A true Living Legend she has advanced the practice of genealogy and has stories to tell. From Haiti to the Court of France to Marksville and 12 Years a Slave, Edna Jordan Smith has observed, created and describes Louisiana history.
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Selected quotes and notes from Count Time Podcast with LD Azobra Interview of Living Legend Edna Jordan Smith
LD:
Good evening. Good evening. Good evening it’s 4:00 PM. Stand up. It’s count time, time for every man and woman to stand up and be counted. Welcome to another edition of Count Time podcast. I am brother LD Azobra formerly named Lyman White. Thank you for joining us today. (listen to why I changed my name, it’s not what your thinking)
LD: I like to first introduce to you, one of our local community, true legends in our community have done tremendous, great things. I’ve been knowing her for quite some time. She don’t quite remember me from back in the day. She used to call me Limus nowadays she don’t quite remember, but I don’t know why I didn’t leave a lasting impression upon her. But this young lady named Ms. Edna, Jordan Smith, one of the local, and one of the few, I think she’s created or started genealogy in this community at the Bluebonnet library years ago, when I was doing my little research, everybody sent me straight to Ms. Edna, Jordan Smith, to help me meet my genealogy. Thank you so much because of you. I was able to find a lot of information about my history, my family, and my own culture and where we came from. So I’d like to welcome you here today with our Count Time podcast.
EJS: Well, I’m so happy that you invited me. It gets me to thinking about so much. You have to tell me to shut up some times because I get into things. And then I think of something else and I can never complete a story because
LD: It was never even there. That’s the way life is every story is connected to another story. And that’s why I wanted you here because I wanted you to continue talking. and give as much information as you can, we want to capture as much as we can, but one time, not just new Orleans, but the Feliciano was the gateway into Louisiana, basically
EJS: Well through slavery. And, uh, of course it developed when you get into places like new Orleans and the, um, the river parishes like St. James St. Charles St. James St. John and Ascension. All of that is brought in following the, the Haitian revolution,
LD: Haitian revolution.
EJS: And of course he did like so many of us do today. When the French wanted to talk to him, they weren’t getting any way in the battles. So they wanted to talk to him. He made the mistake to talk, and that’s where they had it in the France, put him in prison. And that’s where he froze.
The LSU football Living Legend played for the LSU Tigers and was a consensus All-American linebacker in 1970. Anderson later operated restaurants in Baton Rouge and New Orleans called Mike Anderson’s Seafood. Mike talks about the importance of football in his life and how he came to own a legendary restaurant.
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Selected quotes and notes from Count Time Podcast with LD Azobra Interview of LSU Football Living Legend Mike Anderson
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LD Azobra interviews restaurateur and LSU football Living Legend Mike Anderson. He played for the LSU Tigers from 1967 to 1970 and was a consensus All-American linebacker in 1970. Anderson later operated restaurants in Baton Rouge and New Orleans called Mike Anderson’s Seafood. Mike talks about the importance of football in his life and how he came to own a legendary restaurant.
In 2014, he sued the NCAA and Riddell Inc., a helmet manufacturer, seeking compensation for head injuries he sustained while playing college football. He alleged that the defendants failed to protect players from, or to inform them adequately about, brain injuries.
LD: Good evening. Good evening. Good evening it’s 4:00 PM. Stand up. It’s count time, time for every man and woman to stand up and be counted. Welcome to another edition of Count Time podcast. I am brother LD Azobra formerly named Lyman White. Thank you for joining us today.
Today we have a true legend, a Baton Rouge legend. Lsu legend played pro football. But we most know him for his famous restaurant. We got the legendary honorable, should I say honorable? Don’t want to make anyone mad We got Mr. Mike Anderson. Welcome to Count Time, Mike.
MA Thank you very much.
LD And now people don’t figure out. How do you get a conversation with Mike Anderson? I’m glad that really Mike and have been running into each other for the last several years. We got a dear friend named Mark Loins. Every year, Mark host a couple of events at the restaurant at Mike Anderson restaurant for former tigers. And I’m talking about the real tigers, the old tigers. Right.
So we see each other that event every year, along with a bunch of other guys coach there so far, Mr. Jimmy Field. And it’s quite a few guys. And we got a chance to talk. I never really knew Mike before. I’ve been knowing of the great Mike Anderson, but I really had not had a chance to speak to him. But last year, I sent him a picture that we had all taken together. So he told me to come to his home and son’s home in the Baton Rouge area.
Mike, what we do, We do a living legend segment, you one of our living legends. So I’m excited to have you everybody know Mike. Mike is the great. He played at Lee High School in the Baton Rouge area. He went to LSU, was All America, and all SEC.
What is Mike Andersons? Mike Anderson’s Seafood is a restaurant established in 1975 by legendary college football great and retired athlete, Mike Anderson. Currently has locations in Baton Rouge and Gonzales, Louisiana
Who owns Mike Andersons? Mike Anderson’s Seafood restaurant has two co-owners Harry and Chip Robert, who are the brother-in-law and nephew, respectively, of founder Mike Anderson, Sr.
How old is Mike Anderson? Michael Howard Anderson was born February 6, 1949
What years did Mike Anderson play at LSU? He played for the LSU Tigers from 1967 to 1970.
What years did Mike Anderson play in the NFL? He was drafted in 1971 in the 9th round by the Pittsburgh Steelers but did not play due to injury
LSU Head Basketball Coach and Living Legend Dale Brown chops it up with LD. The Louisiana State University Living Legend gives an engaging description of his life growing up in “The Magic City” Minot, North Dakota. Coach gives his views on the NCAA, the changes he has fought for during his career, some of which have finally come to fruition. Find out why Coach is considered a players coach as he shares stories about some of his 160 players. Coach Brown and LD give a clinic on overcoming adversity, friendship, loyalty, social justice and the importance of standing up and being counted.
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One of the top motivational speakers in America, Dale Brown served as head coach of the LSU basketball team for 25 years, (1972-1997).
The creator of a syndicated radio program called Motivational Moments that ran on NPR, he also served for a while as a college basketball analyst for ESPN and ABC. As LSU coach, he was twice named National Basketball Coach of the Year, led his team to two Final Fours and four Elite Eights, and emerged as the second-winningest coach in SEC history. He is also known as the recruiter of Shaquille O’Neal, one of the top basketball players ever at LSU and in the NBA. Coach Brown lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with his wife, Vonnie.
After lengthy and heated meeting, LSU approves naming of Dale Brown Court inside PMAC
Selected quotes and notes from Count Time Podcast with LD Azobra – Interview of LSU Basketball Living Legend Coach Dale Brown
LD:
Good evening. Good evening. Good evening it’s 4:00 PM. Stand up. It’s count time, time for every man and woman to stand up and be counted. Welcome to another edition of Count Time podcast. I am brother LD Azobra formerly named Lyman White. Thank you for joining us today. (listen to why I changed my name, it’s not what your thinking)
LD:
Today, we are doing our special segment and we’ve got a very special young man here. We all feel we are honored, enthused, and excited to have the legendary, the great, the famous Coach Dale Brown
Coach:
Azobra, your whole show could be summed up by STAND UP AND BE COUNTED! We can stop right now and concentrate on, stand up and be counted. That’s one of the major problems people have. Silence has always been evil’s greatest ally and whenever evil and good compromise, evil, always wins.
LD:
I’ve been knowing you for quite some time. And I want to start in your days, when you told me about a story, when you were growing up in North Dakota, was it midnot or how do you pronounce that name?
Coach:
Minot.
LD Azobra:
You said that your mother was on welfare and the welfare lady came by and was very rude to your mother, and from that day forward, you decided you were going to fight against injustice.
Coach:
I was 10 years old when that happened. My mother, two older sisters were abandoned by our biological father two day’s before I was born.. My mother moved from the farm, had to move into a one room apartment of above a bar and hardware store. I never slept in a bed for 21 years. Mother had a little bed that pulled out from the wall and I slept in a tiny sofa. My mother was the nicest human being you ever want to meet in your life. Every Sunday she’d come home with this lady, friend of hers. They’d had their cocoa and cinnamon toast. Now, Minot, was a little town. It probably had 25 black Americans. My mother’s friend was black I watched how they bonded and respected each other.
Dale Brown Coach:
I judge people by their heart and their attitude. I don’t care what religion, color, political party they belong to. So until we understand the best potential of me is we, will continue to have these problems. Prejudice has always been a great tine saver because it enables a person to form opinions without bothering to get the facts.
LSU’s Wall of Legends. A true Living Legend.
Coach Dale Brown and Shaquille
LD:
So LSU always had an issue with change?
Coach:
Athletic director Carl Maddox gave me his full support. However, I did get some hate mail and threats. Now, first of all, they knew my philosophy was to recruit human beings first. So no, I got nobody from LSU ever said, oh, how many black’s, how many foreigners you recruiting? I do remember a guy writing a letter. The audacity of Dale Brown, spending Louisiana money recruiting these foreigners. So there’s always going to be prejudice. However, love is the most powerful tool in the world. The only thing more powerful than fear is the boldness of love. How did things work out? They just do.
LD: So that happened in 72. I assume. So, because you’ve been here since 72. Your longest stay been in Louisiana.
Coach: Yeah. We’ve been here. Well what? 50, 49 years.
LD: So, but also when you arrived here, you had opportunity. you were also with here too with the infamous, David Duke grand master grand wizard of the KU Klux Klan. Right? How did you deal with that coming from North Dakota?
Coach: There was an incident that happened with Shaquille. Shaquille didn’t have any more idea who David Duke was than the man on the moon. And he interviewed Shaquille, I didn’t know this.
LD: David Duke did?
Coach: No, excuse me. TV interviewed Shaquille. David Duke watched the interview. And in the interview the guy said, what do you think of David Duke being, governor Shaquille says I could care less who governor is, he didn’t know who was running for governor. He was a freshman in college. So then David Duke on a commercial insinuated Shaq was for him. The next morning. who’s standing at my door waiting to talk to me. But Shaquille, coach he says that guy is lying. I never said that. I didn’t know him or he was a KU Klux Klan leader. He said, what can we do about it? I said, I’ll handle it.
Coach:
And he was really shook up about it. So then through good people, they said, well, he’s planning to come to the, to the, I think it was a Kentucky game with six people. I said, no, that ain’t gonna work. So I told the AD and President, he shows up, at the Kentucky game with these six people. I’m taking the team off the court. If we forfeit, we forfeit. If I get fired, I get fired. Well, fortunately he didn’t show up, but I would not have played the game and I would have been fired. I’m sure. I’m not sure because Carl Maddox was a good man.
LD: So I want to read this something I wrote for myself this morning, and I thought about you and this take a few take maybe a minute and a half to read it. I want to be to put this in your obituary one day. When I read it,
Coach: you wrote this this morning?
LD: I wrote this. Dale Brown is a man and a brother who trust is in God. He never meet a stranger. And only level with others about his true feeling, keeping it real and square. He has a grip on truth and righteousness. He’s loyal to all he calls his friends and expect the same to maintain divine order. He came from the north, but remained in the south but forever traveling east towards the light that you may continue to enlighten others.
Coach: Wow.
LD: His travel and studies allowed him to receive many degrees while giving wisdom to many who asked he is the master of his universe. And for that may God get the glory and may His name be written in the lamb book of life forever. That’s my word to you.
Coach:
That’s beautiful. I’d cry but I don’t want to embarrass your daughter. This has really been fun and you know what? It’s too bad. This can’t be played nationally every minute of it. And anybody that disagrees fine disagree.
LD: We ain’t concerned about that this is Count Time.
Coach: I’ve Never done anything that I tried to impress anybody.
LD: You had a way with the players. I mean, with the whole community, everybody
Coach:
Just trying to improve each day and remembering what Oscar Wilde said, “ Every Saint Has A Past And Every Sinner Has A Future.” I am still a work in progress but will never quit trying to be better.
Napoleon Hill is one of my favorite authors said, “When the dawn of intelligence shall spread over the eastern horizon of human progress and ignorance and superstition shall have left their last footprints on the sands of time, it’ll be recorded by the last chapter of the book of man’s crimes that his most grievous sin was that of intolerance.”
LD:
Well Coach we thank you for taking this time out to do this Wonderful, wonderful interview. Now we have done almost two hours.
Coach: That’s unbelievable.
LD: And 50 minutes.
Coach: because of you,
LD: No because of you, and your patience. No, no, no. And I really enjoyed this Count Time.
Coach: I get bored very easy and You didn’t bore me one second.
LD: Well, I gave you a chance to tell your story. That’s what it is, but it’s, it’s a wonderful story. And I had, I had a chance to hear stories I’d never heard before and after being in your presence so many times, you always a lot of great stories. So I appreciate that opportunity to share and the people at count time, remember we got coach the great legendary Dale Brown have graced us with his presence and he shared and open heart today. I hope you don’t have to have open heart surgery, but, uh, it you opened your heart up to us at Count Town.
How old is Dale Brown? Dale Duward Brown was born October 31, 1935
What did Dale Brown do? As the Head Coach of the LSU Men’s Basketball team 1972-97, Brown won 448 games, four SEC Championships and made 13 NCAA Tournaments including Final Four appearances in 1981 and 1986.
Who coached Shaq in college? LSU great Shaquille O’Neal played three seasons at LSU coached by Dale Brown
LD has a wide ranging discussion with Dr. Joyce Jackson the newly elected Chair of the LSU Department of Geography and Anthropology. Dr. Jackson describes what it was like in undergraduate and graduate school at LSU during the early seventies, the problems she faces as the first female Chair and person of color and her vision for the future. Great history lesson on growing up in the south, studying African cultures as well as history of New Orleans, Creoles, Indians and Mardi Gras (Carnival) Indians along with LD’s unique take on everything. LD Azobra formerly known as Lyman White gives his thoughts on current events and asks questions like who should apologize. Dr. Jackson also appears on Episode 32 Dr. Seck Pt2.
Please leave your comments below. If you haven’t yet, subscribe to the Count Time weekly alerts. Let us know below what you think of the show and suggest topics for future episodes.
Dr Joyce Jackson and LD Azobra
Transcript for Interview with LSU Chair, Department of Geography and Anthropology Dr. Joyce Jackson
Good evening. Good evening. Good evening it’s 4 PM. Stand up It’s Count Time, time for every man and woman to stand up and be counted. Welcome to another edition of Count Time podcast. I am brother LD Azobra formerly named Lyman White. Thank you for joining us today.
Today we got a very special guest. A Beautiful. Awesome. Young lady who will bring a lot of knowledge, history and great information to you. I’ve been knowing her for quite some time. She’s a friend that I knew her wonderful husband Nash we got here on out is going to be one of our legendary segments called the living Legend’s she’s a legend amongst many of us here. We got here, Dr. Joyce Marie Jackson. Welcome.
Thank you. Thanks for having me on the program.
We, we excited about you about your history, uh, all the knowledge that you can bring forward. And I don’t even know where to get started at, but I know you, your history starts back at this big school and university. They call Southern Lab connected to Southern University. In the last couple of months. And that was a great honor that came to you. You was selected, elected not for no political office right? Probably requires being a little political. So she is the first of her gender to be the first female chair of our department at LSU. What is it?
Department of Geography and Anthropology?
What is that department? You know, we don’t, most people don’t know what y’all do over there.
Well, it’s in the complex, the geoscience complex in Russell and we’re a joint department of geography and anthropology. And of course geography is the study of so many aspects of land and anthropology So many aspects of humans. And there are certain sub-disciplines to each one. And in our department we have like I said, various sub-disciplines. And so it’s sort of a complex department because of that. And it’s because of the combination of the two disciplines, but it works well. This is a good marriage. So we have separate PhD programs and, you know, separate bachelor’s and master’s programs. So, we are separate in a way, but in another way, we are certainly close together. That’s the part about geography. We have a climate center, we have a regional climate center and the rec the climate center, and we have the state climatologists.
So that’s a big part of the department. Oh yes.
And, um, they get large grants. And so they, they are big in big impact, not only for our department, but for the college college, we’re in college of humanities and social sciences. So it’s, it’s a huge impact. And
It also studied hurricanes and those types of things too. Right.
Disaster science. Is under there? A sub-discipline
I know that’s not your department, but it’s interesting that most hurricanes come off the coast of Africa and you never hear a hurricane with African name.
because they name the hurricanes from here.
But they come off the coast of Africa. That’s interesting. [inaudible] give them hispanic names, german names that has kind of interested. How long has the department been on LSU campus? 93 years. 93 years. You are the first female. And I don’t like saying it, but they say women of color to be the chair of that department. That’s correct. And 93 years. So you saying that field was dominated by men for many years? Yes.
For many, many years. All of those years,
What is your, you also told me you was, how long have you been at LSU?
