Linda was Uncle Earl’s protege by James Ronald Skains “I wasn’t around much for the Congressional campaign in 1960,” Linda Huffman Cox told the Piney Woods Journal. “I had already gone to beautician school by the time the campaign started.” “Mr. Earl really wanted me to be a veterinarian,” Linda recalled. “At the time, LSU didn’t have a Vet School but Mr. Earl told me that he would get me a full scholarship to either Texas A&M or a school in Tennessee that had a Vet School.” “He talked to me several times about going to Vet School but I had my heart sat on being a beautician,” Linda explained. “So as soon as I graduated, I headed to Alexandria to start beautician school.” “Another thing that Mr. Earl talked to me about during my senior year in school was politics,” Linda said with a laugh. “He tried several times to explain to me the difference in a Republican and a Democrat and a liberal and a conservative.” “I never could understand it the way he thought I should, so finally he said, Shug, don’t try to understand the difference, just always remember that you are a Democrat,” Linda noted with amusement at the memory of fifty years ago. “One thing that Mr. Earl liked to do that always ended up to my liking was that he liked to go visiting in the afternoon,” Linda remembered. “He would say something like this to my Dad, ”Clem, I want to go up and see Joe Jones." “Mr. Earl would say, ‘Clem, you remember how to get there, you go up 499 through Sikes and turn left at that old barn. You go down that road about a half mile and turn right at that big ole hickory tree. His house is down about a quarter. You remember he’s got a picket fence that has picket missing off the front gate.’” “Mr. Earl had a fantastic memory which I guess you needed if you were going to be successful in politics like he was,” Linda noted. “On those afternoon trips we would usually visit three or four families before heading back to Winnfield.” “Mr. Earl always wanted to go to Dick Porter’s Drug Store when we got back to town,” Linda said with a laugh. “That was the part I liked best because Mr. Earl would always buy me a big ice cream cone.” “Mr. Earl would also pick up a bunch of daily newspapers that Mr. Porter got for him every day,” Linda recalled. “Mr. Earl probably stayed up half the night reading the papers.” Linda finished beautician school in Alexandria and then worked for Margie Smith in Winnfield whose husband was related to Earl K. Long. P.K. Smith served one term as State Representative from Winn Parish in the early 1960’s. Smith’s son, Mike Smith served three terms as State Senator beginning in 1996. “After working for Miss Margie for a couple of years, I went back to Beautician School and got my teaching certificate,” Linda stated. “I then came back home and opened my ownbeauty shop in the old Winnfield Hotel.” “The Winnfield Hotel had been a hot bed of politics while Mr. Earl was alive,” Linda noted. “That was where the visitors from all over the state would stay when they came up to see Mr. Earl at the Pea Patch Farm.” Linda Huffman Cox’s remembrance of Earl Long will be continued. |