Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 43

DATE:                        January 7, 1996 

INTERVIEWER:      Jim Delahoussaye

LOCATIONS:           At Russell Daigle’s house at 1036 Lee Charles St., Franklin, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana.

COOPERATORS:   Russell Daigle; Gale Daigle; Matthew Daigle

 Continued from Chapter 42

 Russell:         People think shrimp spawn in the bay.  They don’t.  They spawn in the Gulf and they come in in the larva stage.

 JD:      And it’s possible that’s what this lil eel is doing.  Coming up to these big lakes in the larval stage and growing there until they ready to go back out to…to finish growing in the Gulf.  I’m just sayin that’s possible.  Uh, because I’ve never heard of anybody saying that they saw a big, big one in a lake anywhere, like y’all say y’all catch in the passes in your butterfly nets.

 Russell:         I never have seen a big, big one in the lakes.  I’ve seen quite a few in the Gulf.  I’ve seen em all the way out to thirty fathoms. 

 JD:      So, I want to take one, uh…I want to take some to this professor friend of mine and see if he can tell me how to find out what their life cycle is…and I’ll tell y’all about it.  Just for interest, just for interest sake.

 Perch traps.  Live perch.  How did you always catch live perch? 

 Russell:         Traps, and fishin. 

 JD:      Fishin with a hook?

 Russell:         Umhm.  Lil bitty hook.  When I was a kid, that used to be a daily routine.  When I was 8, 10 years old, I guess.  , the Old Man, every day, me and him and Momma.  Get in the boat and go up the bayou.  Find a brush pile somewhere and sit there and catch two or three hundred. 

 JD:      What [kind of line] to bait?  For what bait?

 Russell:         Fish goujons with. 

 JD:      What did you use for bait to catch the lil…?

 Russell:         Shrimp.   Lil bitty piece of shrimp.  You peel the shrimp and squeeze a lil piece out and put it on a hook. 

 JD:      And that’s what they’d bite on, huh?  Every day…y’all did that?

 Russell:         Oh yeah.  Regular as a clock.

 JD:      Well, that covers all the bait.  You want to take a break? 

 Russell:         You got much more?

 JD:      Well, uh, there’s a lot we could talk about, but uh, I’m gonna come back. 

 [WE TAKE A BREAK HERE.  WHEN WE START AGAIN RUSSELL’S WIFE, GALE AND THEIR SON HAVE COME IN.  WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE MOVE FROM THE LEVEE TO THE OXFORD COMMUNITY ON BAYOU TECHE]

 JD:      I had no idea that y’all lived…

 Gale:     We was the first one in there.

 JD:      Y’all were the first house to move from the levee to Oxford?

 Russell:         I didn’t move [the trailer] there.  I had a trailer on the levee. What I did I went and bought a new one…

  Gale:    And they put our new one there [at Oxford]. 

 Russell:         Instead of haul it to the levee, I put it direct there [at Oxford].

 Gale:     We was the first one out there.

 Russell:         I sold the one I had at the levee.

 JD:      I see.  How about EJ [Russell’s brother]?  He moved to Oxford too?

  Gale:      They moved out there, it was us, then there was EJ, then it was Bonita, and then, uh, along come Flo and them, and then they started movin the houses in.  But it was us, EJ, Bonita, and all of tiem.  Cause me, EJ and Bonita and them, we walked [?] the whole trip, by ourselves.

 JD:      Were those all trailers?

  Gale:      All trailers.

 JD:      OK, and then…and then moved the houses. 

  Gale:     But we were there first.  We stayed out there two or three weeks, almost a month before they moved anybody else in.   We was the first ones there.  Cause on the hill over there, where the church is?  They had a big house, and it was some colored people, and they used to watch my trailer, until we got it set up.  My trailer was there before we was there.  Cause they couldn’t get in there because it was so muddy.  It kept raining and raining and rainin.   But they would watch…but they would watch my trailer.  And then Blue [and husband EJ] and them come along, and then Bonita and them, and then they started movin the trailers [from the levee] …Joseph and them, and then, uh, a couple months later here come the houses.

 Russell:         It wasn’t that long, about two weeks after we had moved in, they started movin the houses. 

  Gale:       Movin the houses comin in.  They moved em through the cane fields. 

 JD:      You remember, Russell, when y’all crossed the levee?  When you pulled across the levee…when you pulled the houseboat across the levee?  You and EJ were little kids, then, weren’t you?