Well, it depends. You weren’t taking my years. Oh yeah. That’s interesting. Yeah. Um, yeah, I have two degrees from LSU. I’m a dual, uh, alumni. You might say I have a bachelor’s and a master’s from Elisha. And, um, so I took me six years. I had, uh, four years to get my bachelor’s two years for the master’s program and I was in music school. So yeah, I did I get from music, you, most people ask that question. How did you get from music to anthropology? Well, actually I went on Indiana university for my PhD and, um, I was able to, or an, a degree in folklore and EFL musicology. And of course, you know, we had an anthropology courses too. So a folklorist ethnomusicologist can also work in an anthropology department or music or English, you know, but I chose the cultural side and I do, um, you know, folklore and ethnomusicology. And I basically look at myself as a cultural ethnographer because we all have to do field work. It’s, that’s a major part of the discipline and anthropology. Um, geography, folklore, there’s some musicology, that’s a major part of what we do is feel
Work well, none of that is let’s talk about stuff we all connect together with. So you also, when you attended LSU, what year was that?
I started at LSU in 1968 as a freshmen, 64 Years after integration. And you grew up where’d you grow up? I grew up at the foot of Southern. You might as well say at the fiddle Southern university. I went to Southern university laboratory school and we lived right off the campus of probably a mile from the campus. So I, and my mother was an administrator professor and administrative of the university. So I grew up, I might say, on the campus of Southern university.
And so you went to Southern layout right there at Southern universities. You did not attend these Southern university? No, not the university there then,
Um, uh, lived on the campus because my mother was working there and I was interested in music and I was attending everything just about the music school had as far as performances, recitals, all sorts of concerts and everything. I knew a number of the professors. Um, I didn’t take, uh, I took piano with, uh, Mr. Davos, which was one of the major PN pianists, uh, at the university. And my sister studied with another professor there at the university. So, uh, Myrtle David. So we were just, you were there all the time. And I knew that music school side, I think I wanted just more of a challenge. And I certainly got, when I went down the street to Ellis, what
Do you mean you have more of a challenge? Well,
I mean, as far as the music school was concerned, there was more, they had more practice rooms, um, more band equipment, um, more technology. I mean, just everything that was more of at LSU than was at Southern. I didn’t know those professors of course, but, um, so I just wanted, that’s what kind of challenged, I just wanted more
Was part of the challenge.
Part of the challenge that I didn’t really think about a whole lot was going into a predominantly white situation where I just left the predominantly black situation. I mean, you know, it was there, but, you know, I didn’t really, um, I, you know, it, it wasn’t a barrier. I just decided to go for it. And that’s what I did. And, uh, it was rough. I’m not gonna say it was not an easy, I mean, you talking about the chilly climate, it wasn’t chilly. It was cold
All the time in the middle of stuff.
Yes, it was. But you know, you, you go through situations like that and you have things and, you know, we discuss it amongst ourselves. You, the, other of the, of the students of color that were at LSU, we lived on and on campus for all four years. And when I was, um, you know, working on my bachelor’s degree and there were incidents and we talked about them, you know, what each other, but, and maybe, maybe when our parents, but I even stopped talking about them to my parents, because they would think about taking me out and, you know, things like, you know, you walk into class and, you know, there’s a lot of students on the sidewalk and somebody just knock you off the sidewalk, you know, and you don’t know who it is because it’s, you know, it’s a group of people walk and you go through, even in the hallways, I remember an Allen hall, you know, the, the, the halls would be full when you’re changing classes and people would just hit you just do something and keep on walking. I mean, I had people I was spat on. Um, yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, so that happened. And I remember one day I was shot with a pistol water pistol. Uh, as I was walking along Highland road, uh, on the sidewalk, I’ll never forget. I was almost in front of the law school and, uh, they just drove back in the car and shot me with water, drove down, turned around, came back and did it again. So, you know, you go through things like that and, you know, it’s, there are small incidents to some people, but they tend to Mount up after a while
Said, well, you should have known that when you win the game, this is
Ridiculous. Yeah. Well, you know, I saw some of my classmates in high school actually go to some of the, uh, predominantly white high schools. Some came back because of the situation in some state, but, um, several of them came back to the lab school and they did it in high school. So I figured, well, you know, I’m in college now, you know, I have to kinda make it on my own, figure it out and go for
It. Yeah. Also you join LSU drill team.
Yes. Um, I had, uh, been very active at the lab school and in the different extracurricular activities, you know, I was in the choir, you know, that’s, L’s a thespian in the drama society and, you know, the various organizations. So when I went to LSU, I didn’t want to just go to class. I wanted to be involved in some type of extracurricular, you know, activity in an organization. So three, three of us decided we weren’t going along. We’ve had two of my buddies, you know? So it was three of us decided that yes, um, Loretta Verdo and rose Rochet, and we were pulled out yes. And rose. Um, Loretta Verdo was, uh, a classmate of mine at the lab school. And then we met rose when we got to LSU and we were all in the same dormitory and freshmen dorm. And so we all did, we were all very active, you know?
And so we don’t figure out something for us to do this outside of our classroom. I have no idea how we came up with the coed affiliate, Persian rifles, co-ed affiliate Persian rifles. We were the affiliate to the, we actually had real rifles. Then they did, you know, fancy drill with rifles where there was a girl team that did fancy drill too, would play rifles. Okay. Well, we had to dress out at all the home games in, you know, dressing up blue and white goods. That was, was military school. And so we, you know, learned all the aspects of being in the military, had to dress out for every game. And we decided, and that’s what we did. Don’t ask me why to call it a Philly person. Right. None of us can figure out, figure it
Out. We
Did it, we did it for a year going into the second year, but, uh, rose and Loretta left and went to sup well, yeah, because yeah, because of the environment, you know, it was, it was [inaudible] and yeah, it was in some of the classrooms, you know, we felt good and dorms and we could, you know, kind of lean on each other, but we all had this different disciplines. So we were all in classes by ourselves. And you know, some of the teachers were not fair, you know, different things happen. Like some of the things I just shared with you and they were happening with us as we were by ourselves, not ne not usually in a group. Cause when you’re by yourself, somebody could do something and just keep on going. And you don’t know who it is. You don’t even know who to report.
Well also when, uh, when you were with the Persia for rifle rifle, yeah.
Co-ed affiliate perimeters rivals. Yes. We traveled. I remember once we went to Alabama, you know, going with the guys, they did comp competitive drill and we’re just, you know, dude, I love fancy drill. We were in a really nodding com competition within and the other, uh, girl, real teams. But we would go with the guys and uh, you know, do our little drill. And I remember this, this, this one time we were going to through Alabama and they would stop. We went to the university station wagons
And they would stop. So everybody wrote in the station where he was, but he didn’t know bus.
Yeah. We, we were, we wrote in the station where I think they had the guys in the vans, but we wrote in the station waives the girl teams. So they were, uh, stopping at different points at different restaurants. And they said, oh, we go in there and to see how to menu is. And so we kind of looked at each other, see how the menu is, you know, maybe all those should go and look at the menu. So after the third time we figured out that they were stopping to see if they would serve blacks in the restaurants and particularly blacks with whites in the restaurant together. So
That’s, that was like the green book in another way. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Who did stay down a little while longer, but when, when Miranda, when Loretta Aaron Rose left, I left too. I just didn’t go back. But they left and went to Southern university, but you didn’t leave. I stayed.
You stayed in persevere persevere. And you graduated from such familiar as you.
And what happened at the graduation? Well, I had a bachelor’s in, uh, uh, musical performance, both a performance. And I decided to stay for the masters only because of Dr. Quarterly to Astra Cuneo. And she was my applied vocal music teacher. And she, you know, she was a minority too. She was from the Philippines. She used to push me. She was my driving horse. She was my mentor in the music school. And she pushed me hard. And you know, she would, she would, she would force me to, um, to, to, to audition for different things. And most of the time I wouldn’t get them, but you know, sometimes I did, when I got to the master’s level, I did get a couple of performance, you know, solo performances and some of the things. But, um, she was the one that pushed me and pushed me and she would even talk to my parents, you know, she would call my parents. She says, she’s done. No, don’t, don’t, don’t encourage her to leave. We want to hear, you know, she, she kept me there. That was the only because of her that I stayed for my master’s degree.
[inaudible]
Yeah, they were long gone. They left, went to Southern. Did quite well at Southern university.
No, I haven’t been rules was a desk and all this other opportunity would have never happened. Not at that particular time have charter sorority. Which one is that?
Oh yeah. Um, I’m a charter member of Delta Sigma theta at LSU. We were the first, uh, black sorority on the campus. We chartered it in 1972 out of data
[inaudible]
You had to have nine to charter. And I asked me all the names we had nine y’all have y’all started, uh, is iota data, chapter Delta Sigma data incorporated. And it was a two alumni chapters that charter the chapter at LSU. So you have the bandwidth deltas and the bandwidth sigmas charter the chapter at LSU.
And you also are the link. Yes. Lynx incorporated. Well,
The lease is another organization service organization of a women of African descent. And we have 16,000 members. It’s an international organization because there are chapters in Jamaica, uh, Liberia and London. So it’s an international organization to
Work directly with them.
Yeah. We have a chapter. We have two chapters here. Uh, my chapter is bandwidth chapter and Baton Rouge chapter, the links incorporated. And then we have the black cap, a towel chapter of the links incorporated. They are the youngest chapter. We were the oldest and we have a, yeah. So it was about 16,000 women. Yeah, I am Rotarian. No, no. I’m secretary of the, uh, uh, the capital city rotary club. Well, you know, I always wanted to do service to my community and I figured the best way to do it is to be launched the organizations that you can get more, it’s more impactful if you do it that way. You know? And so I, I knew about the deltas in high school. I was a Dale Sprite and, um, I would go on the campus again. So on university campus, and these are the sororities and fraternities I would see. And I had deltas that I knew personally. So of course they would always talk to me about the Delta, but I, when I went to LSU, I, we didn’t have any, so what’d you do, if you don’t have it, you try to start it. Right. So a group of us got together and we decided that we wanted to be deltas. And so we started talking to the alumni chapters and to see what to do
In 1970, in 1972,
We charted out a data chapter,
But do you end up renting it from LSU? What was your next adventure?
Uh, I, you know, I did the masters there too in vocal performance and vocal.
Oh, you did the masters right behind it. Yes.
I just started to stayed on because that, you know, I had that professor that was pushing me, that’s the core belief to Esther KVO. She was still there. And, uh, she, uh, encouraged me to stay on for the master’s degree and, and, you know, continue to work with her in vocal performance.
And so she was in your car. So you ended up getting in a bachelor and masters back to back at LSU. That was a major accomplishment, particularly there, hang in there that long I was
Hanging in there. Well, you know, it, I think along with her, which was, she’s a very, you know, just an extraordinary woman, but it was my family, too. My parents, they were, I used to call them my bookends, you know, because, you know, they supported me. They really supported me in everything with the all app performances, whether add a solo part of that, they were, they, you know, they were there because my, my, uh, dad, uh, you know, my mother, you know, my mother has three degrees from Southern and my, my dad was a laborer at Exxon. And was it so standard art when he started. And of course now is Exxon standard all company. And he was a laborer. He only made it to the 10th grade in high school. And he, um, you know, attain of your high school in Zachary. But he, he was so determined to get his high school diploma that even after working at the plant, he went to night school. So he would finish, um, his, you know, so you get his high school diploma. He went to night school. I remember that. Uh, and, uh, and he always told me, he said, baby, you say, you go go. As far as you can go. And dad is going to help you. He said, I want you to go much more than an idea. And so that’s what he did.
And you name, it was also Mason. Yes.
He was in the Masonic order. Yeah. So several oh, he was in Schreiner is in the consistory. He was a 33rd degree, Mason.
Yeah.
Very important in our family masons and Eastern star,
But you didn’t follow the dose. No,
I, I was in the youth fraternity, but I didn’t go any further than that. I mean, it was just, you know, I was, I had to go to everything with it, everything that your children could go to.
Now, you ended up after your master’s degree, what was your head where you end up in your doctorate,
Indiana university in Bloomington, Indiana.
[inaudible] well,
Um, Dr. Raff Appleman who’s over the vocal music research department at Bloomington came to LSU to do a sort of like, uh, artists and resident for a little, for a little while at LSU. And so he did a workshop and he wanted to use [inaudible] students. And so he wanted to use me for one of his demonstrators. And so after he used me for a demonstrator, he say, when you finish here, you need to come then. Yeah. What I’m thinking and yeah, I’ll go to India. And of course, Dr. Helio, um, encouraged me to go to, she sees continuing voice. That’s the best place you can go to. And it really was. And Deanna has a school. The music school consisted of about 3000 students in the music school, alone, all bags. So, you know, some HBCU don’t have 3000 students in it, but, uh, it was, uh, it was, uh, it was a great experience is one of the best music schools in the country.
You know, when a lot of the, the performance at the met finish say, go to Indiana to teach. And after they retire from the stage, they go to Indiana university to, I was really honored, you know, for him to, to, uh, invite me. I didn’t want another, I didn’t want a PhD. I didn’t want another degree. I just wanted to go for further study. No, I wasn’t looking to get another degree in music, another PhD at, oh, I just wanted to sing the same saying it. No problem. So I went to, um, work with him and, uh, yeah. You know, he was, I mean, an excellent vocal pedagogy in vocal pedagogy, in vocal music. And, uh, he was still singing an opera himself and, and doctor that the apple one was probably in his seventies at that time, but he performed until he was wearing his eighties.
So what, what are, what are some new, what was the exciting part about going to Bloomington Indiana? What did you like about the university? What groups mixed up?
You know, when I was thinking about going, cause they had invited me, but you know, I was thinking about, and so of course I looked it up to see what else they had to offer. And I go down, you know, take a few classes, apply vocal music and you know, this is whatever else I wanted to take, you know, checked out to see what else do they have. And I saw they have a black music center music, a black had a black music research center. And, um, so that definitely piqued my interest because at LSU I didn’t do probably in the black music. I, I asked my professor if I could do something on my recitals, you know, I had a bachelor’s recital and I had a master’s recital. So I w you know, mom, you made me do a spiritual or two, but I really started looking at black composers and I wanted to perform some of their works. So I thought, wow, black music center that really intrigued me. So I started checking into that and to see whatever, what else they offer, you know, as far as black music was concerned. Well, so not only that, but they had a black studies program and they had an African studies program. The black music sends in a black art Institute. All of this was at Indiana university.
Yeah. Well, late seventies, early eighties. Yeah. In 94, we have a, um, you know, we got the black, but the
Actual department, they just got that last year. LSU.
Yes. We had a program. We had a, uh, program and the other head of department of African-American studies. They had a full department of African studies and African American arts Institute and a black cultural center. All of that was in Indiana when I got there. And that was late seventies
And it was full
Palace, like seven habit. [inaudible] very excited because I’ve
Seen people like you that’s made it more exciting, or just because you can learn more about your culture. I had
Never had a black professor, never in a university system. So I had a couple of black professors. Most of them were black as a matter of fact, when I, cause I did a ma I did well later on when I decided to go for a PhD, I did the African-American studies minor. And, uh, I did, you know, instructional systems technology. And then I did an African mine. I didn’t actually officially do that. I did the coursework, but I don’t know, officially apply for the African studies minor, but it was just so, I mean, I had three minors.
You got that excited. I guess you feel deprived at LSU.
I felt depressed because I didn’t have anything. Um, you know, anything along in terms of black studies. And it was few when I was there. No black studies, no black professors, none of that, the geography and anthropology department. How many of y’all, how many,
I’m the only black professor? How many of us even entertain getting to get going into, into that politics?
Well, that, um, that’s another situation because, um, a lot of students, you certainly don’t hear about this in high school. Now I have this taken on my own to go into some of the schools that have predominantly black students, uh, to introduce them to anthropology, folklore ethnomusicology deals, where we can study ourselves. And, you know, because at one time, even these fields, you didn’t study yourself, you studied the other comparative studies, you compare it basically compared it with European culture and say, and or whatever you don’t, you don’t do your own. You don’t study your own self that you can’t be objective enough. So you have to study the other. And that’s the only anthropology was for a long time. We just, you know, um, folklore to, you know, at least disciplines, they were comparative. We had comparative musicology where you compare again, European music with indigenous music or whatever else. The F you know, the folk music is of that country. Now you can study European music in ethnomusicology. Now you can study any music of the world that you want to study in as in the field of ethnomusicology, but you couldn’t do that 60, 70 years ago,
Tight, tight hair, what you can do and how
You can do. And so here I am an Indiana university. You mean, I can start my whole mouth. I was elated, and I know you can do that, but here’s, I’m at this place now that I can actually do this
Loud to really drive
And in my own working with my own culture, music, folklore. Oh. And I, you know, things come up in the folklore class, I say, slander dozens, dueling, verbal duel, laying on the streets and toasting the toast tradition. [inaudible], it’s like learning something new,
Wonderful, awesome experience at the university of Indiana, Indiana university, university in Bloomington, Indiana, south at LSU. So you had that great of a time. What brought you back here?
Well, I have the wildlife, you know, my professors, my professors file it, you know, was telling me why don’t you just go on and apply for the degree? Cause I was just taking courses. So I went on and applied for the PhD in, uh, and I decided to go the folklore and ethnomusicology route instead of, you know, like anthropology or music. I didn’t want another degree in music. And, uh, I felt more at home in folklore and ethnomusicology and so joint degree again in folklore and ethnomusicology and um, so I finished the PhD there. Um, but before I finished, I was working on my dissertation and trying to work, finish up a dissertation, working two or three little jobs, you know? Well, I, I came back home to new Orleans to work, do my field work for the dissertation, which is a major thing we have to do as a field work.
