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: January 2003




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                     The Saga of Clem Huffman, Part II

	Clem Huffman was born in 1917 on Cypress Bayou in southern LaSalle Parish.
He was hired, and more or less adopted, into the employ of then Lt. Governor
Earl K. Long in about the spring of 1936. He was only 17 years old but he
would remain an adopted member the Long family until the newly elected U.S.
Congressman's death on September 5th of 1959. For this reason, Clem Huffman
knows more about this nationally famous professional politician, and
sometimes controversial public figure, than any other man, living or dead.
	In the previous installment, Clem and the newly elected Governor of the
Great State of Louisiana had gotten up on a cold frosty morn and gone hog
hunting, when about seven o'clock that morning the Governor suddenly took
ill. Clem rushed him to the Pea Patch farm, where he immediately went to
bed; first giving strict orders to Clem that he did NOT want to be
disturbed.  Uncle Earl had in his employ a cook named Sadie, and she had a
big home-cooked meal ready about noon, and asked Clem if he thought they
ought to wake the Governor to eat? Clem decided it might be a good idea
since he knew he hadn't eaten since early. He shouldn't have because the
governor pitched a fit with a hole in it. Clem could tell he was still in
pain, and no better, so decided enough was enough and he called Dr. John T.
Moseley, a local physician, and despite Earl's vigorous protests, the doctor
examined him and declared he was having a heart attack. Clem immediately
called an ambulance and Earl was rushed to a hospital in Alexandria. Up
until now Earl had never suffered from any type of illness other than a bad
cold. When they loaded him in the ambulance, he was dressed in suit of khaki
clothes with blood all over the pants, that had splashed on him when they
had killed a hog, and he had stuck the hog in the throat that morning before
he took ill.  A nurse came in with a syringe with a needle attached to that
was long enough to put mortal fear into the Governor and he rasped, "Take
that needle out of here! You ain't sticking me with it!" Finally Dr. Moseley
slipped up on his blind side while some attendants got his attention, and
stuck him and the medication got him calmed down. They called in a Dr.
Bernhardt, a cardiac specialist from Oschners in New Orleans, who gave him a
thorough going over, and declared to the family, including Blanche his wife,
that Dr. Moseley had performed everything in the way of medical care that
was fitting and proper, and his fate now rested with the good Lord. The
Governor would recover and not suffer another heart attack until 1959, when
the second one would finally do him in.
	Uncle Earl, and in the middle of his first full elected term as Governor,
in the mid-fifties was at his wheeling-dealing best. Even though he had
frequent run-ins with the political crowd in New Orleans, every morning he
would spread the Times Picayune out on his desk every morning and read it
from cover to cover religiously. One day he saw in the paper that his
arch-enemy State Senator John Schwegemann, who owned a string of
"super-centers' in the New Orleans area that sold everything from groceries
to passenger car tires, had half-inch galvanized pipe on sale. Earl had
dubbed him "Water Ham" Schwegemann because one time he had bought one of his
hams on sale, and found out that a major portion of the weight of the ham he
had paid for was made up of water the retailing magnet had injected into his
hams to make them weigh more, and thus fetch a higher price, resulting in a
greater margin of profit. To the Governor this was nothing but cheating the
public and committing highway robbery, but his hogs up at the "Pea Patch"
were burning up from lack of water, so Earl could temporarily forgive "Water
Ham" to get a bargain on pipe which would be used to bring sweet relief to
his porkers in the midst of a severe drought.
The Governor grabbed his retinue of State Troopers assigned as bodyguards,
hopped in the big, black Cadillac "limo" and down the Airline Highway they
sped to New Orleans. They pulled up to the big supermarket in Jefferson
Parish and the Governor went in and started harassing the sales clerk,
trying to drive the best bargain he could browbeat him into on the proposed
purchase of the pipe.
	 Meanwhile the bodyguards gathered up the 10 joints of pipe about 30 feet
long that Earl had finally purchased, toted it out to where the big Cadillac
was parked, and started trying to figure out how they were going to suspend
the pipe up underneath the car with no rope. They rummaged around in the
house wares department of the super market and finally found several lengths
of window drape gold lame' sash cord. Two of the troopers were down on their
hands and knees, on the scorching hot asphalt, tying the pipe up to the
front bumper, when one looked at the other and asked, "I wonder what the
Governors of the other 49 states are doing right now?"
	 Clem held down a job with the La. Livestock and Brands Commission for 28
years, and was involved from time to time with some rough characters. He
recalled that one of his encounters concerned a gentleman over in LaSalle
Parish who had a reputation of being one tough customer. He had by some
accounts killed several men. One day Clem's boss called him up and said his
office had received several reports of people in the area that were missing
cattle and apparently there was some rustling going on. And to make matters
worse the rustling ring supposedly involved the hard case cattlemen who was
supposed to be a bad actor.
What Clem's boss didn't know was that in his earlier years, when Clem was
still in his teens, and before he had relocated to Winn Parish under Earl's
tutelage, he had ridden into Jena with a fellow who had a bar and dance hall
at Whitehall he worked for. At the time the main street of Jena was lined
with bars, saloons, and even sported a beer garden with a palmetto-thatched
roof.
	Clem's 's boss wanted to drink a beer and was sitting there in the saloon
minding his own business when in comes the dude with the bad reputation and
began verbally attacking Clem's boss by accusing him of not paying for a cow
he had bought from him. Clem's boss told him one time, and one time only,
that he had paid for the cow and he considered the matter closed. The fellow
bellowed he was going to get his gun and he'd be right back. Clem's boss
told him icily that he had a .45 and he'd be waiting on him.  The fellow
never came back. Clem's boss finished his beer, walked out and with a glance
up and down the street crawled in his car and they headed back to Whitehall.
	Clem was aware of the back down in that confrontation when his nervous boss
wanted Clem to go with him to talk to the "hard case" to get the rustling
matter cleared up. They drove up to the man's house and he invited them in
for coffee. Clem stated his case and the man suddenly stated he knew that
Clem and his boss were right, and his letting the matter of the missing
cattle get out of hand was his fault. He assured them he would get the
matter cleared up the next day, stood up and shook hands with them, and that
ended that. Clem's boss emitted a huge sigh of relief when they drove away
from the fellow's house.
	Clem Huffman has come a long way from his humble beginnings on the bank of
French Forks River. He was privy to a side of Earl Kemp Long that the public
never saw. One particular day three reporters from New Orleans drove up to
the Pea Patch farm to get an interview with Earl and it happened Earl and
three of his friends had just killed four hogs, and were preparing to scrape
the hair off them. The hog butchers were in the process of getting one
suspended to souse him in a barrel of scalding hot water to set the hair for
scraping. They had stuck the all hogs, and all of them had blood on their
person. The reporters were decked out in seersucker suits, white shirts and
ties and "perforated" shoes. One of them turned around and asked a State
Trooper, "Which one's the Governor?"
	In Clem Huffman's eyes this incident personified Earl K. Long, who was
always doing the unexpected, and receiving great acclaim for his actions,
good and bad. He helped a lot of Louisianians in his own way, and in order
to accomplish this he had to know people and human nature. In using this
talent he became one of Louisiana's most famous native sons. And most of the
time his good friend Clem Huffman was right there by his side, ready to
assist if needed.

W&WE (1-29-03) Jack Morgan Willis