This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

The rebuilding of the first camp had to wait until the second was repaired. My father had a local saw mill cut the six fallen pines into 1 x 12 boards to be used as interior paneling throughout the rebuilt, house. There was no outside help- The new 'H' shaped house was completed in 1951 and the rebuilt, camp sold off.
Every weekend and summer the Kraus family headed for the Gulf Coast to a place they called "acrossthelake". The car trip on Highway 90 was our Homer's Odyssey, Who could forget Dead Man's curve. My brother and I had the best of both world. Summers in ClE?rmont Harbor were straw hat perfect for two Old Metairie boys with a black and white dog named Fencer, and were truly endless and forever. Looking back, the one thing that was for certain, the summer days are short and winter days are long. The summer days were cool and the gray winter's were the coldest. We had no hotwater, and only a fireplace for heat. A pot of boiling water in the cold shower helped. On Saturday mornings in the dead of winter, we headed for the beach to pick up driftwood for the fire. The wind was cold and the skies gray. The nights were pitch-black. We were always endlessly stockpiling firewood.
When the long gray winter had finally ended and on the last day of school, my mother would pack our clothes and pick my brother and I up from school, and we all headed for the coast with new bathing suits for the summer. A stop at Fort Pike on the way was a must. When the seats in the bathing suits had finally worn out, it was the sad tell-tale sign that another school year was indeed around the corner. The summer skies were a deep crystal blue with an occasional fluffy white cloud shielded with a straw hat. Our tans were a golden brown. Rain, I don't recall it ever raining.- The early morning sun danced silver off the ripples on the Sound. The crabs caught, off Sandy Bayou culvert were 'full' , fat. Many a full hamper were caught and my father, who had to peel them, finally told us enough was enough. So we sold them for fifty cents a hamper until we ran down at home. Swimming off the Bordage Street pier was from early morning until we tired and the place to meet many new friends. A snowball at Bankston's was a treat for a boy on a thirty five cents a week allowance. I recall ethyl gasoline was nineteen cents a gallon. My father commuted on the train twice during the week from New Orleans to check on or correct us, adjustments made, and he left the next morning. Sunday afternoon's were an endless series of outside 'barbecues' with my father cooking hamburgers. We hand cranked our own peach ice cream. Indeed, life was good and simple. The Saturday nights were left for building a fire on the small beach at the foot of Poinsetta Avenue or floundering. We floundered and softshell crabbed with a flambeau torch until some time 'after the forty-seven' when my father bought a Colman at the Bay. I still believe the light from a flambeau is better, though I must admit, my eyesight was better earlier. There were no telephones nor television sets. The only links to the outside world was the static voice on the radio and the railroad. I can still remember the mailpouch being snatched and pulled into the moving mailcar as the first train passed before the arrival of the passenger train from New Orleans.