liked to spin a rambling tale at his public appearances about a young couple from Jackson Parish where he grew up.
He said they dated all through high school and talked often about getting married.
They liked to picnic in the woods on a little piece of land with a natural spring that bubbled into a cold, clear stream.
When her boyfriend would ask about a physical relationship, the girl insisted that would have to wait until they were married.
She wanted him to buy the peaceful, wooded property they loved, build a house on it, get a good job and create enough of a nest egg to support a family. Then she would marry him.
They finished high school, and she went off to college planning to become a teacher. The boy stayed around Jackson Parish and worked at odd jobs.
On her breaks from college, they would visit and talk about the future. He still pursued intimacy, but she said they would have to become husband and wife first with a home and financial security.
The girl finished college and went off to another state to teach. She and her long-time boyfriend drifted apart over the years, but neither ever married.
When she retired from teaching and planned to move back to Louisiana, the woman contacted her former boyfriend to see if there was any chance of them getting married.
Asked how close he had come to meeting her demands for marriage and an intimate relationship, the man said he lived in a garage apartment in Jonesboro, worked part time at a dairy and had $46 in his checking account.
“That’s close enough,” she said. “How soon can we have the wedding?”…
Few things my mother cooked when I was growing up were better than fried frog legs.
Frogs were plentiful in the ponds that provided water for the paper mill. We caught and cooked them often until my dad and Uncle Buddy let some loose in the house one night.
We kept frogs live in burlap croker sacks until they could be cleaned and dressed for cooking.
Dad and Buddy had too much beer on a frog hunt one night and decided to wait until the next morning to clean the frogs. They left the bag with several dozen frogs in it in the kitchen sink.
The frogs escaped during the night and hid in dark places all over the house. My mother would scream every time she ran across one in a closet or under a bed.
For a day or two, we would be dressing for school or watching television and hear a frog croak somewhere.
There was a moratorium on fried frog legs at our house for a good while after that.
REPRINTED FROM THE NATCHITOCHES TIMES