 Russell:         Very small.  Very small. 

 JD:      And your brother…your brother, Jesse junior, was still alive then, too. 

 Russell:         Uh, we moved there [across the levee] I must have been about 12 years old, I guess, when we pulled over the levee. 

 JD:      Did you have an opportunity to go to school at that schoolhouse on, on the levee?

 Russell:         Yeah. 

 JD:      Did you go there all…I think it was there three or four years.  Did you go all three or four years? 

 Russell:         I don’t remember Jim.  I went to school there, and uh, left from there, I went to school in town, here.  That’s so long ago, I don’t know…I think I went a couple years at the Point, and a couple years in town.  

 JD:      I have  a good bit of information about that school that got set up on the levee.  Apparently, it was…I have…one person told me that it was a Baptist missionary that set the school up…

 Russell:         What they call…Brother Marks. And the Lil Brown Church. He used to travel the Basin with. 

 JD:      Well, now, I’m talking about a building.  Not a…not a floating…I’m talking about a building [at Myette Pt.].

 Russell:         Yeah. He’s the one set up the school. He had…that’s some government barracks they tore down.  And he bought a bunch of them government barracks and then one of em brought it down.

 JD:      So, the Baptist missionaries bought the barracks and had em set up, and then the government paid a teacher to come and live there?

 Russell:         I don’t know who paid for it.

 JD:      Because a teacher came and lived there, for four years.

 Russell:         Several teachers had came in there.  Yeah.  One of em was a missionary. Miss Carter Hazen, I believe, was one of em.  I’m pretty sure that was her name. She stayed out there two, three years.

 JD:      Yeah. And apparently, she was pretty well liked by everybody.

 Russell:         Nice person. 

 JD:      The story goes [that] your daddy…your daddy really enjoyed her company too.  Just friendly, like. 

 Russell:         She was real nice, as far as I can remember.  I was small.  But, I still can see her.   Pretty tall lady.

 JD:      And she taught all the grades? 

 Russell:         Yeah.  I believe the highest they had there was about 8^th.  [?].  I think I was in second grade when I went there. 

 JD:      Y’all didn’t have much of an opportunity for school back then, did y’all? 

 Russell:         Most of em did.  Those, uh, from the time we moved across the levee, then we started, uh, it uh…come…catch their bus at, uh, right at the crossroads, there, where…we used to walk that.  They’d bring us out in the morning.  Myon used to bring us out in the morning; we’d walk back in the evening.

 JD:      That’s a good walk.  

 Russell:         I used to make that in 10 minutes.  I used to head off that bus; I never slowed down till I get home.  I wanted to go huntin.  Yeah.  Go squirrel huntin, go hunt somethin.  Lot of time, 10, 12 minutes I was home.  I remember one day I got off the bus.  And it was me, Harry Lange, I don’t know if you know him or not. Harry Lange, and who else was Harvey Smith…somebody else…three boys about the same age.  We hit it, podnuh, we hit it at a full…at a good fast trot.  We got home; we hit the front porch.  My side was hurtin, that’s the last thing I remember.  I woke up in the hospital.  Acute appendicitis.  That’s the last thing I remember.  I hit the front porch, I was staggerin in the house, and I didn’t remember nothin til about, uh, 24 hours later I woke up in the hospital. 

 JD:      In Franklin?

 Russell:         Yeah. 

 JD:      How’d…how’d you get to the hospital?

 Russell:         I guess Momma and them brought me.  But, I had acute appendicitis.  I run a fever high enough to where I was delirious. I think that’s the onlyest time I been to the hospital in my life. 

JD:      I guess appendicitis was one thing you didn’t treat, out there.  You had to go in for something like that. 

Russell:         But uh…I forget how old I was, probly about 12 I guess.  Somewhere along in there. 

 JD:      How would people treat, uh, sickness that y’all didn’t have to go to the doctor for?  Do you remember any of the remedies that the old people used to use on y’all? 

 Russell:         Lot of quinine in the wintertime. It works too.

 JD:      Against what?

 Russell:         Colds, and flues, and stuff. 

 JD:      How did they…how did y’all take it?

 Russell:         When it come on you [a sickness], you start takin your quinine when winter start.  One tablespoon every morning. 

 JD:      Liquid?

 Russell:         Yeah.  You remember that 360 mix, used to make a liquid quinine three sixes.   666, it written on the bottle.  And that sucker’s effective.  Never catch a cold.