And I was, I decided to do mine in gospel music. Well, initially I wanted to go to Africa and study the Sujata epic in Mali. So I took two years of bombard preparing to go to Mali, but I never did get the money. I never did get the fellowship to go. So I said, at what else can I do that really interests me and study of gospel music. Um, my parents, my father had a singing group in his family, the Jacksons and they, you know, perform gospel music. And then I used to hear quartets and all that. And I said, well, I think I’ll do something where we have a void. And there was a void in quartets, you know, in the study of quartets. So that’s what I chose to do. So I moved back to new Orleans to do the field work for my dissertation.
And after I did a lot of field work there, I stayed there for a year. It was kind of like a little group here. I follow quartets around gospel quartets and interview them, you know, and observe them in the context of, um, you know, in the contextual setting of the churches of whatever community centers it was singing in. So I studied that for a year, just going around new Orleans and doing that. I did once move in Baton Rouge that I grew up hearing. And so I included them, um, you know, talk to some of my travelers, Zion travel, spiritual singers, uh, work with them. And Ben ruins, Zion harmonizes in new Orleans.
Now you told me that when you attended LSU, they told you to get to that the same.
Yeah. Uh, it’s not the same gospel music. They thought that gospel music would destroy my voice.
That’s where your boys come from. They literally told you that the same. So you couldn’t say in gospel music, why use it attended LSU?
I, I was in my church choir. I got out of the choir. I got out of my church choir. No I did
Because you thought professors knew better. We know gospel music moves the whole world, even government yet with a couple of weeks ago, had a gospel, uh, monazite gospel choir and his demand is going up and going away going home. And so gospel is a big thing in our community, but he told you not that you could not say it or not to stay.
Yeah. She encouraged me to get out of my church choir and stop singing gospel music because at the time they thought gospel music would destroy the Volvo cars, not destroyed, but you know, give you bad. Um, you know, a bad technique. Cause you had a certain technique that you use when you were singing classical. So you tell me you lost your soul. Well, you know, I must say it wasn’t this LSU. It was that some of the HBC use to, if you were in the music school at Southern university. Cause I know I used to go up there all the time and down, you know, in the hallways and Southern university, they did not want you to play or sing gospel music or blues and rhythm and blues. Jazz was fine and classical music, but they would take you out of the class, put you out of the practice room. If you practice gospel music of blues, it was at Southern kept you with your culture. Yeah. Many of you started in classical music. That’s basically all they wanted to study.
Now let’s fast forward. So I had to end up back at LSU,
You know, after I did my field work in new Orleans, uh, I had another year I’d needed to write then, you know, get all these interviews, all these observations, videotapes, you know, I’ve been collecting this all all year and I had to write it up now. So I went home to stay with my parents. That’s the only place I could stay for free. You know, it just right, because everywhere else I had to keep a job and do all this. I had three jobs as I was doing my field work. I was subbing as a schools. I, uh, I, uh, pay my real estate. So I was working in real estate. I’m working at Tulane university, jazz archives. So the pay, my bills, I had to make it work. So you came back. So I came back to my parents’ house to write perfectly fine with them.
They wanted me to finish too. Uh, so I, I just, and while I was writing, I started applying for jobs. I applied to different universities and I even applied to Southern university, but they didn’t need or want an ethnomusicologist at the time. So I applied to LSU, they had an opening in the geography and anthropology department. They were looking for a folklorist because they only had one person teaching the folklore classes. And, um, you know, he’s a full sort of like a folklore as anthropologist. You know, he wanted to teach some more he’s in vernacular architecture was his specialization. So he wanted to, you know, do that more. And they wanted to have folklorist to take on the folklore courses where I applied for the job, did the, uh, uh, interviewing and you always have to do a public presentation. I got the job, 86, no, 87. It was in the spring of 87 LSU for 30, 34 years or four years. So
You, you went there too, you got two degrees with it and left there and we got a PhD in India then came back and been working in LSU.
Yeah. When I got the job. Yeah. I mean, I had a time in that period of time, I went to Washington DC. Um, I received a fellowship at the national endowment for the arts. So I worked there for about six months. It was an internship sort of fellowship to learn, um, cultural development management. And so I was there and actually I was still writing on my dissertation. It was stolen. Everything was stolen when I drove in from, from to end to Washington DC, it was stolen. So that delayed that degree another year. So now my car, I mean the hard copy the disc at that time, we had the flap. It is sort of flap. It is all of our copies
That must of cost medic experience. Yeah.
It was traumatic to see all that work, you know, you know, I had to sort of recreate a lot of it.
So all that would just go, there was no other copy. Yeah.
Because I ha you know, at that time, you know, you’re just not thinking I had my copies. And what would you, my professor, my main, uh, committee chair at Indiana had a, uh, a few of the, um, chapters, but some that, you know, that had, you know, really revised, but he sent me what he had and I had to work from that. Cause I was supposed to graduate that may, you know, finish writing. Cause I had, you know, did a lot of work at home and I was going to finish writing and graduate in may. Well that prolonged.
Now did you go to be the chair of the department of anthropology?
Oh no, that was nowhere on my screen. So,
So you, you never even, okay. You been working here for 34 years and you in another 34 years, do I to be the chair one day? Well, why it never crossed your mind?
It just never crossed my mind. Um, you look at the culture of the department, uh, you look at how it’s been status quo and it was just move. And basically I was into my research and my classes and my students and doing my research. I hadn’t even thought about being chair and even had a woman chair all those years, you know? So I hadn’t even thought about being too working with my, my, my students,
You going to say yourself, and one day we’ll have a changed it or they need to do something about this, then they will cry. So when you became chair this year, how did, how did that come about? Can you share how, you know,
I was getting a little frustrated and disgusted about some of the things that were going on in the department when we were trying to make diversity hires, you know, I just made some statements in the faculty meeting and, you know, I said, you know, this just has to change. You know, we got to do better than this. And I said, um, we have an opportunity to have this diversity hire. We had four candidates in to a more black, uh, male and a female would have, they were black and two white females. You know, we were going back and forth having deliberations about whom to vote for and what they would bring to the department and you know, what this looks like and what they would do for the students and all of this. And, you know, they were going back and forth. And I thought some of some people were just being a little bit nitpicky.
So I’ve made a statement in faculty meeting that, Hey, this is, this is really needs to stop. Um, we need to move forward and do this diversity hire. And I just thought gave a brief history of me being there for 34 years. And there are some there that have been there longer than I have been. Um, but I just reminded some of them about what had gone on in that department for the last 34 years, we had had two other black professors, one passed, he died a few years after he was hired. And then another one only stayed. It was another male. He only stayed a few years and he got a bit off another university and he left. So I just basically talked about how I was treating when I first came in, how some people just didn’t even know how to talk to me.
I was a black woman, um, born and raised in the south, grew up during the civil rights era. And, uh, the other guy that left actually was, uh, from Belgium and his father was Belgium. His mother was from Sierra Leone, west Africa. And I even told him that they looked at him as the exotic other, they embraced him much more than they embraced me as a black woman from the south. And, um, but when he was, you know, he spoke four or five different languages, he had a very strong French accent. He was definitely, you know, black, you could see he was, you know, of color, but, uh, they were more comfortable with him and they were with me. Cause you knew more about the history too. I knew about history. I knew. Yeah. And I could really talk about the life I’ve had at LSU since the student, you know, you don’t need anybody to tell me, I have experientials and historical knowledge.
I know how I was at LSU in 1968 and I had to talk to him and his name was John. Right. I have to talk to him about it. Cause he, you know, he hadn’t experienced, you had to bring him up to speed. Yeah. We, you know, we talked, we had conversation, he really looked at me as kind of like his mentor because he was learning a lot about us, you know, history, the Southern history, you know, and, um, you know, discrimination and stuff. And when he was discriminated on or when he was targeted at LSU, you know, he was so appalled. He didn’t know. So I had to explain to him as this is what’s happening, you are black, you don’t look on as black, but some other people outside of this department, you know, doing this, uh, African studies is the African film festival festival.
We were doing it together, written the grant and gotten the funding to bring in the films and then have panel discussions after the films. And, uh, he was, uh, so struck when somebody wrote across the, the, we have this big poster and he had a poster on his door of his office and it said, go back to Africa, across the poster. And he was just upset. He took it to the chair, he took it to the Dean and it, you know, I w I wasn’t surprised. So I had to talk to him and, and we had good conversations about that and why that happened to him. That was an awakening for him. It really was because he had been in the U S but he had a, was in San Francisco for a while. I think he was a postdoc. He was in San Francisco for something for about a year or so before he, uh, got the job at LSU. And, uh, but he had really, hadn’t, you know, hadn’t experienced a lot of discrimination, so, or, you know, be targeted like that. And he really, he was truly, so then he really wants to, so we talked a lot about it. No.
So when I’m doing the game he got out, he sure did. But also I, you know, being at LSU afforded you opportunities to do a lot of traveling. I know you do a lot of research and study abroad in some of your favorite places. Yeah. I
I’ve been drawn to the Afro based, um, French Afro French countries like Senegal and Haiti. And I guess because, um, well, I, I know I first went to synagogue, became interested in synagogue after reading Quinland middle Hall’s book on Africanisms in colonial Louisiana. And she talked about the fact that the Senegalese were one of the first ethnic groups to come in to new Orleans or to Louisiana theory, insulate people. Yes. And this, you know, early 17 hundreds. And she talked about the fact that about 12, 13 ships came in and 11 of them came directly from Senegal. So that really intrigued me because I always thought my grandmother looked like a tall Senegalese woman. And I don’t know, I don’t know, you know, where my ancestors were, what ethnic group we came from, but I like to, you know, claims yeah.
Then you visit there quite a few times. Oh
Yeah. I’ve been there a number of times. Um, first actually joined with my husband. He was, uh, friends with some of them, the Senegalese ambassadors that came into DC and he used to shoot the photography for them. So first I went with him and then next, um, I wanted to go back and do some study in there. I didn’t, wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. I just knew I wanted to be in the Senegambia area because they were, the groups at first came here from, from, from west Africa. So I had, uh, one of the doctors that, um, Morehouse, he asked me if I would interview one of the healers that they were bringing the healer to the Morehouse medical school, because they, they had a, uh, uh, an Institute on traditional healing practices. And so they will bring this healer from Senegal.
So he asked me, he gave me the interest. He didn’t give introduction, she didn’t give interviews anymore. So he gave me a letter to give her as an introductory letter. And so from him, his doctor, Dr. Fitch and Morehead, Morehouse college. And so he wanted Nash to take the pictures and he wanted me to interview her. That’s how I started. I interviewed this. She was 106 years old when we got there. And, um, I had to get special permission to she’s a legend is very important in the country. And so I had the permission and introduction to her to go in and interview,
You say that he’ll explain
Traditional healer. Um, and that really moved me into studying rituals. I already sort of lifted rituals, but looking at rituals in Africa and the diaspora, and this was one of the ones that I looked at, what traditional healing practices. I had an uncle that ask me, well, what, what do you do when, you know, when you go to, we work with, I say, I work with these traditional healers. I had to explain to him how he is his mother and my grandmother used to, you know, some of the things that she used to do for traditional healing practices. She knew some herbs and things you can, you know, put on a soar to help it heal something that you take internally, you know, those bad stomach aches, something you do for a coal. And she, she used herbs things that she having a garden or some tree she would get off of it. And so a lot of things she did, we didn’t know what tree or what plant she was getting it from. But you know, they, in a lot of our elders, especially in the south work with these traditional healing practices, because they didn’t have the money to go to physicians. And, um, so they learned a lot of these news passed down through the generations.
In fact, when I was a boy, my grandparents stigma on my dad’s side, my grandmother, if somebody had any kind of here, but she just didn’t go to yoga, pull list, plan, or flour, because back then nobody cut grass. Like they do [inaudible] yard, whatever group they would let it grow. Natural was you tell us, go pick up pixels type of tea leaves, you know, for certain purposes and whatever him and you had. That’s just going to the doctor that wasn’t even thought you could, like you said, you call them healers doctors call it practices, physicians you’re practicing.
You’re right. They were healing. Uh, and so that’s what I was looking at. This was one of the healers in Senegal that was highly respected. I mean, people came in from Europe so that she could work with them. And of course the Senegalese, how they respected her. Now you have to realize this is a 90% Muslim country at some point in time, you know, women were not as respected or as you know, but now in contemporary times, you know, you have women that a business business women and, and, uh, and politics and all of this where a healer, you know, they, they don’t look at ritual as such in, in this traditional healing. This practice was passed down through generations, by women, in the neighbor, ethnic group, in Senegal, there around fishing villages, to Dallow those villages and there around the edges, you know, of the ocean fishing villages.
And these women are very powerful healers in that particular country, in the Muslim country. You know, you in an early age, you know, we way back, you know, when this particular healer here, she’s mum five to sec was her name she’s a hundred, six years old. Was she learned it from her mother and now she’s passing it down to a hundred, you know? So it comes through the women to lineage. You know, as I saw myself how powerful she was when, you know, some of the politicians will come and ask them if they would come to their, you know, like a political rally. Cause they have, the healers showed up depending on which one it was, that means that person is highly respected. And I mean that political person, if this healer shows up to your rally, that means you, okay. You know, you, you sanctioned by the healer.
So that’s how powerful she works. I went to one interview and they were getting ready. And so I’m, you know, I’m, I’m curious. And so what, what what’s going on. So she has an entourage of her entourage head on their regalia, all this serious colorful regalia. So you got about 10, 12 women all dressed in these beautiful colors, the same dressing. And then you got the healer there and they had to care of her. Cause she, you know, she didn’t walk very well anymore. It’s just a magnificent view to see that, you know, this is powerful weapon coming through. He is a Muslim country. You know, they respected her and most healers are respected. Even the athletes respect them that I noticed that I went to some wrestling matches while I was there, simply because it was a connection with the healer and to download this law village, I was able to go to the wrestling match. Then I was able to interview the, the, the wrestler, um, before and after. And he had his own healer there with him. He, she would, you know, put some portions and in his belt or wear around his neck. And, um, then he had this, um, this liquid that he would pour over him and that’s that’s to help him with his power. And they wouldn’t do anything without their healer, man.
Well, yeah. And that’s basically what comes from African tradition. And th th so I was in it, and then I went to the national stadium where the, the big wrestlers wrestle, it’s a whole performance, you know, you have the healer there and that you have entourage and they do their dancing and stuff. And then you got the dramas over here. It was like, [inaudible] got a great performance. Even with the basketball games, you know, it’s stuff that they have part part of the band there, and then the cheerleaders and all that. So, but instead of the healers and their entourage and, you know, their dramas, they got their master dramas with them. So you’ve got all this going on in a wrestling match. [inaudible] right. And then, you know, and you see him, the wrestlers go over and they work their healers, they do their thing. This, this is a whole ritual. And it’s amazing. It’s powerful
Is a big thing in African country. Oh yeah,
Of course we know soccer, but wrestling is the other thing that’s really, you know, they’re football and soccer, but wrestling is the other thing is serious. It’s very serious to have your own healer. She got to be, she got to have your healer there. Yes. The national stadium, I went to wrestling matches there in, in one, in a small village. And then I had the, you know, I was falling in the wrestling. I wanted to see what the hell is happening. That interaction between the wrestler and the healer, that dialogue that they were having between them. It was powerful. I don’t know what all of a sudden, the little day that they were in the liquid, that they pour over them. So they didn’t just do, like, they don’t work.
He has to lose, but, you know, it’s, it depends on who has the most powerful healer how’d you end up in Haiti. Haiti was another country that I had an interest in for a long time, again, because of the, the, um, the influence of Haitian culture on Louisiana culture. And I’ve always wanted to go to Haywood. I, I did a project with the metals museum in north Louisiana, um, with Dr. Bria who was a Haitian, uh, collector. He was a physician, but he was a collective Haitian art. And, um, when they asked me to work with that museum and they wanted me to do a presentation on Haitian culture, I said, well, it’s good to do a historical presentation, but we need to know what Haitians are doing that in Louisiana today, because they, they doubled the population of Louisiana after the Haitian revolution. So I said, so we still have so much Haitian influence here and the culture and the language in the food.
So let’s find out what’s going on today. And so I, you know, so they did that. They, they gave me money to go out and interview the Haitians that were in new Orleans and in Shreveport because the exhibit was in Shreveport. So that’s how I started getting into the Haitian community by going into, um, into new Orleans and doing interviews there. And I interviewed all the Haitians that when Shreveport at the time, which was 12, Dr. Bria was one. And he took me around to all these Haitians, to their homes. So I can end up getting him. Cause I was looking really at what were the things that they had maintained of their culture after coming to Louisiana. I mean, these, you know, contemporary Haitians, so to speak. So I wanted to know what major, um, things that they were still doing to maintain their Haitian culture. You know, I knew that was important to them. So, um, and so it was a very, um, enlightening ex exercise that I did. And, you know, I learned a lot about Haitian culture through talking to the people.
