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The Mississippi Power Company needed someone to feed its workmen (5). Did I remember to say there were no MacDonalds', Popeyes', or instant meals places? Golly, Mamma sure was lucky to find this place!
Instantly, Mamma and Aunt Mimi became restaurant operators -no contract - just a verbal agreement to supply hot coffee (the cooks threw in hot biscuits) and a hot lunch for fifty cents ($.50) a person. And the "Brennan' s'1 of Clermont came into being.
Since the house was only thirty feet from the wooden bridge the crab nets were lowered at night and the next morning we just gathered enough to make gumbo (and a few for boiling).
Okra gumbo with crabs and shrimp (the likes of which no one has ever duplicated) was the first course every day. It couldn't be called an appetizer because it was a meal in itself. The rest of the menu varied each day - red beans and rice, beef stew, meatballs and spaghetti, cabbage, and always on Friday fried fish and potato salad. And, of course, there was dessert - home made pies.
We (the kids) ate after the men had gone back to work. We didn't pay fifty cents but we had no choice. We ate so much gumbo that for a while we couldn't even look at it.
Over the years our lives meshed with the Ladners, Garcias, Bordages, Kleins, Schaefers, Augustines, Schouests, and the Ortte1 s. ^^Aesrsc s
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We spent our days on the pier, or playing tennis on the Chalona court. (We could use it during the week if we kept it lined.) The Chalonas only came on weekends. Or we played bridge on the porch floor. Mamma had this thing about "no swimming until two hours after eating".
Although there were only fourteen native families many of the "wealthy, professional families" (that's what the weekend visitors were called), had resort homes along the tranquil harbor. There was a hotel, too, and every Saturday night beautifully dressed ladies and gentlemen danced the night away to the music of bands from New Orleans.
We could sit on the back porch of the Ellsworth house and hear the music and we could watch the swaying of the dancers through the open ballroom windows on the second floor of the hotel.
Eventually we were old enough to dance on the pier and at the Pavilion. We danced with the natives during the week and on Saturdays we went to Uncle Charlie's NIGHT CLUB with the New Orleans boys who came on the Saturday excursion.
One night we went to the Pavilion early and left at 9:00 p.m. to keep our dates at 10:00 p.m. to go to Uncle Charlies'. Walking home from the pavilion with our native dates Yvonne and I kept