 JD:      Is that right?  Y’all would take it when it would start getting cold?

 Russell:         Winter was comin on, you start takin your quinine. 

  Gale:   And then y’all would take cod…

 Russell:         Cod liver oil.

  Gale:       I did that.  I remember that.  And I remember if we cut ourself, or stuck a nail or something, Daddy would [treat it with] tallow.  The tallow.

 JD:      He would put tallow on wherever y’all stuck the nail, or something like that?

  Gale:       Umhm.  Stuck a nail, or a cut, or anything, the tallow.

 JD:      Tallow, now, you talking about fat…hog fat?

 Russell:         No, tallow comes from a beef.

 JD:      Oh, beef tallow, OK.  I guess if it’s a hog you call it lard, huh. [laughs]  Did uh, did y’all have any kind of tradition with whisky roaches, or was that only Myon’s family that did that? 

 Russell:         I heard about it.  I never did, uh…I don’t know what they used to take that for.  Put roaches in a bottle and drink the whisky.

 JD:      Alcohol.  Yeah, yeah.  They used to rub it on stuff, everything, too.  How about fever and everything?  How did they…y’all have any memory how they treated fever?

 Russell:         Aspirins, I guess.  That’s all they had, them days, aspirin.  I guess, uh…aw hell, Jim, there ain’t nobody really got sick them days.  When, right now they get a cold, run to the doctor, or they get to feel bad they go to the doctor.  Them days you just set and waited it out, let the body heal itself. That’s what we used to do.  I caught the flu one time, uh, remember that time we brought that lumber, to that mill to have sawed to build that barge?  I caught the flue right there.  And I stayed in bed for about 10 days. 

JD:      That long?!

 Russell:         And I didn’t go to no doctor.  And uh, we didn’t run to the doctor for every lil thing that would…now they tell you eat this, don’t eat that, that ain’t no good for you!  People lived just as long then, as they do now, if not longer.  And now they tell you what you can eat, what’s good for you and what ain’t no good.  They tell you you got high cholesterol, everybody got high cholesterol these days.  They never had no such a thing like that them days!  [laughs]  I guess they had a few deaths that could have been avoided, but most people lived to be a ripe old age.

  Gale:  You needed to talk to that lady that just died.  She was 98 years old.  The one died on that…that bayou.

 JD:      Oh, oh.  Myrtle…Myrtle Burns? 

 Russell:         You knew her?

 JD:      I met her, and I know people who know her real well.  And uh, I’ve got stories on tape of how her daddy killed that man across the channel, with a rifle.

  Gale:     He killed him?

 Russell:         Yeah he killed im.   Old Man Doozie Burns daddy.  Nick, Nick Burns. 

  Gale:       He got away with it? 

 JD:      Yeah, it was never reported to the sheriff, apparently.

 Russell:         Well, it was either the way…the way Doozie told me, it was either kill him or get killed.

 JD:      That’s what it was.  That’s what I heard too.  That’s what I heard too. The Old Man was comin across the…in a pirogue...

 Russell:         In a pirogue with a loaded shotgun…double ought buckshot.

 JD:      That’s right, and he was on his way to kill Nick Burns, so Nick Burns never let him get to the bank.  He killed im in the pirogue.  They buried him in Jeanerette, I understand.  His name was Chauvin, or uh, Chastain, or something like that.  I have all that down.

 Russell:         Yeah, it was Doozie Burns daddy and another…that other big boy used to live up there with his daddy, used to be good friends with him, I can’t think of his name right now. 

 JD:      Doozie Burns, that must have been Myrtle’s uh, brother then?

 Russell:         Yeah.

 JD:      And she just died last week.

 Russell:         You live 95 years, that’s a good, long stretch.

 JD:      And she was still livin by herself on the lev…I mean on the canal, on the bank of the bayou.

  Gale:   One of her nephews went out there to go huntin, when he got up he talked to her and everything.  He left to go huntin.  When he come back she was dead. 

 Russell:         He talked to her 20 minutes before she died.  He said he left…uh…he was over there talking with her.  They got a camp right by there.  He left, go to the camp, he say he just had got to the camp, put some coffee on, here come somebody tell [him] the old lady was dead.  So, she just, I guess, laid down and just went to sleep. 

 JD:      Well, I can think of a lot worse ways to go.

  Gale:      She never would move to town.