Are you saying that then the new Orleans doubled in population? When
Was this after the Haitian revolution, after the Tucson overture, the Haitian revolution over in 18 0 3, 18 0 4. Of course there were mass migrations before the revolution was over because the planters were leaving, going to Louisiana, Cuba, wherever else they could go. But of course they were taking the insulated people with them.
So they came. So the Haitian, the new Orleans population grew overnight because of the migration migration of Haitians coming to new Orleans in 18 hundreds. But they came, we came, came back to the way of, uh, the slave masters broadly.
Yeah. The slave masters brought, yeah, they’re, they’re enslaved people, but there were also free people of color that came. So it wasn’t just enslaved people, but the free people of color also came and that brought new Orleans into a three tiered society that the white, the Creoles and the enslaved, the Creoles and free people of color with all free people of color are not considered Creoles. And, but so they had, but they basically had the three tiers to society.
Since I got an anthropologist in, that’s always been the big question. Well, what is a Creole?
You know, it depends on the time of history that you’re talking about. Some in one time they considered Creoles to be people of another descent. I was born in Louisiana. So like, if you’re European and your parents came to Louisiana and you were born in Louisiana, then you were creed up. And then other people say, well, you know, another definition of course is when you have the mixture of, uh, black and French or black and indigenous people, they’re considered like Creoles too, you know, a black and you know, some Spanish, French, whatever,
Ed, the Jordan Smith, uh, one of the renowned geologists around the Louisiana area said that also Creole was a term like, like you just defined. She said for when the Africans came to this country, but when the child was born here, it was considered a career. Yeah. And as my own, my first time here, you know, we grew up pretty. I had to do with the complexion of your skin. You would like a flexor. He was considered a Creole. But I knew when I grew up that wasn’t true because there was people, Creole that we called cochlear, and it was a different, you know, a dark to light. But I put for the most part that need like light skin for the, for these days at time, they use it more for the lighter complexity.
Yeah. For mix, because you have, you know, mixed blood, which, which are not light, some are dark and they’re still considered Creoles. So it depends on, you know, who you mix with.
What kind of work were you doing in Haiti?
Well, um, I was actually, uh, first started going in, looking at carnival because I also do carnival in new Orleans, Mardi Gras, Indians. Okay. So you’re going to get that your favorite subject. But I went there because I was always interested in, um, the indigenous population and how they are represented in carnival. And there are Haitians who also honor their indigenous populations to Arawak Indians, you know? Um, and so they dress like they’re awake in the ENS in, in carnival. And it’s a lot of bands events. So-so
Haitians in Haiti have a Mardi
Gras. Kitchen. Yeah, yeah. What they call it carnival. And they have to, as a matter of fact, they have one and of course the main they call it the national carnival and port us for Spain. Uh, I mean, Port-au-Prince Trinidad. I do Trinidad too, but the other one is Jack male. They have a traditional carnival and Jack mail. It happens the week before the national karma. So I went to the national carnival first and this was right after the earthquake. So they were moving it around. They didn’t have an input. They, they moved it around to a cap patient, which is in the Northern part of Haiti because they wanted to take it to different cities. So they could bring revenue to those cities because, you know, if you have carnival people coming from, you know, full all of the countries, they comment to Haiti. It’s like they come and Trinidad the new Orleans, you know, with the Caribbean folk.
Yeah. So are you telling me that even in Brazil, so mighta Gras, carnival is a part of the culture of who would be
Many countries have carnival, um, yeah. Brazil, uh, Haiti, Trinidad, uh, a number of other countries, you know, some of the other, some of the other, they may call it something different. Like in Jamaica they had Junkanoo.
Okay. But I’m saying that, you know, for the most part we Louisiana with European, I mean, you got was a European type of thing. Well,
It was basically started in Europe. Yeah. And we know when we had the diaspora began with, uh, all of the, uh, uh, people of African descent, they had carnival wherever they were, you know, so this is now it’s in these countries is a mixture of the culture of that country as well as European culture. So you have these cultures mixing up for a carnival monocrop. Now in some areas like new Orleans, they have, you know, the big float parades, which is basically kind of like the European side of it. But in the black communities, they walk the streets and it’s sorts of different type of carnival. As a matter of fact, they didn’t even call it Mardi Gras, they call it kind of up, you know? So you have those influences from Haiti because the Haitians came into new Orleans. And so you have these mixtures. I look at like you take the modern grain is for instance, a walking, uh, carnival walking in the streets, parading through the streets during precessions. And there are a combination of west African influence, Caribbean influence and indigenous influence. So, and because it’s on my grind day, a lot of people say in European influence because it’s during that time. But you know, it’s those a combination of cultures that are coming together,
But the Indians just don’t come out on Mardi Gras day. They got something they call super Saturday. Yeah. They
Will. Even before super Sunday, they do St. Joseph’s day. And I can’t, you know, I’m still, I still ask why St. Joseph’s day. Well, you know, there’s a lot of Catholics in new Orleans. It was the highest Catholic population of blacks. So another day to day come on, they wanted it. That was a traditional one carnival and St. Joseph’s state is just another day to celebrate another day. We can wear our, since the super Sunday started because of the protests, uh, with, um, Jerome Smith and tambourine and fan club, basically the youth of the community and tree me. And he started super Sunday. But looking at it as a way to protest destruction of many of the black homes in the treatment area, when they brought, when they destroyed Cleveland avenue, they still destroyed all the trees. It was kind of like a Parkway. And it was, it was, um, lined with Oak trees and grass where the community would congregate for different things, all sorts of community activities. Well, when they destroyed that and pulled in the interstate, they destroyed a lot of them
Ran the interstate drinks straight through as user would stay straight through the
Community, right through the community, the store at the park area and the home many homes and black businesses,
Cleveland avenue, Clayborne avenue, it goes down to cross as the city. Yeah. So now tell them what was super Sunday, what happened?
Well, what happened? He was, it was a sort of a protest March marching, you know, because of the urban, urban renewal.
So, so, but not end up being a party.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it started as a problem in the story that I get from several people that 2d chief, big chief Tootie, Montana, you know, new Jerome and they used to talk and he knew that Jerome was having this protest March, you know, to speak about what had been done to the community. And so he decided that he was gonna March to, he ain’t gone Jonah, but he joined them in his Indian suit. So of course, when people see big chiefs 2d out there in his Indian suit, they start dancing. Some of were put on that very big T 2d. I hear serious. So they say, okay, we go join them too. And that started the first, super Sunday in the downtown area around tree. May you have Orleans avenue dreamy? That’s that, that’s that area by the municipal auditorium congos and that bar from Congo square and all of that, that’s, that’s the tree main area.
And that’s where the first hoop was done suddenly started. And then the uptown, the doubt that was downtown for the uptown folks to say, well, we going to have a suicide. So then the uptown decided that they would have a super Sunday. And then the wet years later, the west bank decided that they were going to have a suicide, this and this. And now you have three super Sundays on three different Sundays. And every day that Indians can come back out again with their suits on and the, the skeleton man, the baby dolls, all of this is like, you know, the black monograph, this black carnival, they celebrate with a celebrated three more. They make the three more days.
And you, I understand you working on a documentary.
Yeah. Well, there have been a number of documentaries, um, that have been, uh, filmed on the Indians, but I just thought that I would do one really concentrating on the music because the music is a very important to the ritual. So yeah, it’s a street ritual and it’s, it’s, it’s very important, um, with the procession, because basically there’s new, pre-sessions on carnival and it’s not a parade. It’s a procession where the different groups, different Indian gangs meet each other, and it’s a mock battle they’re warriors and they have this mock battle on the street. So after, um, you know, um, the, the, the super Sundays, it’s this kind of a parade, you know, they just parade in the streets so everybody can still see their suits again and see how beautiful they are.
Yeah. Really beautiful. We had two home today. Thank you for inviting us here. And you’ve got some wonderful pictures of some minor grinding. He was right behind you.
We’re working with him a long time
And that’s what junior, your husband and there’s, you know, really put us, spend a lot of time.
Yes. And it’s a complex ritual. Most people think it’s just something they do on carnival day or super Sunday. St. Joseph’s but many of the participants actually live. Would you be leaving? Year-round it’s a life cycle, right? I mean, it’s a part of their lives. No, of course. No question would be,
Uh, any like the need, the native American, or he just called himself UDL.
Both. Some of them actually have native American ancestry and some don’t, but those that don’t act like it. And it’s sacred. It’s a sacred thing. Whether, you know, you really know you have some indigenous ancestry or not. It’s been, you know, you know, because they are celebrating the indigenous people.
That was a little boy. And I always tell a story that, because my grandmother, on my dad’s side, she would always say that, you know, she was native American and she would always, she never give us a story or the history about who we are. And I guess when all day we would look at, when we looked at her, we think about what they call, what they call a squat, either a fibia, uh, indigenous person, when you call them, when, you know, that’s kind of what she looked like to us, from the image that we had on what, in watch a TV when she was always tell then yeah, [inaudible] was, it was embarrassing. You don’t need to know this is not important, but she spoke French and wouldn’t have system would come to town and speak in French, French, French, but they would never let, let us learn everything about her culture. It was like, it was, you want me to know this not even important, like, you know, is behind you, you moving all you in America. Now, that’s kind of how I, when I think about that as I’ve gotten older, yeah.
Well, a lot of Indians, well, indigenous people were enslaved to at one time, you know, when, when, when the, um, they brought the enslaved people from Africa, they also enslaved indigenous people. And that’s why they had a really certain Alliance with Africans and Indians and early in the early, um, colonial period of Louisiana. And so this has, um, you know, it’s gone on three years, so they enter intermarriage and everything. Um, you had certain things like, well, the traditional healing practices, for instance, that one with being with the environment, um, religious practices, you know, so th there were a number of things that were, uh, similar with the two cultures. And I’m sure you heard of the story, how the indigenous people would Harbor the runaway slaves. They knew the land. They knew that it was a swamp land in new Orleans, and they knew the land. They knew how to survive the land and, and the Africans, you know, they could adjust and they adapt it, you know? So they, they harbored a lot of them, runaway slaves.
I hear a lot about that story going to a slide there. A lot of it was hiding out.
The other thing is the indigenous people are the, they, they help to keep the colony a lot, the French colony alive in Louisiana,
Or about them, how to grow food,
How to survive the land. And, um, they would come in and sell their produce in the fresh mark. They would also come in and sell their produce and Congo square. Many people think it was the Africans that started Congo square. No, it was indigenous people at that time. Congo square was right behind new Orleans. New Orleans was the French quarters. Well, we know as the French quarters today, that was it. That was new, new Orleans and Rampart street was the back of new Orleans. And then that started tree may was right out the ramp, foster Palestine, you have Congo square. So they would come to the outskirts of the city to sell their, produce those outskirts metal with his heart, for them to believe these days. But that was the outskirts to see the French quarters. And they would not only would they sell their produce, but you know, you have the mixture of the languages.
Now you have the dances, you have the rhythms, you have the drumming, you know, when you got the indigenous end and the Indians, I mean, the, the indigenous people and the Africans doing all of these things. So all this is coming together in one. And that’s, that’s that we look at that as the core of the city, because not only the cultures were coming together, but economy was coming together. They would, they were selling things. You know, this is a good thing about jazz and all that came out of Congo square. It was like the core of the city. It was, it was the behind the city,
French quarters, which I’m still this age, but it’s called the French quarter, but it had Spanish pocket tech.
Yeah. Well burn a large part of the French quarter burner. I forget the exact year, but then despair. But then the Spanish were the colonial powers. So they of course building with Spanish influence, but you still have a lot of the French influence around, but yeah, a lot of it is Spanish influence because it was colonized by the French first, then the Spanish, then the British came in. So during that time, the quarters burned, it was the Spanish that brought it back in Spanish.
Okay. So that’s, that was bourbon street was, that’s why it’s still a main street. So that lasts a long time. I wouldn’t get excited, started talking about,
We love you India. So let’s get back to tell me about the documentary I’m doing that now, because I thought there was a need to sort of feature the music because the music is, um, so important because I look at the music, the Indian music, the rhythms, the drumming, uh, I look at that as being a strong influence on the early RNB of new Orleans. Now that’s a large part of the documentary, but I also look at the systemic resistance of the Indians because they always resist as assistants. They say, we’re not parading, so we don’t need any permits. You’re not doing that. We don’t need permits. And so, you know, they just, they, we, no, no, we don’t need any floats. We can walk through the streets. [inaudible] Yeah, he’s still doing it. That’s right. And the other thing I remember both Alice, which was an ended in big chief told me once, you know, he passed his past now, but he told me once he said, well, you know, they wouldn’t let us come on canal street in St. Charles or Cedar parades. So we just decided with all make operates, we do our thing separate from them. We, you know what I’m saying? That’s what exactly what they did. You know, there’s
The dark side was already where they were yet. So they weren’t included,
It’s turned around, turned around the homeless. But yeah, but again, resistance, it was this discriminatory practices. They would let the blacks go in there. They couldn’t, they couldn’t go on this street. You can be the first ones to see the parade, you know, at this stage, you know, with carnival, even with monograph, you know, it was discriminatory practices. So again, that’s how they just resisted and did their, okay. Now, are we talking
About discriminatory practices? I did a little research enough on that. How long have you been in it at LSU?
Well, it’s a professor 30 to
40 days. You’ve been the lowest paid [inaudible]
For 34 years. That’s the true, the research, you know, it comes up,
Is that true? That’s that’s discriminatory or practice or that just, you just didn’t qualify to be up there with the rest of
Them. It wasn’t equitable. It was not equitable. What’d you mean by equitable? I was not getting equal pay. And most women at LSU don’t get equal pay as the men, not at LSU, they don’t do such a thing. He said, you tell him, Alex,
You do not pay the women to save her day to be in it. What’s your degree maybe. Cause you went to university and had this qualifying LSU. You, you, you are worth the lowest fee. Even to this
Day. I was the lowest paid full professor in my department that, that I do know
Recently, well recently, I mean, 10 years ago,
A few months ago, a few months
Ago you were still, so [inaudible],
I’m just saying right now, uh, prior to I was the lowest paid professor, Louis paid full professor in my department, even after, you know, one, it come behind me.
He was someone came years after you were still making more than Mia male. So that’s a common practice.
Well, uh, women do tend to be paid less during the same jobs, you know, definitely on university campuses, but in a corporate world too. So now you fight for reparation to know, or what would they call that restitution. So, so how
Can, how can that be corrected? So that’s Cherokee. Can you have any impact on making a
Difference? Well, I’m certainly going to try,
Like I see all of that and takes me with the word trying, are you going to do something well? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. W what are some things you’d like to do to bring some justice equality?
Well, uh, I would certainly like to, uh, increase the reach and our department. And when I say increase the reach, I mean, as far as, as far as recruitment and, you know, engagement retainment of students and faculty members, um, because again, we don’t have a good record in diversity. My department does not.
LSU has his first president. He came on right after you did, uh, doctor take two intake and William the first in the sec to be the president and then the CEO of the university of African descent. So LSU has made a history as a major leap. So what’d you think about, have you had a chance to speak
With him chance to talk with him yet? And we had a forum last week, but you know, it was a forum for all faculty, you know, who wanted to get on the forum, but it was basically to talk about the COVID pandemic. Um, but in our department, I, you know, I would, I would just like to see some more of a diversity equity and inclusion. And, um, and I, I look at diversity is, um, not just being, not just looking at it demographically, but I look at it as being, uh, you know, having a diverse culture. So, I mean, you, you, you, you have an ingrained within the system within the department and not just to have the numbers there, but really aren’t engaging with him. I’m not supporting them and doing all the things, you know, that you need to do to retain people. So it needs to be a culture of the department, not just having the demographics, you know, and so I will work hard, uh, doing that. I mean, I’ve done that at the university, in my old tenure being there, you know, where I could. Um, and so I intend to do more of that. I would like to see us, you know, being a more diverse department and including, uh, others, um, and making them feel,
Would you like your legacy to be when you leave the department as the chair, though, what’s what you’d like to implement. Some new things
Really liked to be a catalyst for institutional, um, change. Um, and in that way continue, um, really make an impact with diversity inclusion and equity, uh, this mansion, um, and do that embarrass ways. And I mean, with faculty, as well as graduate it as well as students, you know, undergraduate as well as graduates increase our numbers, you know, our numbers are low and it was low before COVID. So we can’t, we can’t blame COVID for low numbers
And students, students,
Um, enrolling in graduate
For as a diversity students
As a whole. Yeah. We, you know, our numbers are kind of low right now, so I like to build those up as well as
The diversity part. So it was hard to get students to enroll in anthropology.
Do you have to let them know about it? And it’s not hard to get them enrolled? I mean, I think I anthropology numbers up more than others, but, um, but on both sides, geography and anthropology, I would like to increase the interval.
