Newspapers, Woodlands and Waterways Echoes; LaSalle, Louisiana Submitter: Jack Willis Date: 29 Sep 2004 Source: Jena Times - Olla Tullos Signal "Woodlands and Waterways Echoes" Source Date: December 2002 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** The Saga of Clem Huffman Clem Huffman, like his brother John, was born on Cypress Bayou in LaSalle Parish on February 12th, 1917. He attended school at Prosperity Elementary School situated on the banks of the French Forks River. His upbringing was stringent, disciplined, and involved a lot of hard work, even as a child. Such was life near Catahoula Lake in the 20's and 30's. When Clem was 17, his father Len Huffman took him out of school so he could go to work to help support the family on their farm. He put him to plowing an old mule by the name of "Ol' Pete". He was also intimately acquainted with another stubborn critter know as Ol' Mall. Meanwhile, the Frost family had purchased the Trout mill near Jena along with their timberlands in late 1934, from "Little Will" Buchanan, who was selling off the company holdings piece by piece to support his extravagant lifestyle. To recover some of their investment, the company had started logging hardwood out of what is now the Dewey Wills Wildlife Management Area, or better known then, as Saline swamp. By this time Clem had enjoyed all of "Old Pete" he could stand, so he caught a ride out to Trout and talked to a Mr. Tolar and told him he needed a job. He looked Clem over and asked him if he could handle a mule. Clem assured him he could, so he told him to catch the work train out the next morning and ride the caboose to the logging site. Clem had to wear hip boots and walk two miles before daylight back into the swamp to catch out. That first morning, when he got to the logging site, the Woods Foreman gave him a mule and a set of tongs. He put Clem to skidding split bitter pecan logs to the tram dump, and putting them in place as cross ties, flat side down, to lay rails on for the log train to run on, hauling the harvested logs out to where they could be hauled to the mill. Not knowing any better, he started off walking beside his mule and the Woods Foreman saw what he was doing and told him, "Clem, you don't have to walk, you CAN ride that mule." This made the job much easier than pulling that gumbo in those hip boots. One of the five main muleskinners was a weekend drunk and a lot of Mondays he wouldn't show up until Tuesday. This occurred again the next Monday morning, so the disgusted woods boss asked him Clem he could handle a team of four mules? He told him he believed he could, and he had to learn how in a short hurry. That fall he would work in the logging woods until dark and then hunt ducks until 10 or 11 o'clock at night. That fee of fifty cents a duck translated out into a lot of food on the family table in the throes of the Great Depression. But Clem overdid his work ethic and contracted double pneumonia with the sickness settling in his left lung and it wouldn't clear up. About every two days Dr. Murl Floyd, Sr. would take a syringe with a six-inch needle and draw fluid off the infected lung. It was such a painful process he told his father to take some of his hogs and sell them, and he pocketed the money and headed for the Rapides hills to get admitted into the old Baptist Hospital in Alexandria. Surgeons at the hospital cut two ribs into and inserted a drainage tube into the infected lung and he laid flat of his back for 28 days until the lung cleared up and healed. Doomsayers told him he'd probably contract tuberculosis as a result of the ordeal and die at an early age, but he said, "I'm 85 years old and ain't dead yet; but those doctors that prophesied that are though!" Meanwhile, Lieutenant Governor Earl K. Long had brought a bunch of hogs out of Dugdamona swamp near Winnfield and turned them loose in Saline swamp, where there was a better mast crop. His old friend Joe Corley, from their days as lumber graders at the old White Sulphur mill near Jena, was looking after the hogs. In the spring of 1935 there was one of the frequent spring floods and Uncle Joe, as he was known in the community, hired Clem to help him get the hogs out of the backwater to high ground. Earl Long stopped by the Cypress Bayou community on his way home from Baton Rouge, and got to watching Clem working the hogs and dogs, and saw he was a good hand, so he asked him to go home with him. At first he told the Lt. Governor he couldn't go because Winnfield was too far from home, but Earl didn't know the meaning of the word NO, and he kept on. Finally Clem packed two pairs of britches in a paper sack, and they set off for Earl's pride and joy, the "Pea Patch" farm. The next day they loaded up and went down to Alexandria to the livestock auction and afterwards Earl bought Clem a pair of cowboy boots and a set of pearl snap western shirts and pants, and Clem began to really like his new boss. Clem's duties to start when Long was home, was to make coffee every morning and bring the Lt. Governor a cup. Then Earl would start "politickin" about five o'clock in the morning, often calling his associated and waking them up before daylight. He'd receive visitors and stay on the phone until about ten o'clock, and then it was time for a nap and he gave Clem strict orders until he was ready to get up. Their cook Sadie would have a huge dinner cooked up when he arose, usually centered on a pork entrée. When he got through eating and belched a couple of times, he was ready to go feed the hogs. Then Lt. Governor Long and Clem would load up in their old Dodge pickup and they'd go somewhere where his hogs were ranging, and he'd have about a half a tow sack full of corn he'd feed them while he looked them over. This was the regimen of a typical winter's time day in the life of Earl kemp Long. Clem Huffman would remain in Earl Long 's employ until Earl passed away from a heart attack in September of 1959. For that reason alone, he knows more about Earl Kemp Long than any other man, living or dead. Earl Long did NOT want Clem to do any kind of hunting but hog hunting, PERIOD. In his coarse voice, a result of inadvertently drinking some lye water when he was a child, he rasped, "You can go out there and set on a deer stand, and won't see a d--- thing, but you can go in the woods with the dogs and hunt 'til you scare up a meat hog and kill him, you know you gonna have fresh middlin' cooked for supper that night!" But every once in a while Clem would slip off and kill a mess of squirrels and his wife would cook them up. Earl Long would smell them cooking, and here he'd come and end up sopping the gravy out of the bottom of the bowl. Then he'd brag to Mrs. Huffman on how good they was. In the winter of 1956 Earl had come in from Baton Rouge. He was now serving as elected Governor, having defeated the popular New Orleans candidate "Dellasoups" Morrison in the Second Primary. He had first assumed the governorship in 1939 when Richard "Dick" Leche had been sent to jail as a result of the Louisiana scandals after Huey's assassination. It was bitter cold this particular morning, hovering around 15*, but Earl had insisted on going hog hunting. They were hunting down around Jourdan Hill, and Clem had just shot a big meat hog the dogs had bayed in a treetop. He and the Governor were standing there trying to figure the best way to retrieve the carcass, when he noticed, that even though the temperature was in the 'teens, Earl was sweating and white around the mouth. He admitted he didn't feel too good, so Clem helped him pull a hill back up to the pickup truck. Clem got him in the truck and Earl admitted he was having chest pains and his left arm was hurting. NEXT MONTH: Earl K. Long' s First Heart Attack W&WE (12-02) Jack Morgan Willis