 Russell:         You couldn’t get her in town.  That old boy I was telling you about, Son Burns, that was Son, good friend with [Nick Burns].  He was about 10 years older than me, I guess, and we used to run around together when we were boys.  And then we moved…we moved away from there, probly 30 years ago.

 JD:      Away from the…away from the river?

 Russell:         Yeah.  Moved to Jeanerette. 

 JD:      Well, Russell, I tell you what, I think what I’d like to do is come back and talk to you again, uh, when you have…when you…when you…another time when you not in the middle of doin something.  Uh, what I’m gonna do…what I’d like to do is this.  I’m gonna write up what I have and remember I told you that once I’ve written up what I have, then we have something to go over.  And you said you’d prefer I come over here and read it to you.  So that we could go over it together rather than me send it to you and have you read it on your own.  Is that still what you’d like to do?

 Russell:         Yeah, you can tell me what you need more, and what you don’t. 

 JD:      Yeah, yeah.  Well you see when I write up stuff like uh, like uh, boats and stuff like that, I’ll write up everything that I have, and then when you see it all in one place you tell me “Well, you missed this” or “That’s not quite right, it was like that”.  And that way I can make it better.  But what I have to do now is write it up. 

 Russell:         If you gone write everything you put on that paper [tape] you got a lot of writin to do. 

 JD:      I do.  I do.  It’s a two stage thing.  I have to type everything that’s on the tape.  Now the kind of thing we talking about right now, no, I mean, that’s just conversation, but…

  Gale:   Kind of exciting, though, huh?

 JD:      Yes.  And when there’s stuff on there that I need, then I have to type all that out on a…I have a laptop computer that I use, so I can sit there and type in all out on the computer while I’m listening to it on the tape.  And, it takes me about two hours to type every hour that we sit here, ‘cause it’s just stop, start, stop, start over…and so on.  But that’s just the first stage.  When I get all of that typed, then I take that and I go back and take the information from it and write it up according to this outline.  And it’s when I write it up from the outline that I’d like to come back and talk with you about what I have.  Also, there’s a lot of pictures, I’m gone need a lot of pictures.  Get pictures of all the tools.  I’m writin stuff as…as detailed as what kind of knot do you use when you tie a sinker on a main line.  Nobody knows that.  I mean, it’s…it’s not hard, but unless you say it, they won’t know how you did it.  And that’s a very simple knot, but it’s something that…it works, just perfectly for tying that sinker on that main line.  Another thing is, the knot that you use to tighten the main line, when there’s too much slack in it?  I’ve never run across anybody else who knows what that knot is.  It’s…it’s…it’s very simple, but nothing works like that. 

 Russell:         It’s a half bowlin, is what it is. 

 JD:      Yeah.  Still, you know, when you got that long loop and pull on that loop and it’ll snap open like that, but, nobody else knows about that.  What you got? [has a picture of a catfish] How big is that?

  Gale:   93 pounds, or 96 pounds.

 JD:      That’s a blue cat?

  Gale:      Umhm.

 Russell:         Caught on a 2/0 hook.

 JD:      Come on!  Where?

 Russell:         In the bay, fishin at Belle Isle. 

  Gale:   That’s Paul holdin him, Jim.  He couldn’t get it all the way up.  Paul was the tallest one out there, and he still couldn’t get it all the way up. 

 Russell:         Weighed 93 ½ pounds, it was 93 or 97 ½ pounds, I don’t remember exactly.  I should of wrote it on the picture.

 JD:      Boy, that is a huge fish!  On a 2/0 hook!?  How’d you get him in the boat?

 Russell:         With my gaff.  Feel like it weigh 10 pounds when you see something that big [adrenalin].  Never did pull!  Never did pull.  What he did, he got hooked and he rolled, and the main line tied around one of them big fins.  Rolled around one of them big fins! He never did pull. 

 JD:      Son of a gun!  He just came right to the top?

 Russell:         Yeah.  Come up…put the gaff in his tail.  But that’s what I go for if it’s a big fish, I go for the tail.  Once you take the tail away from [him], he can’t pull no more.   Take that gaff and put it anywhere by that butter fin back there, and he ain’t got no more power.  He can’t pull…you get his tail out the water, he can’t do nuttin.  I just set there and hold him till he quieten down. 

  Gale:   You miss fishin, Jim?

 JD:      Oh yes!  I miss it.  The best thing I ever did.  There’s pieces of it I miss more than other pieces.  I don’t miss the getting up on cold mornings and going out there.  I don’t miss your hands hurtin every morning when you wake up.  I don’t miss that.