Do y’all do many outreach program
In your department. One of the things that I want to do more of, we have done some, but I would like to do more outreach in the community and going into the high schools and talking about these disciplines, because I mean, we got geography and maybe, I don’t know, feel for sixth grade or something that we never got anthropology, you know, so I have done that already, but I would like to see more of the faculty members do an outreach program to the community because if students need to know, you know, most of them don’t know about the disciplines before they come to college. And a lot of them will take it as say for instance, in elective or their social science requirement, and then maybe they’ll get interested in it and, you know, say, I think I want to go on and have a, um, you know, get my degree in my bachelor’s department
For 93 years. So that means a pretty old department. We have not had a major impact on the
Major impact. I’m just saying now I would like to increase the impact. You know, I mean, we have a lot of, uh, graduates that have gone on and done wonderful things in various parts of the world, you know, but I would like to see it happened
More. One day I was talking with you. You told me a very interesting story that I, uh, need to be repeated because this is the soul is funny. And the showing you how diverse you are too, and how much you love your people. You love your community and you want to do anything to, uh, support live your community. But you talk about telling this story about, uh, you love you music, although you could say gospel music, you know, when you went to uni attended LSU, but you had a friend who had a record store and he had passed and you had to be out of town. You wanted to collect the music, but it just was doing it to one of the way you remember last
Night. Yeah, it was, um, it was, uh, w w w it was a music store, but they also supplied a lot of the regalia for churches and choir’s Bibles, uh, uh, heroin’s music store. And, um, it was, you know, I would go there and talk to the person that owned it. And he was, you know, he was getting older and he wanted to retire and you wanted to close up the store and I encouraged them and said, well, before you close it, let me talk to LSU about buying the collection, because we have a, a music library within the large, uh, university library. So I said, well, let me talk to LSU and see if I can get them to purchase the music. I said, they probably don’t want the Bibles and the Sunday school, class materials and all of that. They had communion things you use for communion the whole bit.
He used to supply that to the national Baptist convention, which most people don’t know that they cause most of the folks in Chicago, but no, we had this little store here in Baton Rouge that supplied a lot of the, um, materials, um, for, for, um, for churches. And so I went to Ghana, uh, another one, the abroad programs that I, uh, led and he died while I went to God. And one of my friends knew that I had been, you know, connecting with him and, you know, wanting to, um, get LSU to buy his collection. And she, she contacted me and well, I got back maybe two days after the funeral. And I was able to get the number of his relatives, call them to find out well, where is all the info? All the materials that were in the store, they say, oh, we got a dump truck and had them to take it to the dump.
I thought you did what I said. Okay. Which doctor did they take it to? They gave me the name of the truck, the number of the dump truck. And they told me wasn’t done. They took the music too. I got, my dad, got the pickup truck and I got my dad to go with me. I had my boots on, I have some gloves. And I went to the dock to dig out the music, you know? And that was so important because not only was the guy that honest though did not. The second, this is the second guy that owned it, that I was able to talk to the first one who was the actual composer and the owner of the store had already passed, but he composed a lot of gospel music. Then he actually printed gospel music for other composers and arrangers of gospel music. So he had all of this and he’s shopping at a printing machine. He actually printed the music in his shop and he threw it away. They just, you know, this is some of their relatives. They’ve just wanted to bury him, get rid of all this stuff and go back to Chicago, wherever they came from, they actually had all that taken to the dump. So I went to the dump and I asked the man, I said, okay, I got a pickup truck. I got him. Right. He’s saying, I can’t let you in the dump.
That’s dangerous. I said, why I got on my boots? I’m sorry, I can’t. He said, another truck has done on top of that truck. That game he’s I can’t let you in that. And then with that, I was, I was literally, I mean, I was actually sick. I mean, my stomach was upset. My sister was upset. I was, I was just upset. Then I wanted to, I was going to dig for that music that they get about. I was thinking about getting that music sheet, music, gospel music that composers black composers said, I don’t know where else that I could have found that all that together, right there in that shot. I was so, you know, I had gotten some and I got one of the guys, another black guy that was in the music school at, you know, told him about, he got part of the printing press.
He actually got some of the, I don’t know what you call them, but they, they had, they slaves that you print on. He got some of that. He got some music, he’s a musician and music school. And so I got him to go in and get some, we were buying the music from him and he was selling a tours for the prices that you paid for 30 years ago. And then I would give him some more. I said, but I could get LSU possibly to buy this from you. So we could put it in the music library and archive. You know, I got students who could catalog it and we could archive this music and put it in LSU, roll away. Except what I had already bought from him. At another time I had called each time I go, I buy something. I bought big print Bible. I buy something every time I go. And that’s how I got some of the music, but he had tons of music that people probably didn’t even know was there anymore. I wasn’t interested. Just people just didn’t know it was dead. And it went to the dome. I was just, I was just, oh, I was upset to upset that man with not, let me get them. [inaudible]
yeah, I can’t let you take my job. Let this crazy for music. You take your, be the series. Yeah. That’s you know, that was a treasurer. You know, it was a treasure that we can never get back. These are black composers on gospel music. Yeah. Do you know how much people would pay to get that today? Or just to study it? Just to go into the library and use it and study it. It was cold in the dump. I was really upset. I made it, took me a while to get over that. I really,
Where we could feel the, a, you just pointed to dramatic experience of your traumatic experience. What about the experience that I heard one time was in college or coming out of Canada. Do you want to travel through Africa? Really going back to the travel, but you want to do the whole nother?
Yeah. Well, you know, I knew I wanted to travel through, through Africa, west Africa, but I wanted to see some of the other areas too. And I don’t know. I always had this dream, a vision about me traveling through Africa with my backpack and my baby. Yeah. I think at some point I was going to have a baby, my life. I wouldn’t have a baby, but they was going with me wherever I went. And so I saw my baby in my backpack or in my, you know, you know, how to African women had their babies wrapped around and wrap them and they put him on his stomach. And then I had my backpack on, I saw myself traveling through Africa like this, didn’t get the baby. I got this bag.
Interesting. I used to talk to my mom and dad about all this jazz, but they want me [inaudible] leather backpack back there. We booked the papers cameras. And I get, you know, like I said, I do at some point I’d probably have a baby and I would take my baby. You know, my, I could see myself traveling the world. I mean, the man would be fine. I was hoping the man would be there. And I guess that’s was always been a student of culture and, and basically, you know, cultural, you know, African culture and Goldman are Africans and said, but I want to see what the world looked like. So I wanted to go the year by one to go to, you know, so, you know, south America, I wanted to go to other places too. And, um,
And this is what you want to do. You want to be an Africa
First? Yeah, yeah,
Yeah.
I go to the motherland, you know, and then I go, yeah,
That’s just a vision. You, as a, as a young woman, you just said this you. Yeah.
And I don’t know, I have no clue cause you know, my, my parents weren’t, you know, all into African culture and still I started bringing it back. I don’t know where it came from, you know, reading books and stuff. Yeah. And you and a doctor. Well, he did the, either the first one to Ghana and uh, I was doing them to the Senegal and he was going to go on, I was going to Senegal. I was taking the students. Right. We were taking LSU students. I did three, um, study abroad in, uh, Senegal with LSU students. And I did one in Ghana. It was basically a service project where I’ve took nine LSU students to Ghana and we did service projects. And then we had the class that spring semester where they brought in all that they had learned and interviewed and observed in Donna and it was interdisciplinary.
It wasn’t just anthropology students. I had two medical students that, you know, shadowed some doctors at a public health center in Ghana. And we were in Bolga, which is a rural area, um, going to, to our craft or a few days. And then we went into, and Logan did the service projects and most of them worked at schools, but I had two that were pre-med students. They actually work with medical doctors. So it was kind of, um, coming to tick to me this time, you know? Oh, all the, um, oh, what do you put the dead people? All the, um, um, the mall logs of full. I said really? Yeah. I’m thinking, okay, anybody need to go talk to these doctors? Is there a disease going on or what is happening? So I went to talk to him. I said, oh no, you know, most families have to wait to have the funerals because it has to be a community funeral.
So you have to have a certain amount of money. Um, and, and, you know, it’s just a lot that goes on. So, you know, this is another ritual. So I said, this is what I started calling, looking at funerals because it’s, um, it’s a ritual as a community ritual and it’s just very different, you know, they advertise funerals and people from the around the communities would come and, uh, you know, they do the dancing and the ancestors, you know, do the circular dances around the casket. And so it’s, it’s a, again, another ritual and, uh, sassy. Oh, okay. That makes sense. So yeah, this the same thing, like, you know, like we have jazz funerals in new Orleans, they have funerals to now about the cause of death, but there is the music. Is there the dancing, the drumming, and, um, you know, you have a lot of food.
Uh, one man, I was invited to funerals. I didn’t know the people, but they invited me. This is the elder of the community. So you hear Don Reed, you got to come. And so we will go to the funeral and the man was so important. He’s elderly guy that they had two funerals for him in one day. So you got the big funeral over here and then you got another smaller funeral over here. And so we went to the big funeral cause that’s how I went from an in dancing and singing in the, you know, the, the, the folks that were representing the ancestors were dancing around the casket and all of this. And, um, and they just let me film, you know, cause I had talked to the priest side, interviewed priest. I got went, they had to do healers too, but I, uh, isn’t, that’s not interesting.
But anyway, they, they let me come in, they let us film, they let me take Nash, take pictures, you know? And I had never seen a fish for hours. We were, then it was just getting, sorry, [inaudible] compared to two, you know? So then we started ease on out of the big one and went to the smaller one over, you know, the weight and it was the same thing going on. And I’m thinking, you know, as I’m trying to feel well, have the family, you know, they got sauna family over here. So it was, it was a, it was an interesting thing, but that was why the morgues were full because you can, you can keep bodies for months, not just days a week months, but you have to wait because this person has to come back home. When they come home, they have to have money. You have to have a whole lot of food to feed the community. You know, you have to pay the people who are going to act as the ancestors, you got mourners. So everybody has a part, it’s like a theatrical event. So you got to have the money to take care of all of this. So don’t baddest to stay there for a season, you know, you’re starting to get over it, you know, but, uh, but yeah, that that’s, that’s why the morgues were full.
So that was a pretty well also you had a, you wanted, or you wanted to start the triple a S on the list. Yeah, I was there
With, with Tom the rant. Um, what is it? AAA African and African-American studies program with the program for 20, some years, 26, 27 years. It just became a department and just became a department this past spring. And, uh, I worked with that while I was a director for six years. So that’s, that’s my affiliation, no matter what else I’m doing, I’m still affiliated with the AAA’s program or department now. So the Dean asked me to work with him and that ends up the current director, uh, chair now Stephen Fendley, uh, to, um, to bring it into departmental status. So, um, and Laura Martin, who is now, uh, associate Dean, but she was the interim, um, director while it was a program this last year. And, um, so we’re still there and we still pushing, you know, it’s a lot to do for a new department, you know, it’s coming along,
But just started department. How long ago was it? 1994?
The numbers at that time, it was good to start. Oh, Tom Duran. He’s one of the major, one major person Dr. Tom Thomas Duran and, uh, that the coffee LaMorte, uh, he was there and, um, you know, a number of a number of other people, uh, you know, again, you know, we didn’t have a lot of professors that were in African-American studies at the time when we were all, you know, in different disciplines, but we came together to make that happen. You know,
W who was [inaudible]
That the Thomas Duran was a driving force. Yes. And he, and, um, and LaMotta
Too auto doctor retired. He got, he still lived there.
Oh yeah. He’s easy. Meritus but he still is a depart. I mean, he’s still, you know, it’s affiliated very, very closely with the department and, um, you know, he’s, they’re active with us.
Okay. So now, uh, we talked about you come the first year and you have being a female. You say, you like to see the department move into more diversity and in bringing most of the word about the students, like you never know what that God, I would call it public geography and anthropology who don’t even know what would that either
What I was going to say and looking at outreach programs too, I would like to have more professors to go into the high schools to talk about these disciplines, because a lot of them don’t even know, you know what? I may have heard the name anthropology, but really don’t know. And even with geography, there are so many sub-disciplines of geography that, that people can work with and that students, you know, are not aware of. So it’s very important to have these outreach programs where we can, um, make students aware of the possibilities in the department,
Make a suggestion since you use a chair. And I figure I got, uh, I want to be the help help assist out, helped me make the right connection. But me being a former athlete in LSU, the number one top thing the LSU is really good at is the football department know that is recruited the football, baseball, basketball could be recruited. Why?
Well, of course we don’t have the funding that the football and the baseball and the basketball. Well, they got the
Thing about hiring. Also recruit the, generate them some excitement around these recruits that people to come pay to participate in, watch these recruits perform. So your department not doing any type of performance, they draw the people to come and pay.
Uh, no, we don’t have any performances that we do. Um, we do research and we present our research. Well, that’s kind of boring when you go get them to cover that.
You just told me a story. You told me a story, but the new Orleans Indians, no, we don’t want to be part of the Mardi Gras though. We go, just do our own thing. And so they started the only performer. They drew crowds of people to follow them. So this is a way of making names happen.
Maybe we can talk about this. There will be some insight
Now that maybe I can help you all to build a great department. It did raise some excitement back. I like to thank you for joining us to be on counter with a joy, a pleasure. And you did a tree and you very exciting in lightening lady, your travels, a lot of great things that you been part of that you was able to share with us. And I just feel honored to be a part of your history in a lot of ways, by hearing your story. But it just been so good that it’s so wonderful to hear your travel here, what y’all, what you went through, but to see where you are and you still smiling and laughing in, useless at this, the, uh, need to be because you stood the test. You’re still a young lady, but you still thank you for joining us on Count Time.
Thank you for having me. And it’s really been a pleasure having the conversation.
LD gives his thoughts on the Real ID and the impact of the digital age on privacy and safety. The Real ID will be required for state ID’s beginning May 3, 2023. What impact will this have on travel? Does this signal a changing role for the Department of Homeland Security? Listen in for LD’s take on the Real ID.
Please leave your comments below. If you haven’t yet, subscribe to the Count Time weekly alerts. Let us know below what you think of the show and suggest topics for future episodes.
Real ID Act of 2005
Passed by Congress in 2005, the REAL ID Act enacted the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation that the federal government “set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver’s licenses.” The Act and implementing regulations establish minimum security standards for state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards and prohibit federal agencies, like TSA, from accepting licenses and identification cards from states that do not meet these standards for official purposes, such as getting through the airport security checkpoint to board a plane.
Louisiana eligible applicants can receive a driver’s license or identification card that is compliant with REAL ID or not compliant with REAL ID. Applicants are required to indicate if he or she would like a REAL ID compliant and non-compliant driver’s license or special identification card on paperwork at the Office of Motor Vehicles.
Includes a list of many of the consumer reporting companies, updated for 2021. This list also makes it easier for you to take advantage of your legal rights to (1) obtain the information in your consumer reports, and (2) dispute suspected inaccuracies in your reports with companies as needed.
Today we asked the question, should we all be required to get a real ID or a real ID? Most of us still figuring out what in the world is a real ID. What is the purpose of a real ID? today we hope that we can shed a little light on your situation and we can have to answer some of your question or concern or for some who never thought much of it at all. We hope to give you something to think about and look into for the sake of having
A really interesting Topic and to give us something to think about. That’s what we normally do with Count Time. We want to come from a different perspective to enlighten you about what’s going on in your community, around your community, in your state and your country to live in, and then plays that we supposed to be aware of what’s going on at all times. So what is a real ID where the way the real ID came about it came about because of the real ID act was signed and implemented in 2005. So what is this about? What is that came about after 2001 after 9 1 1, and after 9 1, 1, it created a Patriot act. The real ID is a substitute or new law, a new law that was implemented act that was implemented by Congress because you no longer hear about the Patriot act, right? And what the Patriot Act was, and acronym. And it stood for Providing
Appropriate tools to resist intercept organized terrorism act. That’s what Patriot stood for. So we know the federal government does, does an awesome job. They got so many people working there that create these terminologies. That sounds so good. Like Patriots act, the truth deals. What is really behind what you got going on, but we know the government, we have to love them, but do they really are. They really have our best interests at heart. As long as I’ve been around, I have to question it. I haven’t seen them do the thing, do something because the right thing to do, and it’s all about business. So how did the real ID come about where real ID is just when the state is your driver’s license, you gotta sign a contract and Nick contracts, and that you will, you can use his permission to use the license and the drive on our roads, our street. If you follow these rules and regulations, if you do not follow our rules and regulations, then we have the authority to suspend your license. They can suspend your license, they can confiscate your license. They do quite a few things. I can’t remember all the different things they can do. If you do not follow your state rules and regulations, that governs
Driver license. So why
Do you need a driver’s license from the federal government? Because the federal government, you can get a passport. If you want to travel. If you want a travel pack, the federal government controls all traveling from airlines, real ways, boats, ships, and buses, Greyhound buses, the federal government control all that. So you cannot travel out of this country or from state to state because the federal government can determine how you, how they can, how they want you to do that. How to handle that because they control all out or traveling or regular traveling like on the roadway,
You don’t need no federal support or driver license, right?
