By SHERRI TAYLOR
Journal News Editor

Leo Parrie and his wife Ruby will get to hang a special plaque on their walls inside their home on Coon Ridge Road in the Parrie Settlement just outside Zwolle, Louisiana in April. Leo has been chosen to receive the annual Oldest Logger Award at the Zwolle Loggers and Forestry Festival May 9-11. The family's problem will be finding a spot to hang the plaque.

Inside this family home, the walls are already lined with what is most important in life to Leo and Ruby: family. Framed faces of children, grand children, young men in uniform and young women getting married cover the walls of the living space interspersed with emblems symbolizing their deep faith. It isn't difficult to cover the walls like this when you have eleven children, 34 grand children and 32 great grand children as the Parrie's do.

Parrie was born in 1921 which makes him 81 years old this year. Except for his years in the Air Force during World War II, he has lived all his days in the western part of Louisiana, many of them employed by logging contractors.

When he was young and strong, Parrie worked for a company that produced poles for high lines to run electrical wires. They also provided pilings for bridges. Parrie's job was to peel the long poles of any bark attached to them.

"Any bark left on the pole would turn brown," Parrie recalled. "The company wouldn't take that pole."

The day began early for men peeling poles.

"I got up at 2 a.m.," remembers Parrie's wife Ruby. "I'd get his breakfast and then he'd leave for work by 3 a.m." She might get a short nap before the time would come for her to begin to rouse her 11 children and get them fed and dressed for school.

Meanwhile, Parrie would often have to walk to work. Sometimes he walked to town and caught a ride on the log trucks. When he finally got to the job site, Parrie would choose a pole and begin his day. His first job was to clear the limbs, again in a special fashion.

"You had to know just how to cut the knot or it would leave a hole," Parrie said. That meant the pole would not be suitable for a high line. Most of the time he used a double bit ax for the job. At times, especially when working on fence posts, which were shorter, it was necessary to use a draw knife to get the job done just right. Then Parrie would take his tools, which included a flat blade attached to a long handle, and begin peeling each pole. If the pole was more than 40 feet long, he would peel one side and then need help to turn it over. The men used a cant hook to turn the logs.

"There wasn't no trick to it," Parrie said. "You just had to manhandle those logs to turn them." In other words, it took muscle and brute strength to peel poles.

In later years, Parrie ran a chain saw working for Hunt Lumber Company.

"You had to know what you were doing," he told the Piney Woods Journal. "You had to see where the tree was leaning and you had to watch close, especially if there were others cutting close to you. You could get a tree on you easy."

He remembers working in hardwood bottoms where huge trees would settle back on their stumps rather than falling.

"They can come back on you," he said. "It's very dangerous work." However, Parrie made it through years of working in the log woods of Western Louisiana without a drastic accident, except for once when he let a chain saw blade come too close.

"I was cutting a tree up high," Parrie indicated a spot above his head, as if holding a chainsaw. "When I made the cut, the chainsaw cut through the tree trunk fast and I couldn't hold it. It cut into my leg just inside my left knee."

On the weekends, as a young man, Parrie enjoyed going to dances around the community.

"We didn't have any shoes when we were young," said Mrs. Ruby Parrie. "They'd take an old pair of grandpa's shoes and fix them with tacks. About half way into the night, those tacks would come out and stick in his feet." She remembered dancing all night and working all day.

Then came Sunday and the family walked to church. For Parrie when he was a boy, that meant about five miles there and back. Mrs. Ruby did almost the same. They continue today to be faithful each Sunday.

The entire family lived in a one room log house just down the road from where they live today on Parrie Road.

"If you rolled off the bed, you rolled on to another one because the room was full of beds," Parrie said with a laugh. According to Mrs. Ruby, they always had plenty to eat.

"Even if it was corn bread and beans," said Mrs. Ruby. "Now days the kids think they have to have Pizza Hut."

Parrie is honored to be named the oldest logger for the 2003 festival. When asked how it felt to receive the award he said:

"It sounds good to me."

Despite the hard work and the difficult days, the Parrie's and their children exude a spirit of happiness and contentment at just being together and living in a community where they recognize those who made the community what it is today - the loggers.

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