I stumbled across this the other day while cleaning out files, and given the fact that we’re a month into the 2008 hurricane season, it seems slightly fitting, in an ironic kind of way. I originally covered this event, the luncheon at the Governor’s mansion, in late spring of 2005; yes you guessed it only three months before the biggest debacle in local and arguably national history - Hurricane Katrina.
The irony of it - (besides the fact that Blanco was more or less chased out of town like a meddlesome snake after showing her complete and utter lack of leadership skills in the wake of Katrina) - is that during this luncheon, Blanco made a big deal about Louisiana improving its image.
Damn, somehow I don’t think this was what she had in mind though.
Without further ado…….
Snake Problems at the Governor’s Mansion
His name was Johnny and he was the first person, barring a security cop in the parking lot of the capitol building, I had any contact with when I arrived last Thursday in
Baton Rouge.
I’d received an invitation, the week before, to attend a luncheon at Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco’s mansion. The invitation was to all newspaper editors and publishers in the state and the purpose of the luncheon was for the governor to outline the issues she planned to address during the Legislative Session, which had just kicked off about a week or two prior.
It’s not every day that you get invited to the governor’s mansion to eat lunch, so I figured I would attend, if for no other reason, than to get out of the office for a day.
On my first pass of the governor’s mansion, the place didn’t seem too inviting. The gates were closed and there didn’t appear to be a lot of cars inside. I drove past and then ended up making a circle in front of the capitol building. I parked for a minute and had just climbed out of my car when a security cop told me I couldn’t park where I was.
“I’m with the press,” I assured him. “I’m here for a luncheon with the governor.
Where should I park?”
He instructed me to go back to the governor’s mansion and park in the grass field just on the other side of Capitol Access Road.
I drove back to the grassy field, which was empty, save for a school bus. There was a huge pond, just north of where I was parked and it was there that I saw Johnny.
Johnny was dressed in a blue maintenance uniform of some sort and only when I approached him did I realize he was with the state’s Department of Transportation and Development. DOTD had a large headquarters about a block or two from the governor’s
mansion.
Although I didn’t see anyone fishing, the pond looked like it could have fish in it. I had my fishing pole with me, the Ugly Stik, along with my tackle box.
Out of fear of hitting traffic or not being able to find the place, I left Covington
early that morning. As a result, I was about an hour early for the luncheon. I had time to
kill and, if it was allowed, I was going to go fishing across the street from the governor’s
mansion.
I realized, though, that if it were not allowed, there could be some serious repercussions, especially if legions of newspaper editors and publishers descended upon the scene as I was handcuffed and led away by capitol cops, or worse, members of the governor’s personal security detail.
Ever since 9-11, security folks seem to have lost their sense of humor. What might have been viewed as just “some whacko” fishing in the governor’s pond before the terrorist attacks, might now be viewed as a serious security problem- a threat not to be taken lightly.
I was relieved to see Johnny. He would be able to tell me if it were legal to fish in the governor’s pond.
I got out of my car and walked over toward Johnny. He was a young guy, probably around 24 or 25. He wasn’t very tall but he was wiry and had a strange look in his eye, like the late-morning heat was beginning to get to him. He was holding what appeared to be a broken wooden picket, not unlike the kind used to mount political campaign signs on, in one hand.
“What’s up?” I asked him.
“Killing snakes,” he said.
“Come again?” I said, wondering if I had heard him correctly.
He led me over to a large oak tree and pointed the picket at a pile of snakes he had
stacked. He slid the picket underneath one of them and raised it into the air for my
benefit. The thing was pretty large, at least four feet.
“Ye gods,” I said. “Is that a water moccasin? I thought they were solid black.”
This particular snake was striped with a sort of brown (or dirty red) and black color.
“No,” Johnny said. ‘They have water moccasins in there, but these are all just common water snakes.”
There were about eight dead snakes in the pile. I asked Johnny if fishing was allowed in the pond. He said he thought the ponds were polluted and mentioned he’d seen only a handful of people ever fish there.
“Besides,” he said, “you don’t want to go fishing with all these water snakes hanging around.” He said they weren’t poisonous, but still could hurt pretty bad if they decided to sink their teeth into you.
“So you’re out here just killing snakes?” I asked him.
“Yep,” he said, as if this were normal.
He led me around the pond and began to try to catch his next kill.
“The boss told me to take the day off from cutting grass and told me to just kill snakes today, so that’s what I’m doing,” Johnny said.
He went on to tell me that the warm spring days had marked the start of mating season for the snakes.
“You should see that,” he said, with a slightly demented lilt in his voice. “They get all twined up and they flop and splash across the top of the water. It looks like they’re trying to kill each other. It’s really something to see.”
“That’s weird,” I said. “Almost pornographic.”
On the other side of the pond, Johnny showed me a small nest of duck eggs. He told me the snakes like to eat them.
“If I were you I’d just hang here and wait for one to come along,” I told him.
I asked him how long he’d been at it and he said he started at around six in the morning.
“I was catching them a lot quicker earlier,” he said. “I think they must have figured out I was here, killing all their brothers and sisters.”
For reasons unknown, he seemed to find this funny and he chuckled to himself. Suddenly, in one quick motion, he jabbed the picket at the water, flipped his wrist and tossed another snake up to shore. He smacked it squarely on the head and then drove the pointed end of the picket through the snake’s neck. It writhed spasmodically as blood began to trickle onto the dirt.
He grinned at me and held the thing up. This one was a little smaller, probably only three feet.
Eventually, I excused myself and headed toward the mansion. I was allowed to drive in and, after I’d parked my car, I took a seat on the front porch of the mansion.
There, I met a young black guy who was the editor of a small weekly newspaper from the northeast corner of the state. We made small talk until we were finally admitted into the mansion. Once inside, we were herded into a parlor. Gradually, the room began filling up with editors and publishers. Approximately 40 of us showed for the event
A few moments later, we were led to the dining area.
Blanco appeared and began making the rounds. I shook her hand and told her we met several years ago, during an opening of a rest area, in St. Tammany Parish, when she’d still been lieutenant governor.
She said she remembered me, but I suspected she was lying and that she said this because she probably believed it was the right thing to say.
“You have a snake problem outside you know, Governor,” I finally advised her.
She said knew and that only two weeks ago, some of her family members had come inside from walking around the pond, petrified over the snakes they’d seen.
“Well, it’s okay now,” I told her. “There’s a DOTD guy out there now who has been killing snakes all morning. He has a whole pile of them out there.”
“That’s good,” she said, with a queer and slightly aghast look on hr face before pausing and shaking my hand and breaking to begin her pre-lunch greeting.
Following lunch, Blanco launched into her outline of legislative priorities. Of course, somewhere near the top of the list was economic development.
She concluded that Louisiana still had a lot to do, in terms of improving its image, in order to attract the types of businesses that would create a strong and vibrant economy here in the state. She also said that the state needed to continue to improve education, so that we could turn out students who were capable of performing in high-end technology jobs.
As she continued to speak about how good things were in store for the state’s economy, and how new businesses were beginning to take notice of Louisiana on a daily basis, I glanced outside the window and saw Johnny still stalking around with the picket in his hand, looking for snakes, and knew that the governor was saying these things too, because she thought they were the right things to say and the things that the people wanted to hear.