But now they’re saying you do because of the 9 1 1 they saying you do. Cause they also put in there, there was going to be a little border wall. So that was already put in place before Trump made a big deal out of it. Why, why invested invest in a border wall? What was the purpose of the border wall? Back in 2005, uh, after the 9 1, 1 which happened in 2001, they begin to focus on the border walls and stopping those from coming to this country. And it’s amazing to me. Cause every everywhere I pass, no matter what state I’m in, the people that come in from other countries doing all the work, they building the highways, the bridges, uh, the big, the big buildings. So you stopping the P from coming, but they doing all the work for you. So it does make any sense to me. So we need to understand better or what’s going on. What is the purpose of the real ID? We want you to ask them more questions about it when you can come more enlightened or you can know for yourself that, you know, what is the purpose of this? If I want to get a passport to travel, I can get that without getting the real ID. Why do I need an ID? What is the federal government plan? I guess about
15 years or so ago, you had people like TransUnion, Equifax and experience came online because they was on top of the digital. You know, they knew that everything was going to be controlled by computers. So they knew that they can control your credit, your credit ratings. And that’s just what they did. So people like TransUnion, Equifax, and experience are now the number three man, sources of controlling or checking one’s credit. Now the interesting thing about this is that, you know, you put your money, your resources in the bank and the bank do not check your credit when you bring your money there. But if you want to borrow some money, they got determined. Or if your credit is sufficient enough for them to loan you money, they want to know, are you not? You’ve been doing business with them for years. They want to know your reputation.
They already do it because you do business with them. You got your money there. You, sir, you do business with them on a regular basis, but they got to determine through their credit report or you legitimate enough to where they can do business with you. That’s kind of should be a reverse. We should be checking the bank’s credit report to find out are they sufficient for us to do business with them? So it’s almost like the tail wagging the dog. You bring them all your resources there and bringing nothing to the table, but they’re controlling everything. They to the bank or the banking system or the ones who created train union Equifax and experience. I don’t know. It might be something to look into though, but these are the kinds of things that have happened because of the digital computers and the same kind of power would probably be given to the government when under the real ID act. When now you have to have a, we’ve been getting heavy state issued IDs for many years, and now we’re going to be a state issued ID, but it’s going to be fulfilling our purposes. So you’re now going to be in contract with the state and the federal government. So now the federal government will have jurisdiction and authority over you with your driver’s license or your ID, whichever one you choose to get
Because the federal government and the banking system soon, we’ll be taking cash off the market, you know, long will be at operate with cash. What you’re going to have on digital dollars in some ways, some forms. And once you have digital dollars, if anybody remember the movie enemy, they have the state, they can control any and everything you do, you and they will no longer have to go, come looking for you. And that’s what’s assay is getting ready to happen with this real ID because the federal government bank work hand in hand, cause why do we need a federal ID to travel in your local community? Your local state go to other states, never needed one before because they know there’s money to be made. And it would be to control everything people do. There was a summer month off because why it’s gone. We all gonna be in contract with the federal government cause a real ID or driver’s license is a contract between the two parties. And now we will be contracting with the federal government contracting with the local state or local cities to do business, to drive on the roads. So I hope this don’t become the new world order, the new way of the government doing business. And we become in a military state.
Now rule run and control by Homeland security. They’re gonna be your own brothers, sisters, child, who would be coming against you because they’re going to be representing the federal government.
You would now start hearing more about department of Homeland security cause they ain’t going to be coming in. I believe knocking, kicking down your doors, uh, arresting people because now they can determine all who they choose to who are a threat to that, to that area. They will be able to shut off every state to say that you can’t cross to go from one state to another. We already saw that in action last year, where certain states shut their borders. I’m not talking about people coming in from Mexico. I’m talking about in state where there was many states, quite several states have shut down their borders and people in another state could not cross over. Like you couldn’t go from Arizona to California. You couldn’t go from Seattle to California. You know, certain states, you couldn’t go in from Louisiana to Texas, Texas that shut their borders. So this the kind of things they’ve made, it’s, might’ve been a testing maybe to see what’s going to happen or how to put things in place. I don’t know, but the real ID would give them authority to now enforce the things they choose to enforce. When the state we’ve given up all their rights and power and they got paid for it, we will be getting paid for, to do these things. And we hate that it come into This. Can we do anything about it? I don’t know, but
We have to do a better job of holding them accountable. Let them know they did there to serve us. So what is really going on? What is the purpose of all this that’s happening?
Should we be required To get a real ID? Why, why do you think you need a real ID to drive that you already drive it from city to city, state to state town, to town. Why do you need a, a federal government ID or they say, well, it stopped two illegal aliens from getting them where they can get whatever they want anyway and stop them from coming here now. But you’re empowering other people
To, to do into, to control you without you having any Authority anymore, to do anything about it. So this is just something to think about. Do we all need A real ID
To the federal government? Be they have mandate that we get ID or driver’s license. It’s not just an ID. It’s a driver license, a federal driver license. So we know the government doing something like that is not for our benefit. It never has been, it never served. Our benefit is only for there. So do you think you need a ride that you would ask? Great. We all excited. We all need to get one, but if you don’t think we need to re ID, what is the purpose of the ride? The do your research, your own study, look it up for yourself, go research it for yourself and that way, you know, for yourself and you understand what are the issues at hand. So thank you once again for joining us and we hope that you were enlightened and courage and I was able to shed a different light on what’s going on with the real ID. Thank you.
LD interviews LSU football Living Legend Greg Lafleur. They discuss their time together at LSU and the different paths they took to the NFL. Listen in for never heard before LSU football history and great, inspiring life stories. Greg also reviews Billy Cannon A Long Long Run.
Please leave your comments below. If you haven’t yet subscribe to the Count Time weekly alerts. Let us know what you think of the show and suggest topics for future episodes.
WHAT IS COUNT TIME?
Count Time Podcast features LD Azobra formerly Lyman White, formerly of the LSU Tigers and the Atlanta Falcons. Join LD as he describes a journey to enlightenment, awakening and truth. Count Time it is time to Stand Up and be Counted.
Greg with sons Robert Sacre and Greyson
Selected quotes and notes from Count Time Podcast with LD Azobra Interview of Living Legend Greg Lafleur
Good evening. Good evening. Good evening is 4:00 PM. Stand up. It’s count time, time for every man and woman to stand up and be counted. Welcome to another edition of count time podcast. I am brother LD Azobra formerly named Lyman white. Thank you for joining us today.
LD:
Welcome everyone to Count Time. Another edition of Count Time. We have a young man visiting with us again today. Dear friend, a teammate, we go back a long ways. You’ve been on the show before and it would be glad to have him back. We got here the great, awesome tight end LSU and St. Louis Cardinals, the Mr. Greg Lafluer.
Greg:
Thanks again, LD for having me on the show.
LD:
You know, it’s a pleasure, my friend, uh, a partner, we go back a long ways over 40 years thought We would be saying that one day?
Greg:
No, no, not forty years. And matter of fact, it’s almost forty-five years.
LD:
Man, man Where have time gone. Right. But let everyone know. He’s still looking great in great health, physically, spiritually, mentally, you look great. You look wonderful. Thank you for coming back today. Cause last time we had a more intellectual discussion, I guess, right? We discussed the book by Charles deGravelles something like that on Billy Cannon, a long, long run. And we had a discussion about that book and it went well. And I appreciate you coming in for that purpose. Cause you sent me the book to read and I decided that we would have discussion about it, but we didn’t get a chance to have a discussion about your time nor my time at LSU together. So this was this, uh, conversation going to be about. We’re going to have a discussion about your experience at LSU and uh, beyond in our experience together, you got there, you arrived to LSU a year before I got it. Let’s see. Tell me, how you end up at LSU.
Greg:
I got to LSU in 1976, as you know, I grew up in Ville, Platte, Louisiana.
LD:
Oh, let me send a shout out to my dear friend and mayor of Ville Platte Mayor, Jennifer vitrine. I can’t leave you out . Right? She was in school with us at LSU. She was
Greg:
So, you know, not, uh, LD growing up in the sixties, uh, LSU was not an option, so I never even considered going to LSU because it was not possible. And then my freshman year in high school, LSU had its first black player, Mike Williams and LoRa Hinton. But it didn’t phase me that much. Cause it was just two of them and only one really played. That was my William because Laura Hinton I think
Greg:
Had some injury problems. Yeah.
Greg:
So the only person we saw on TV was Mike Williams.
LD:
He was an awesome defensive bank. Right.
Greg:
So I didn’t have any interest in going to LSU.
LD:
Nor did I. None, zero, zero
Greg:
With me too. Because when I was growing up and if you saw a black person with an LSU shirt on, you knew that mothers worked at some white folks home and that was some hand-me-down clothes. So that that’s all that LSU meant to me. So it just didn’t because it was not an option. It’s not like I didn’t like LSU. It was just not an option. My junior year in high school, we were at spring practice and this white fella came out on the field and he was standing there watching practice. And my head coach came up to me and he said, Hey, you see that guy standing on the track? I said, yeah. He said, that’s the coach from LSU. And he’s here to watch you practice. What, what position you played? And I was a quarterback in high school and the coach was coach McCarthy, the offensive line coach.
Greg:
And he was there watching me practice. I still had no interest in going to LSU. So I go into my senior year in high school and now it’s time to take our visits, you know, and I get the LSU on my official visit. I just took the visit because they offered me to come and take a visit at LSU. I’m not gonna turn down a free trip to Baton Rouge to go watch LSU play Alabama. So I came to the game and I was just shocked when I walked into that stadium. And at the time the stadium on the hill, 65,000 people, they didn’t have the upper deck
LD:
Only 65,000
Greg:
At that time. And I was just in awe of the, of the crowd and what threw me off and Lyman coming from Ville Platte. When we walked back into the locker room, after the game, everybody kept their jerseys. I’m like, what? Y’all get to keep your jerseys. Could you already had those tearaway jurors at that time, y’all get to keep your journeys. And so all that stuff was happening around and I’m like, wow. So then I went home and told folks what I experienced at LSU. And that’s when I started to get interest on attending LSU after my official visit. But before my official visit, it was not on my radar at all. You also played basketball
LD:
Yes. In high school. And you had another visit from LSU.
Greg:
Well, my first letter that I received, my first college letter I received was from Dale Brown,
LD:
The Great Dale Brown. LSU coach. And I
Greg:
Still have that letter today, but I knew I was not a very good basketball player. I was tall and can jump and all, but my coach wouldn’t let me dribble the ball. And I knew six, four. Wasn’t tall enough to try to play college basketball without dribbling. So the coach brown kept hounding me. He kept saying, why don’t you come to LSU and play basketball? And even after I got to LSU, when I’d run into him on campus, he said, Hey, you could you’ll come out for the basketball team because I was not playing very much. And I’m sure we could talk about that a little bit once we get into. So
LD:
When you got to LSU, ya’ll was considered the largest class of African descent players. How many of y’all the had?
Greg:
Yeah, we had eight. It was only four on the team when we got there only for the team. And when I got that, it was eight of us. The ride in the Royal twin from baker high school. We’ll go stands, bear from, uh, McKinley high school. Uh,
LD:
And Wilbon is deceased in the roars deceased. Yes.
Greg:
And, uh, Sterling Sterling, Vizio
LD:
From an Edgard,
Greg:
Willie Teal from Texarkana, Texas. My roommate, Carlos Carson. You’ll have you spoke to Carlos a year ago. Okay. From time to time, we, we, we try to talk at
Greg:
Least once a year. I have not seen, I spoke with it doing very well
Greg:
In Kansas city. He owns a McDonald’s in Kansas city. So that’s seven. Yes seven. And then, uh,
LD:
Uh, 600 [inaudible] Sterling.
Greg:
Carlos Carson.
LD:
And you
LD:
It, did we mention when the Tio, oh, you know what? The other one, his name was hill. A guy named hill signed with LSU. When he didn’t show up, he went to Yale and played at Yale. His name was hill and I’m good friends with his brother, Ernest hill, who was an author. You sent me a book called satisfied, but nothing is here years ago, years ago when his brother signed with us, but never showed up and went to Yale.
LD:
That is interesting. You sit near a book years later, that was 27 years ago.
LD:
Aloma books.
LD:
I that one of the best books I enjoyed
Greg:
Ernest hill wrote that book. Well, his brother hill went to Yale, got drafted in the second round with the New York giants and played about 10 years with the giants. So he didn’t show up. They were from Oak Grove, Louisiana. Right,
LD:
Right. Ernest Hill. I haven’t heard that name in a year, wrote a book, title, satisfied with nothing. And he wrote several other books after that. I don’t remember the name of that book was very, I would encourage someone to look to pick up the book and read it because it’s a very good book. Uh, it is. It takes you to a journey in, in, in, in end up in a place you didn’t think he was gonna end up as a, I thought it was a very, very good book. So in your class you had six, seven of you. All my class came the next year had eight of us eco include me, Marcus queen, uh, will it Turner with disease to meet William? My roommate whose disease? They, the swallow was deceased. Chris Williams. Who else? I can’t remember now. Okay. Well, is that everybody that I’m still missing?
LD:
The three of Tracy Porter who Tracy roommate, Danny and trace was roommates, linear wireless wide receiver. And there’s one other guy we go take up. And it was, he was able to, we had the largest class of freshmen. So we had seven. We had a interest by one next year. They increased it by word and it brought a little bit different deport linebackers. You know why I received when I received two to Carson, Trey, but Tracy and Wallace was to learn. It was a wide receivers, but also the year I got to use you, they had, they didn’t know what to do with you. They had you played,
Greg:
I was a quarterback in high school and they were honest with it upfront when they were recruiting me. They’re like, you know, we’re going to make a tight end out of you. Cause I was six, four and I could run, you know? And they said, well, you know, we’ll put you in the weight room, have you get bigger? So we could move. You’re either tied in wide receiver and tight end or whatever. So when I got to LSU in 76 and you know that the freshmen didn’t play only two guys on our sign-in class played John Adams and Willie till they were the only two freshmen that played. So the rest of us, we didn’t even, you know, you have to practice everyday and you lost that year of eligibility, but we had freshmen games. So I didn’t get to play as a freshman. Then I come back my sophomore year and you hit you at LSU at that time.
Greg:
Right? And you remember this, but you probably wouldn’t pay any attention to me because you want defense. And most people that that’s not familiar with football, don’t realize it’s almost like two teams. You guys rode a different bus. Your roommates would all defense. Our meetings were always separated. The only time we came together was when the head coach spoke to the whole team. Other than that, we were never together right at my rest, right? So we went to Indiana and played Indiana the first game of the season and Carlos and I alternated every other play. So neither one of those nailed down the starting position. Your sophomore year, my sophomore year, then we came back to Baton Rouge for the second game, rice rice we’ll call. Those, went into the game first and they threw them a pass and he went 80 yards for a touchdown. So the next time we get the ball, they call a run in play. And then I have to run out the game. Carlos ran in the game and they called another pass play. He went to 65 yards, but touchdown. So the next time we get the ball, I go in and they caught a run in place. Then I run out, call those runs in and they call the past plate
Greg:
And it threw them a fan. There was another touchdown. Three consecutive. Now the next time we got the ball, they put me in Colin’s goals in the game. They called another pass. Touchdown. Next time we get the ball, Carlos, go. Then they call another pass plate, touch that. So he caught five consecutive touchdown passes in that day. Then the next week we played Florida. They caught a pass play early in the game and equals, but another touchdown. He caught six consecutive touchdown passes, no pass in between every pass. He caught his first six passes with touchdown. So the NC two-way record today and it still stands. Now there’s Bryant who played for the Cowboys, had a game where he had seven touchdown passes. But the difference with him and Carlos Carlos passes with consecutive six consecutive touchdown peasants. Well there’s Brian called seven, but they were not consecutive. Well, I never played another douse that year. So I only played three plays. So, so now at the end of the season, and I’m like, okay, I didn’t play as a freshman. Last year of eligibility played three plays my sophomore year. And I knew Carlos was a great wide receiver. He was fast. Yeah. So I, so I went in to see coach Mack about moving to tied in. So coach Mac moved me to tie it in. And once, once spring started, we had a shortage of flamenco. So they made me play flanker. And I played a little bit of tied
LD:
In with Della.
Greg:
Oh, you remember that people were telling, I
Greg:
Knew I wouldn’t want to play before Mike and tell her whether I was better than him
Speaker 4:
Or not. What are you seeing your weight? Unless you go play, you wouldn’t understand. But I was not going to beat Mike Montell out
Greg:
Acquisition. It was an uphill battle. And I was a team player. I played those different positions because they asked me to so we can finish spraying, but you know, I want it to be a tight in, well, we’ve finished that spring. And then we come back the next year. So this is my junior year. So we went through two a days and I played tight end doing two days that Monday before the first game, my phone rang in my room at six 30 in the morning. I don’t think I ever shared that with you. My phone rang at six 30 in the morning and the secretary said, coach Mac wanted to see you. So I walked down and went to coach Mack’s office at six 30 in the morning that Monday before the first game, you know, he sat me across his desk. He said, uh, Greg, the reason I called you in this morning, uh, we decided we’re going to red shirt.
Greg:
You and I’m a junior. Like I already been here two years and hadn’t touched the field three plays. And now you telling me I’m not gonna even play this year. And something told me, don’t lose your composure. This is something just right about this. And you go red shooter junior. I’ve never heard of it. I still hadn’t heard of that today. Unless you heard you get redshirted as a junior. So something told me not to lose my composure and just take it. And I said to coach Mack, I said, well, coach Mac, I’m in good standing academically. I’m on, on pace to graduate. And uh, by you giving me an extra year, it’ll make it much easier for me to go ahead on and finish school. I can pace myself a little bit better. And I said also, I’m, uh, I’ll go, go to the weight room and get bigger, strong and fast.
