MOVIN TO CAMP PLAUCHE

Still living in New Orleans my father has found employment with Hartford Insurance Co. as a Boiler Inspector, but must pass his National Board Examination in order to obtain the job. This a very difficult exam and he said it was the most difficult exam he ever took. As all of this is going on money is scarce and we move again to Camp Plauche, Harahan, LA on the western outskirts of New Orleans. It was near the Huey P. Long Mississippi River bridge in Jefferson Parrish and was originally known as Camp Harahan. Camp Plauche was renamed in honor of Major Jean Baptiste Plauche, who served under Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. During WWII, Camp Plauche was first, a staging area for troops, then, an Army training facility and, later on, with training needs on the wane, Camp Plauche became a POW camp. Three thousand Italian prisoners were held there and all the rest were German prisoners, mainly from Gen. Rommel's "Afrida Korps." It was also an important Animal Remount Station (point of embarkation and debarkation for Army horses and mules; thousands came through Camp Plauche on their way to the Pacific and European Theaters). From war's end until the mid-1950's, the barracks were used as apartments for veterans which also had a hospital, located on the river side of Jefferson Highway. My own family lived in one of the 610 apartments briefly during 1949 to 1951, Elmwood industrial Park now occupies the land once used for Camp Plauche.

Living at Camp Plauche in a second floor apartment starts a new beginning for my mother and father. My mother goes to school to become a Cosmetologist to make extra money while my dad prepares for his Boiler Inspector exam. After lots of effort both have passed their exams and life is looking much better. Both start their new jobs and we are starting to eat less beans. Now that my dad is working for Hartford Insurance Co. he gets a company car to travel to the locations to make his inspections, a 1949 black Chevy coupe which can be used for family use also. This of course is a big plus for any family after the war and opens a lot of opportunities for our family, especially family activities. One of the first places I can remember going on is we were taken to Lake Pontchartrain Beach which also had an Amusement Park. Everyone was excited except for my mother not liking the Beach idea as she could not swim nor could I, but my dad was a good swimmer. We all go to the beach house to change into our bathing suits which are identified men or women/black or white. This will be the first time for me ever to have a bathing suite and will be my first experience to see my father naked, didn't think much of it except he had white hair on his head and black "down there", I was having the best time ever with my dad or at least I thought I was.

Time has come to go into the water and I really don't have any idea you have to know how to swim, the water is feeling so cool and refreshing, after many days and nights in our very hot apartment. What is about to happen I will never forget and was embedded in me forever! As I am getting deeper and deeper into the water I start to realize that my Asthma is starting to act up a little, but don't want this to stop the good time I am having. My father seems to think I am doing O.K. but in reality I'm not. He must of taken his eye's off of me for a second and the undertow pulled me over my head. With my Asthma condition it does not take long and I am breathing water and drowning. I can still remember seeing the air bubbles going past my eyes and for an instant not breathing but still alive. Just when you think the end is near a hand reaches down and grabs me by the hair, bringing me to the surface, yes, it is my Dad, my hero! They revive me and I have the crap scared out of me. We then go to the Amusement Park that night and seeing a big clown you could climb into which I wanted nothing to do with or anything else, lets go home to the hot apartment.

Day's at Camp Plauche seemed fine to me after Lake Pontchartrain and playing with the kids in the Camp was just fine. There were a lot of girls in the complexes, so one day, playing with the "Twins", two sweet girls, they decided we should play under the apartments which were on columns about 3 feet off the ground. Thinking, what can possibly happen to me after almost drowning. Little did I know the "Twins" have something else on their mind than playing. They want to explore juvenile 101 anatomy and become Gloria and Dora the Explorer. This does not take long for us to find out no one has any idea what we are looking at or touching and thus ends with none of us ever playing together again. My sister told on us, she was the oldest.

Camp Plauche will be the first place I remember Christmas and actually knowing you get presents. I don't remember having a tree but we did have some lights. My dad decided that all of the kids would each get a bicycle for Christmas. In preparation for this he decided to build a shed with a hasp and lock as bicycles were hot on the list for thieves. We got our new bikes on the 25th and I was the first to put a dent in mine, really to little to ride it.

Sometimes my dad would take me with him on his new job to have some fun with me. One time he took me to JAX Brewery in downtown New Orleans on 600 Decatur St. across from Jackson Square, in heart of French Quarter, now a commercial mall. The 110 year old JAX Brewery was designed and constructed by German born and educated architect Dietrich Einsiedel in 1891. It was the largest independent brewery in the south and tenth largest single-plant brewery in the country. This will be my first experience as to what a Marine Engineer/Boiler Inspector does. I can remember going inside this very large boiler and looking up and seeing all those tubes and wondering where they went. Some time later I will find out! By this time I had established a very distinctive Southern Cajun accent, almost not like the English Language. When my dad would take me with him to make his inspections the men at the plant would ask my dad, let that boy talk that shit, and I would put on my show for them, thinking I was funny. What will come later from being funny won't be so funny.

During all this my parents find out that even though we are living in Camp Plauche my father is not considered a Veteran and find this out during a visit to hospital thinking he will be entitled to all the Veterans benefits and GI Bill. This is what a Marine Engineer would call, being left hanging over a hot steam line or should say, left hanging by our Government.