  Gale:    On pretty, warm summer days, we could go out there and fish…that’s what I…

 JD:      When the lines don’t get hung up, and the bait’s easy to get, and the fish are bitin…I miss all that.  You know how often that happens, huh, Russell?  [not very, not all at once].   Maybe a couple times a year, that happens like that?

 Russell:         Aw, it was fun like the other morning I went put that 300 hooks out.  I went down there and caught all them big blue cats.  Boy, that was pretty!

 JD:      What kind of lines?

 Russell:         Eh?  Them lines I went and put in Bayou Carlin.  Lil crossins….  I put three bents in the bay out there in one place, and they had three blue cats on it…weighed right at 100 pounds.  Well, I was surprised day before yesterday when I went.  The day before there wasn’t nothin, and day before yesterday they had fish again.  It works with the weather.  You take when you get, uh, when you get a cold spell, norther like this here, it pushes that marsh dry…them fish come out.

 JD:      They in the marsh usually?  Those big catfish?

 Russell:         Aw yeah.  All in the marsh.

 JD:      In shallow water?

 Russell:         Yeah.  It’ll push em out, and then when they…they out a couple of days, they hungry on their way back in, and that’s when they bite.

 Matthew:  [this is Russell and Gale’s son]     They got some duck ponds we hunt and the water drops out…

 Russell:         You know what’s eatin your fish out there?

 Matthew:   Gar?

 Russell:         Otters. He say something eatin the belly out the fish.  After he told me that I thought about it.  Otters, ‘cause we had that problem already.  Down at Belle Isle, down there on them bars?  Man, they’ll tear you up. 

 Matthew:     When the water go rock bottom low, you can see them big catfish…from the duckblind?...you can see the fins swimmin.   Can’t get to em, but you can see em swimmin. 

 Russell:         You know that pond goes all the way to that big location in, uh, Bayou Carlin over there?  I got a line right where it goes in there. 

  Gale:  You not goin out to Jackson Bayou this week? 

 Matthew: Uh, huntin season ends around the 11^th. 

 Russell:         That’s why I’ll be glad when it close. 

 JD:      Why?

 Russell:         Cause you’ll be able to fish out there.  Them duck hunters will quit cutting my lines all up.  They not [taking the fish], they just runnin. 

 JD:      You talking about those lines that are under water?

 Russell:         Umhm.  That’s when the water…the tide goes out, they’ll run over and cut em.

 JD:      Well, that’s why I was surprised that you…you tyin those lines so that the motors can still hit em, uh…

 Russell:         Well, when duck season is closed there’s so many places people don’t go.    Like uh, way up high on the beach, hardly ever a boat pass 100 yards from the beach.  Well, you put your lines inside of that. Well, when duck season open they want to see how close they can run.  See if they can spook a duck up.  So they can shoot im out the boat. [laughs].

 JD:      Well, I’m gone to wrap it up.  And, I sure appreciate your information Russell.  And your time.

 Russell:         I don’t know what I told you [that was of value].

 JD:      You told me a lot.  You told me a lot, believe me!  You really did! 

 Russell:         You know they…they the first one that pulled the camp over the levee… Roy Millet?

 JD:      Bootsie Millet? 

 Russell:         Yeah, first ones. 

 JD:      They were the first ones?  People seem to be confused about…not you…but other people seem to be…have in mind that it was other people, like, like one of em was Edward’s daddy, Albert Couvillier?  And other people seemed to think it was Lester, Edward’s brother.

 Russell:         Uhuh.  Not Lester for sure, it could have been Albert, it’s a possibility, I don’t remember right, but not Lester.  But, we had been over the levee a long time before Lester pulled his over. 

 JD:      And, some people thought it might have been Abner. 

 Russell:         No, it wasn’t Abner.  It could have been the Old Man hisself.  Old Man, Edward’s daddy, it could a been him.  I, I could be wrong there. But, it was either him or Bootsie, one of them two was the first ones over the levee. 

 JD:      And then, over a period of a couple of years, people just would pull over every once in a while…they’d pull over.

 Russell:         Just pull their camp to the edge and hook a winch truck on it, and…

 JD:      The winch truck came from the…sugar mill? 

 Russell:         I believe some of em did, way I understand.

 JD:      Well, how did people find a winch truck?  I mean…what would they do?

 Russell:         Go hire.

 JD:      Hire one, in town?