Greg:
And, and w I’m going to be the best tight end when I leave here LD, he stared at me and he jumped up out of his chair that nobody ever responded like that when they got redshirted. Now, he, that was not an endearment comment. When he said that it was like, you shut the hell out of me because in my opinion, I don’t know this for sure, but it seemed like they wanted me to overreact and they wanted me to quit, quit and take my scholarship because nothing made sense about me getting redshirted my junior year. So I’m like, okay, well, I better take advantage of this. I’m here. I’m on course. I’m on pace to graduate on time. Now I got an extra year. So I just started taking 12 hours a semester, just coasting my way outta here. So that’s the approach I took.
Greg:
And then when that freshmen class came and we had two guys from your heart from your high school were in that class, Greg Bowser and Mike Johnson. So, and that year was the first year you could reassure a freshman. Cause see, we lost our freshman year and we only had three years of eligibility to play. But when that class came, they had showed it just about that whole class. And man, they were upset. They were all upset because they knew they were not gonna play. You know, because they were all, all stars coming out of high school. So, because I
Greg:
Was ran shirted, I’m a junior I’m with all these freshmen. I remember that that was a hurting thing, but I had to deal with it, you know?
LD:
Yeah. Would it with the class, do you really?
Greg:
Yeah, because the football thing was starting to fade away in my mind, you know, because I’m like, I’m like, I better handle this school thing. I better make sure I graduated from this place because I can’t come here and waste my time. Because at that time, a lot of athletes, particularly football players when I graduated. So I’m like, I better take this school thing seriously. So anyway, that freshmen class comes in and they all complaining about being reassured because we go to practice for like 15 minutes before you guys would come out because we couldn’t ride the bus with you guys. We had to walk to the practice
Greg:
Unless you play it. You wouldn’t understand it’s making LD laugh because he know he never had to walk, always took the bus to practice. Well, we had to walk your practice and I’m a junior and I’m walking with all this freshmen to practice. So we get to the practice field.
Greg:
And we waiting for you guys to come to practice because we are the dummies for you guys. You know, we, the scout team and we were just sitting there waiting and they were just whining about being redshirted. And I just stood up and I’m like, shut the hell up.
Greg:
Yeah. I said, I’m a junior and I’m here with you guys.
Greg:
I said, listen, you guys are so lucky because chances are, none of you guys would have played as a freshmen, but you didn’t lose
Greg:
That eligibility. You still have four years.
Greg:
You can play. I said, I came here in 76 and didn’t play and lost that year of eligibility. I said, not the best thing you guys can do is take advantage of this year. Make sure you get your schoolwork done because you have five years to graduate. And this is a blessing for you. So you got need to take advantage of this. And one of your, uh, the guy, one of your guys from your hometown, he didn’t accept that Mike Johnson Mike would accept. He wouldn’t accept that at all. And he went to see the coaches and he was upset about being redshirted and he quit. He didn’t even stay on the team, lost the scholarship. And all he had to do is just not play that that year. And he would have had four years of a scholarship after that. So you would have five years of a scholarship. So, but anyway, I told that freshman class that I’m like, man, listen, don’t complain. Just, just, just take advantage of this extra year because we lost that year. Now, this is where the story gets interesting. So now I’m trying to be a tight in now. You know, I couldn’t be a wide receiver. Carlos caught six consecutive touchdown passes. I’m trying to move to tidy and that’s spraying. They signed the
Greg:
Best tight in, in America, Malcolm Scott. I’m like, ah, nah, I got to deal with this guy. Now here I am. I never played tiny. And they bring in the best tight end in the country.
Greg:
Oh man. So now I go into my junior year, which is yeah, which is my fourth year, but it’s, but it’s my junior scholarship year. So, but this is my fourth year. And you know, Malcolm was a good tight in, so Malcolm played and there was a young man from Clinton, Louisiana. Was it Clinton? Centerville,
LD:
Robert big Robert Lee is another big tight end. Yeah. Another big tidy.
Greg:
So they played those two tight ends before me. So I was the third tide is over freshness
Greg:
Of a freshmen. I was behind two freshmen, tied in
Greg:
Tight is, and so I’m like, man, I never get to play. So I’d play. I had 80 plays that whole year. Not, you know, 80 for one game. I had 80 plays the whole season,
Greg:
My junior year 80.
Greg:
I only had 80 plays. So what was interesting about midway through the season? After a game, I walked out of the locker room. Cause my parents came to every game. Although they didn’t see me play
Greg:
Because I didn’t play. But they came to every game. So after
Greg:
Midway through the season, I walked out of the locker room after one of the games and my father said, son, I’m going to come pick you up Tuesday and take you to lunch. He said, yeah, Sonoma, meet me in front of your dormitory. Tuesday at 12, I’ll come get you to take you to lunch. So that Tuesday came and he came around that circle. I got in the car and he took me to a restaurant called Mike and Tony’s. So we get into the restaurant and I’m like, why is my father taking me to lunch? That was just out of nowhere. He drove from Ville. Platte picked me up, took me to the restaurant. He said, son, you know why I brought you here? I said, no. He said, well, when you came out of the locker room Saturday night, I noticed your wings were broken as well.
Greg:
Dad, I’ve been here four years and I’m not playing. He said, son, I understand. He said, well, let me tell you something. He said, listen, you save and mama and I about $60,000 because you on a football scholarship. I said that that would have cost us about $60,000 for you to go to college. And you saving us that money by being on scholarship. Now there’s no other job in America that you can work for two hours a day and get all your school paid for. That’s not another job that you could do that you Meg now, no matter where you go, you’re not going to only work just two hours to get all your school paid for. Now, this is what you need to do. You need to go to practice and give it all you got for those two hours. And don’t give that coach any reason to say one bad thing about you because he has your future in his hands.
Greg:
So if you build that culture hard time, anybody that’s going to try to hire you in the future, going to call that COFA reference. And the, that course say you hard to deal with, or you have an attitude or whatever. You never know why you won’t get a job. So you just go out there and give it your best for them two hours, you can do two hours. You can give it your best for two hours. And he said, and if you’re good enough, they’re going to find, he said, if you want to play in the NFL, they’ll find you you’re good enough. So, and that when the conversation he drove me back to the dormitory, dropped me off and left.
LD:
How powerful was that does even think about that this point in time in your life that Joel fought. He had a father, a man to come show up who saw his son, heard him. So he saw a sign in a bad place, became the uplift. You that’s correct. Let you know that you can do this and you never looked back and you didn’t quit. No.
Greg:
So, uh, and, and, and you know, you on defense. So I was on the same field as you, you know, when we, we just scout team the offensive scout team. No, no, that was the year before that. But anyway, so yeah, so I came back and at, and I was giving it all I had then at the end of the year, they fired coach Mac. Wow. You know, so, uh, but now, but it’s after my junior year and when they brought in this new coach, I’m like, well, let me hit the books harder because I know I’m not going to play with this new coach. I’m going into my senior year. You know? So they had this new coach and we were gone for, to the break, go
LD:
For a break. And let’s talk about that. Cause the milk’s supposed to be, don’t know how that happened. But we was, I was a junior. You go into your senior going into my senior year. We both were going a thousand years, but I had been four years. That was your third year. No, we both was juniors. Cause it’s the spring. Now it was the spring.
Greg:
It was the end of the fall going into the spring.
LD:
And they had just had coach Bo Ryan. Correct. And probably when he was home for about two weeks and they call all the players, tell us that, look, you need to get here on this day. I was like belong on Wednesday or Thursday and told us that coach ball, Ryan, you know, he, he wanted to meet his, his team. That’s correct. And he asked all of us to show up. So we showed up that day for a meeting. Do you remember? Well,
Greg:
Check this out. This is what happened in my recollection because I was back and I needed to go register that morning for class. And my alarm clock came on, which was the radio. And the news was on. And the news said, LSU coach is missing. I’m like what the coach is missing. And you know, we didn’t have CNN or anything to turn the TV on to see if I missed something. You know? So I had to wait a few more minutes for the news to come back home. And they talked about LSU coach is missing. Then they finally said his plane disappeared in the Atlantic ocean, the plane left Freeport, Louisiana. They were recruiting liquid Hoblit. They left leopard hobbled, his house. They were all Navy. They were flying back to Baton Rouge and something happened in the plane either. They lost the oxygen or whatever, right? The plane just drifted off and went all the way to the Atlantic ocean, hit the water. And they hadn’t found the coach or the plane today
LD:
Because we were supposed to be meeting with him that day. And he was, he would call a meeting for meet with his staff. And we was just so happy to meet, never transpired. Cause we went down there for a meeting, but he said, you know, nobody showed up. So we never had a chance. [inaudible] no.
Greg:
So all was the athletic director at the time. And he was in a bind because bull Ryan had hired his whole staff except for one spot. So the athletic director, Paul diesel had to come up with a new coach quick. And what he did was he hired one of his former players who had been an assistant coach for two years while I was there. He had, I don’t know how long he had been at LSU before I got there, but he was with me for two years. And then he got out of coaching and he got out of coaching and he started working with the tiger. It was called the varsity club back then. But that’s the tiger athletic foundation today? Well, he was with the varsity club and I guess, uh, Paul diesel was just in a bind and he needed to get a car. We know
LD:
That they say they hired Paul diesel to fire Charlie for Clinton. That was the whole body, brought him back in the first place because Charlie had too much stroke. He had a lot going on and they felt nobody could really call Maddix was there when we first got used to D uh, they, they, uh, all these, all these Paul, these are called me in me and hokey guys. See, I didn’t know that he called us. He called us in and he asked us what we thought about Jerry Stovall, really? And we kind of like, you know, compare by the lack codes, but we didn’t, we didn’t, which was kind of figure out where you’re going with it. But we didn’t know we wanted him to be our coach. Cause he still was, he had these tough rules and regulations that he was straight, that the players didn’t quite, you know, childhood cleanser. We can, you know, we can, we can sneak out everyday. Did you can sneak somebody up here,
Greg:
But we’re Stovall. We are locked out because we saw how he treated his running backs. So strict on the running back, you know, like man, he’s driving them guys to the ground, you know? So, so we was like,
LD:
We like coach, he’s a good guy, but I don’t know about the head coach, Paul. These are ex hokey guys out of that. Well, I didn’t know that because he saw us as being team leaders. And we Hogan at war team, captain of our senior year. He was offense. I was defense and he asks us to help to encourage the other players. Other words, we to create a campaign like that’s all rally behind Jared Stovall for the coats. And that’s really what we ended up doing.
LD:
I don’t know if I had no idea how, but we all, we all kind of, you all started rallying behind.
LD:
Cause it started talking about Jerry Stovall. They started interviewing it. Yeah, of course. It’ll all be good because after having their meeting with coach Paul diesel, he encouraged the foci that to help heal, you know, like pain, like get this thing going for Jerry Stovall. So that’s, that’s what he wanted. Yeah. Yeah. See, I
Greg:
Was going into my senior year and nobody talked to me.
Greg:
I only had three plays on the 80 players my junior year. And so I was, I was not a lot of the loop. I was totally out of the loop
Greg:
And I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on either. I’m like, I just need to go and
LD:
Finish. W w where was the mud? Our, both our junior year, our GCs and you wasn’t playing at all that year. Right. And, uh, we was getting ready for the Tangerine bowl. We got to tell a story. It was [inaudible] no, it’s not the Tangerine bowl. It was deliverable Liberty bowl year before the year before. So we’re getting ready for the red. That was my red shirt year. We get ready for the Liberty bowl. And, uh, coach Mack has given us the itinerary, this the hot thing it’s going to look like, what is, well, it was,
Greg:
You know, after practice, we all have to kneel down and he stands in the circle in the middle of the circle. And that was our last practice. Before we left to go to mentors for the Liberty bowl. And he was just making his last little comments and, and he made the comment that we could drive our own cars to Memphis. You know, we all got excited about that. And, and LD. You remember we had our interview about Villa cannon and the tickets. Well, because I was a junior, I was in the ticket business, like middle camp.
Greg:
So, you know, the football thing I told you, my mindset was totally different because I wasn’t playing. So
Greg:
My survival still kicked in, was red shirted. I raised my hand up cause I had a question. So coach Mack looked at me and he said, okay, look, look what you got. I said, well, coach, we all red shirted. We need to use a ticket to get in the game or will we dress out? And will we have all four of our tickets? Hmm. Good question. And he looked around at all the assistant coaches, coaches, what are we going to do? And everybody understood what was going on with those tickets. So the assistant coaches were like, oh, we’re going to get, we’re gonna let them, let them dress out so they can have all four of their tickets. Okay. Y’all want to dress out. And the floor, don’t you get in my infant weight
LD:
In front of them. And to this day we could figure out what that was about.
Greg:
Help me with this and overheard coach Mac swear? No that big. Have you ever heard Cosmax swear. After that day, nobody has ever heard coach Maxwell. And he called me out in front of the whole football team. Don’t you get in my F way?
LD:
What the hell? I mean, we all, like, we was like, what, what had happened? We thought you messed with his daughter or something.
Greg:
It didn’t make sense. And it still doesn’t make sense today. Why he did me like that in front of the whole
Greg:
Team when he never swore against anybody.
LD:
That was, that was interesting. That was very, but you also, you remember when, uh, when, when my first got the LSU you first got there, we, we, we, we used to the teams to vote on what movie we would go to. Right? So we, you know, you raise your hand. So this particular game, it was a home game at home game. We would, they would take us to a movie first. After the movie, we would come back to dormitory. He brings on a couple of buses and it was voting on this particular day on Richard Fry had come up with a movie what’s the bin, which way was up or something. And we all decided that, oh, we won’t go to see Richard prod. So we encouraged the white brothers. So Mo
LD:
You go down numbers. Yeah. We never went nothing. Yeah, because we didn’t have enough numbers. So where were we? They chose. But we had to go see, we didn’t care what
LD:
It was, but we knew they like Richard PRA. Uh, so, so we did a little campaign. We asked the guys to vote for Richard PRI. So now it’s dope. I mean, uh, Charlie McLendon, X, everybody raised their hand when they were moving here at Joe’s go to when I don’t know what it was. Then he said Richard Fry. So the people chose with the proud one. So he got mad. He said, would you put your hand on y’all can’t make up your mind. I choose a tea. I choose a movie. You remember that? Yeah. So he chose the movie for us because he figured we could not make up our mind with it caught him off guard that white players voted to see Richard Price. So we had a tough time. Let me bring up this story here too. I don’t know how well you might remember that he decided we was gone. LSU had never had a black queen, a queen homecoming for you remember, like it was yesterday. You remember that situation? I remember. So I had a brother by the name of the twins, Cedric and Mero must’ve been, which was Cedric said it was the one that deals with the politician. I believe Cedric came to me a queen. So, you know, we can have it y’all cause y’all can vote for a queen because at that time, tell them how it went. How did I get the queen?
Greg:
Well, at that time, the student body had to vote. No two players, the student body had to vote and narrow it down to 10. And when they got to 10, the football player had to pick from that 10. Now you can pick it from them. I thought it was my worse. No, no. The students pick the 10 and then we voted for the queen out of that 10.
LD:
Okay. And so when it came to, what we decided to do was that the years before lasted all the white brothers come campaign for their niece, their cousin, their, whoever, their girlfriends just said, brothers, sisters, today we’ll come campaign. And we didn’t get
LD:
Who won that’s correct, because it was never one of books.
LD:
So at that particular time, we decided to know the broad, the boy Cedric came to us. This is how we can do this. So he gave us the strategy, et cetera, uh, moronic, et cetera. I can’t remember the last name. So Cedric out of new Orleans, he gave us the, uh, concept for how to do it. So I took the concept. We equated, I took the concept to all the other players, all other brothers. You say, look, you got enough of us here. Well, we can do, we can ask every player, every player, all the Bronco
LD:
For all the sisters. We just want to, no, it was, it was three.
LD:
Oh, it was, it was no, it was more than two. Okay. That’s what I’m saying. It was more than three. Okay. It was, it was several of them there. So what happened is that when it came down to, we had to pick the top. I forgot the top five, something like that. Top five. When we got through with the process, we asked all the white brothers, it was like, he was exchanging votes. This one I’ll vote for that one. You vote for this one. I vote for that one. But we had decided if all our brothers vote for these ones,
Greg:
This particular one, give her the most vulnerable that they can win.