 Russell:         Them days you could probly hire one all day for $100.

 JD:      Or less. 

 Russell:         And it wasn’t nothin, just pull em over, get em where you want em.  Leave em sit there. And jack em up later. 

 Matthew:  They had the wooden barges under em, daddy?

  Gale:  Umhm. 

 Matthew:  Matter of fact, Jerry and them got a camp with the old cypress barge under…still underneath of it.

 JD:      Who does?

 Matthew:   Jerry Naquin and them.  They bought a camp on…[?] they bought a camp in Beehive Chute, still got the wooden cypress barge. Yeah. It’s about 40 X 20.  And on the edge of the barge you can see how when they would…when they would pull it out on the bank they used to drain it.  They had big wooden plugs that tap into the back of the camp.  It’s still…I just remembered that, it’s still in Beehive Chute.  They had it jacked up on pilings, but hurricane Andrew knocked it off the pilings, but the camp’s still out there with the wooden barge. 

 JD:      It floats?

 Matthew:  No, it don’t float no more, you can see the gaps…big cypress planks like that…all the way…you can still see where they caulked in between them.

 JD:      Can you get that from land?  Or you have to go to it by boat?

 Matthew:  Gotta go by boat. 

 JD:      Beehive Chute?  Now, that’s goin up from Charenton, following the lake as far as you can go up in Charenton.  Is it that first left…big left…that big chute to…

 Russell:         You remember where Miller Chute was at, eh?

 JD:      Aw Russell, it’s been a long time…

 Russell:         Crewboat Chute, then you got Miller Chute…straight across from there they got a chute that goes up to Beehive…it goes back hit GA Cut.

 Matthew:  It looks like a city over there.

 JD:      Really?

 Russell:         Oh, there must be 30 camps along Beehive Chute.

 Matthew: They got a couple camps still on wooden barges out there.

 Russell:         About a quarter mile stretch.

 JD:      Some on land, still on wooden barges?

 Matthew:  Yeah.

 JD:      Boy, I’d like to get some pictures of that.  I might have to take a ride up there. 

 [taking pictures of Russell, Gale, and Matthew]

 JD:      I have some bad news for you, about that other thing you talking about.  Uh, the other day, when we were at that meeting with Helen [Vinton], at the church when she wanted to finish up the coop stuff and all that?  She said that she had been informed by that…that guy that they were not gonna publish the article.  And that she tried to get the pictures back because she thought the pictures would be valuable for something later on.  And they told her the pictures didn’t belong to her, they belonged to the…to the magazine, because it was their person.  So apparently, we can’t even get copies [of the pictures]. 

 Matthew: Come back during crawfish season and we’ll take you out and…

 JD:      Well, you see that’s what I need to do, I need to take a lot of pictures. 

 Matthew: Well, that guy who got…who just published this book.  He spent four years around lake Fausse Pointe area.  The whole Atchafalaya Basin.  You got mostly pictures of the Cypress trees, you got the oldest cypress tree, they just found it last year.  In the Atchafalaya Basin, the oldest cypress tree in the world.

 JD:      Have you seen the book?

 Matthew:  Yes, buddy of mine got the book. 

 Russell:         How he knows that’s the oldest cypress tree in the world? 

 Matthew:  He counts the knees around…

 Russell:         That’s bullshit.

 Matthew: A cypress tree will produce a knee a year…

 Russell:         Bullshit.  I can show you cypress trees that big [12 inches?] got a forest of cypress knees around it. 

 Matthew:  No, this one has 600 or 700.  [laughs]

 JD:      It’s a big tree.  This fellow’s name is Greg Guirard, the guy who wrote that book.

 Matthew:  Oh, you know him? 

 JD:      Yeah, I know him.  He’s from Catahoula.  And, he’s written three or four books about the Atchafalaya Basin.

 Russell:         I tell you what that fellow’s doin, he writes down what he wants people to believe.

 JD:      He did point out this tree.  But I think the one that I remember he pointed out was in St. Francisville.  It’s 56 feet around.

 Matthew:  Yeah, they had four people standin on it?

 JD:      That’s the [picture with] the Basin Brothers, you talking about.  Inside the tree, I remember they were all standing around inside it and everything. 

 Matthew:  Got a picture of a 13 or 14 foot alligator.  That’s still alive.

 JD:      You say…you’ve seen the book?

 Matthew:  Yeah, I seen it last week at the camp.

 Fini