LD:
Yeah. So now we ask [inaudible] who you want me to. Okay. No problem. No problem. So when he started calling the names of the winners, it was the first time at LSU history. He had three sisters and two white girls. No, no, no. See, no, that was the team we had to vote for the top tier. So we had to vote for the top 10. Right? So when they got through, that was six sisters and four white girls. Now we know that was the first time that ever happened. That assistant going to have to win, come over there. Because if you, when you, when you vote that out, so you know
Greg:
The numbers for African-Americans to win Queens. So
LD:
It’s gonna be the first time that a queen with a system will win the queen. So now it goes back to the student body and the LSU administration decided the numbers ain’t going to work. It, they can’t stop the process. So the administrative side with no, I’ll tell you what, there’s too much confusion going on, blah, blah, blah. We gonna postpone the vote. Y’all gonna do the vote the following week. So the following week, come up, everybody getting ready to vote. No was still gonna be the same. So the says, I tell you what, since y’all, can’t come together, y’all can’t work together. We go to the queen,
Greg:
No LD that year. They decided not to have a queen. They honored everybody the same on it, everybody the same. And they didn’t name a queen that year because the numbers would have worked in our favor to have the first black queen. So that year they didn’t have a queen. That’s how I ended up here
LD:
Because it was going to be, it was, it was, it was going to be six. It’s going to be six to four something. My dumb number wouldn’t ended up. But we made that happen because we struck, we stuck together and we organize ourselves and we put it in a way where they could, nobody administrators would leave. The first time the student body had, had not voted for queen. Exactly. And I think they changed the rule ever since. I don’t think it’s about, I
Greg:
Don’t know, but that year they didn’t have a queen [inaudible] I didn’t pay much attention to after that. But I remember that year that didn’t have acquaintance, how I like it was yesterday.
LD:
So we came together and strategize. So that’s a little tidbit for, for the audience. And to let you know that we were strategizing back then, and it’s unfortunate, unfortunate. We had to strategize on everything we got, right? Because no one was just going to give it to you because it was the right thing to do. Right. You know, we had, they made things. If we figured out a way to do something, they changed the room and it kept happening, kept happening. And it was just unfortunate. Also, Greg and I, because when he moved to tighten that we had to play against each other at practice every
Greg:
Day I had to go up against each other. We’re all in one.
LD:
It was because of that, me, he made me better. And I have, I have the believer being heal better because we, everyday it was, it was a, it was a battle every day. He wouldn’t quit. I would go quit. So, you know, that was, that was a great experience, you know, going against you, playing against you and, and Malcolm, you know, we all became better, but guess what happened? It was because of your dad and talking head, which is that conversation when he came, pick you up and spend that time with you, that next year a bull ride was didn’t make it. And Jerry Stovall came on board. Things got a little bit better for it. And
LSU Football, the NFL and Southern University Athletic Director:
It’s interesting that you bring that up because, uh, again, with coach Stovall got the job and I had no idea you were part of that process. Cause I was a senior. I thought maybe I could have been in that process, but they didn’t call me. But anyway, my phone rang at six 30 in the morning and it’s the secretary and the football office. Again,
LD:
They like calling you.
Greg:
And I had a flashback when coach Matt called me to red shirt. When you know, I’m like, what is this about? So this is six 30 in the morning again. And I’m at Busan hall, got to take that wall to the stadium and everything was going through my mind. Like, what am I going to see? Cause you must be over with that. So I get to his office. I sit in that same chair across the desk from him, like when coach Mac told me I was red shirted, what coastal wall said, look, the reason I brought you in, he said, because you are the oldest on the team because you know, I got red shirted and he said, I need your help. He said, now, when I was working as an assistant coach, I always felt that you could play, but we just couldn’t. As a staff, couldn’t convince coach Mac to put you on the field. He said, but I always felt like you had the talent to play.
LD:
James Stovall had told you that told
Greg:
Me that. And he said, nah, this is what I need from you. He said, I think you’re good enough to play at the next level. And we can get you the ball, but I’m going to be harder on you than anybody else on the team, because we need to set the pace with you. And the younger players. See me get on you as the oldest player, it would help me line them all up. So if you man enough to handle it, we can go from here and I’ll make sure I do everything I can to help you get to the next level and going into my senior year. That last year that I played now, I didn’t catch a lot of balls because we played that beer offense. I only caught 18 passes my senior year, but I led the team in receptions with just 18.
Greg:
But I caught more passes. Anybody on the team you led the team I led the team in recession was just 18. And I think Tracy Porter traced report. And I, we were tied with 18 passes, a piece that year. And you know, we, we had a decent year and uh, we decided not to go to a bowl game. I was senior year. Yeah. And we decided not to go. And so you probably remember this, the Raiders were playing the Philadelphia Eagles in the super bowl in new Orleans. So I’m watching the game. And two weeks after the super bowl, my phone rings again. And I was staying in an apartment at the times and it was like seven o’clock at night. I answered the phone and it was Dick Romil. He said, Hey, this, they put me on. I’m like, yeah, Dick Romil, the head coach of the Eagles rule.
Greg:
Listen, I heard you can run. I said, well, yeah, of course I got them wrong. He said, look, I can’t believe somebody. Your size couldn’t run that fast. So I’m going to come down to Baton Rouge and Tommy and myself. I think he met with you and hokey when he came, he did well. He called me to tell me he was coming to time. So he, I think he worked you guys at first. So when I got there, we went on the track. He made me run the, that, uh, he made me do those shuttles. Then we went inside the stadium. I had to jump. And then, uh, we talked for a while and he left and I never heard from him again. And then on draft day after me in the third round, but Dick Rameel, how did he hear about me? How did he find me? I have no idea. It’s amazing how these things happen. That you have so little control over and you don’t know who’s watching. You don’t know how things, but that’s how I ended up with the Philadelphia Eagles.
LD:
And this one, one of the things you share with a lot of young guys to let them know you have no control over
Greg:
This. Oh, you can do is the best you can do at that moment. You can’t worry about two plays down the road. Just do the best you can with this plate, go to the hub, crank it up, do the best thing, the next plate. But it’s the same thing with life. You just do the best you can with what you have in front of you. And if something good going to happen, it will happen. But you can’t be taken too far out because all you can do is the best you can do. Now look at your journey. You know, I watched it and you know, LD. When you say you watch my journey and I would speak to a lot of high schools at the athletic banquets and stuff. And the way I would start my speeches, I had the most unorthodox journey to the NFL.
Greg:
That’s nobody can compare their story to mine. Now mine wasn’t devastating or anything, but it was so unorthodox. The chances for me to make it in the NFL was almost slim to none. And the way I got there, I had hardly any control over that. It bull ride hadn’t had gotten killed in that plane crash. I wouldn’t have played my senior year because the new coach don’t play seniors. That’s not playing already. You would have played with bull ride. I wouldn’t have played with boron. Cause you know, you’re experienced when a new coach comes in. If you’re not bringing it, he’s going to play his younger players because he used to be in position three years down the road. So he won’t get fired. So I knew that. And uh, so you know, that plane crash happened, Jared Stonewall, because the head coach, he worked me harder than anybody else on the team made you better. He made me better. Got the most out of it. I’ve got the most out of it. And you know, the rest of history,
LD:
Of course I, I, I, I was a part of that store and I watched it all unfold. Although I knew, we all knew that he was a great athlete. I mean, watched him movie from spot to spot place to place all. I was like baffling. Why did nobody, nobody can figure out what was going on. But I guess it still won’t tell you what was going on in a lot of ways. But we all saw that, but we couldn’t understand not giving opportunity. You know, they’re the same time people got mad with Stovall, put Duff or JBT and he was a senior. Yeah. You know, so that, you know, people was mad about that. Like why would he put on the GV team? He’s a senior. So you know that didn’t go well for McDuff Charles McNeil, Charles. So he was in your class, right? No, Charles was Charles arrays shirt.
LD:
Oh, okay. He was so he had to come with, you need mine, maybe they’d come with me because he was in your class in, uh, but Charles was, you know, he was a big guy are alive in, uh, you know, he didn’t hit her. He didn’t bring much, you know, he didn’t, he wasn’t a strong guy, but he was off his alignment and it hurt a lot of people that Stovall had put a senior, you know, just like you as a junior, had to go to the JWT. And, and I guess I didn’t have that journey. I mean, I didn’t go through none of that, that affect you were, you know, my story than anybody, I probably was treated better than most. I really conceited from the time. A matter of fact, you still, you told me a story that you thought my sophomore year coming into my sophomore year, after my loss of my father, I was going back to LSU and uh, you know, I was holding out and you told me that, what would you tell what you thought
Greg:
Thought? Because we didn’t see you, you know,
Greg:
Everybody had reported back that we’d all reported
Greg:
Back to school and we knew your father, you know, uh, got killed. And you know, we all were, we were feeling for you, but when you didn’t show back up, we thought you didn’t show up because you were strong arming the cultures, you know, like, okay, y’all better do this or I’m not coming back. That was how we were thinking, because we were like, wow. Cause we didn’t look at it as how hurt you were that you lost your father. We didn’t know how devastated you were. We just thought that you would give an LSU a hard time, you know, to beg you to come back and play. So that’s how we thought we that’s what we thought. What was going on until you told me recently, how, how devastated you were and you had no enters on coming back and they convinced you to come back play
LD:
In one of the two, one of the key people was my uncle’s date. Data’s quite a few. [inaudible] just everybody. My pop, my both of my grandfathers was still living. So they came and talked to me. Mike Foster, dad and Murphy, foster of governor foster, Dan Murphy for a lot of people. Uh what’s his name is, uh, Mike Foster brother [inaudible] was named foster. He, uh, he came, uh, Dr. Sterling and a lot of people come in and encourage me to go back out there had gotten me a job at McDermott where my dad used to work at. Uh, so I was working on the ship yard, making pretty good money, but the LSU showed up, you know, coastal Oblon showed up, even McLendon. They called me, you know, cause I didn’t come back to camp so they didn’t not believe it. And when he came back, of course, they came back with a lot of promises so that well in more encouraging that they was able to assist with the situation. But with my coming back, it was a good thing. It was a good thing. So I never looked back and I didn’t Elisha treated me. Well, matter of fact, I went from four tickets to eight tickets, mama. They took pretty good care of you.
Greg:
I didn’t even know that. Oh no,
LD:
You got eight. They took care of me. They took really good care of me. They made sure I had, but I still found myself. I was one of them guys. I want this. I want you to see one, see the right thing. I didn’t ha I didn’t know. I didn’t like how people treated others. So I found myself fighting LSU for other purposes. For other reasons. I didn’t like it. They didn’t treat my roommate Dimitri. Right. I’m fine for the beach tree. You know? So that’s the kind of, I don’t know why I found myself in fights over. Not because I LSU treated me, but how I watched him treat others. Right. So that’s kind of, it didn’t get me in trouble, but I found myself, you know, as a what’d you call it like, like my boy, Georgie, you said a Jew, a warrior for justice. I just wanted to see them do the right thing. And I guess that’s what [inaudible]. I want people to stand up, be counted, enjoy
Greg:
Your show. I listened to every one of them everywhere. Everyone listened to it as soon as they come on. But the good thing about the podcasts, you could play it whenever you want to listen to it too. When I’m in the car and have about 20, 30, 40 minutes or sometimes even an hour, uh, I wait until I have that much time I put it on and I just listened to the whole thing at one time.
LD:
Give me your best. What was your favorite podcast to this date?
Greg:
Well, Lynn and the blog, because the blog, that one got me the most excited, excited, because yeah, well, it was my
LD:
First, first one I had when I interviewed somebody my first
Greg:
Year. And I was so intrigued with that one because it was football. It was life. It was integration. It was everything. Because law said he was known as the black recruiter. We never heard that before. I’d never heard that before. And I kind of had mixed feelings. Of course. I didn’t know how he felt about me because he didn’t speak to anybody. Matter of fact, when he was on your show, that’s the most I ever heard him speak. Cause the whole time he worked at LSU, he never said a word to me. He would just grumble. I’m like this guy.
LD:
And he was a good looking guy. He was just looking at me
LD:
Handsome. And uh, so I was so impressed with your interview with him and, and his, because it was such a good football story and a life story. I’m like, man, that was interesting. So that was number one. But when you had an interview with Mr. Charlie Granger, man, that took it to another level too, because I had no idea how Mr. Granger got the bedroom and I didn’t know all the trials and tribulations he went through to get here. And so after I heard the show with Mr. Granger, I called you to get his phone number, to call him, let him know how much I enjoyed his show, the show that he was on. And because when I was athletic director at Southern, and then whenever we had a booster club meeting, Mr. Granger was he never a booster club meeting, but he would always sit in the last seat in the back in the corner.
Greg:
And I would always make my little presentation. The coaches would talk or whatever, but he would not say a word he was, but he was there every meeting. And after I heard your interview, I had to call him and say, Mr. Grander, I wish I would’ve known that story because I would’ve had you tell that story. Every time we went to a different booster club, I would’ve had you present that story because everybody at Southern needed to hear your journey, because he said some stuff that nobody even thought about back then, the coach Mumford and how he started playing football because he threw the disc was back for somebody.
LD:
I, you get to sit all that up. Yeah.
LD:
He had to create his own opportunities. So the two co you enjoyed the football stores. That’s good. There, we’ll be glad that you tuned in and that you found a purpose to, uh, to listen to our podcasts. And as a dear friend and a confidant, they’ve been knowing each other for 45 years. Almost, almost.
LD:
I wouldn’t add that fast. I guess I got them.
Speaker 2:
When I got there in 77, you got there 76 at the time he had gone there and you end up getting, we ended up getting drafted exact same year also. So you’ll see here in a beam must-see or you use their year ahead of me. I was the 50 Chris William was the first player to be drafted from LSU. He went in that class, thirties 37 30 player to pick in the draft, maybe a little bit out of that. I was like 54, 56 in the second round. So our part of linebacker crew. So you remember that the greatest
Greg:
Linebacker crew in NFL history
Greg:
Today, that’s
Greg:
Still the biggest, the best linebacker coop, if not the best draft, a lot of people think that’s the best draft ever. I don’t know if you’ve been hearing that now I know
LD:
That it was, it was a year of the linebackers and from, I think, quite a few of them guys, a hall of fame from Lawrence Taylor,
LD:
Taylor Singletary,
LD:
Ricky Jackson [inaudible]. Yeah. So matter of fact, I was drafted two rounds before no Rick was drafted. Then Mike Singletary, then me, it was all like right there, right. Close to each other. So I felt honored. Cause remember I was hurt and I got hurt the year Alabama game. So I didn’t know what was going to happen with my situation. But my, my coach, Bishop Harris and Kosovo, they, I suppose play the Japan, Japan in the Japan bowl and uh, senior bowl, senior bowl. So I had to forego both and I told him, I said, well, coach, I’m going to go to the Japan bowl. Ex-co Stovall honor. Is he, is he want to keep things upright? Well, if you’re not gonna play it on these gone, I’m thinking where I could still go drop myself. They said, we know you ain’t gonna play. Don’t go let somebody else go. Yes, but I wanted to go. Right. I’m not going. And I miss that opportunity. Uh, but uh, but I, I didn’t get, I didn’t work out for anybody because go Stovall and my position, coach, Bishop pears. So we know that the knee is not strong. Don’t you work out, but I was invited to some combine. So I got a chance to meet a lot of the player back then we went to combines every week. Yeah.
Greg:
You and I, you and I, we went to New York together. We went to Chicago.
LD:
Who was that guy in New York. We hung out with, I still can’t remember the guy. He brought it to his family house. We
LD:
Rented hall crackly for breakfast that morning. I can’t remember. But I
Greg:
Remember you and I had gone. That was my first day ever going to New York and you and I were together. Right.
LD:
And uh, well he was, that was Philadelphia. We was in Philadelphia. Uh, we flew into New York when we went to it. Okay. Because I remember it was cold. It was cold. It was really cold. But I went to Dallas was my first, see, I didn’t go to Dallas. They had everybody there at that one. So that was the best one. The best one, we went to quite a few comma. It was, it was just a great experience, a great opportunity for you to country boys to get out and baby, to see the other
Greg:
Part of it. And for the listening audience that we talking about combine, but back then each team did its own thing. So years later, all the teams got together and now they have a combined in one central place where all the teams come because we were doing that same thing you see on TV. Now we will do it now. Every week
LD:
We have week. Exactly. We,
LD:
It got, but not this, but it was a free trip. That’s right. They took good care of you. You got a chance to meet a lot of the players. Uh, those will be getting dropped. So you got, you gotta be your relationship with a lot of different guys. Matter of fact, it is date. I still talk to your teammate. Uh, EGA, EGA, Jr. We still talk. And Hugh green in that house and Ricky Jackson, we all still pretty close. And so, you know, because of that, that traveling get a chance to meet a lot of guys. That was a good, good opportunity. Missy, what other stores we got from the LSU LSU days? Cause we, the year we get drafted, it was quite a few of us, probably one of LSU, best draft ever.
Greg:
Well maybe later on they made a ha ha, but it went away. I’m talking about I’m talking before, before that it was one of the beds Dre for that, that was the best because we
LD:
Had, nobody went to first round. We thought Chris Wieden was going to go Christmas early second. So we had Chris in me in Tracy Porter. Didn’t you know,
Greg:
Chris was the first and the second you would a second in the second I went into third, Tracy went into fourth, hokey, went in the fifth, uh, uh, Ooh.
LD:
It was, it was quite a few who, well, a lot of guys get, get up, get got an opportunity. Right. And then the Jones twins,
Greg:
They got, they sign one sign with the jets
LD:
Coincide, uh, wireless, wireless.
Greg:
Yeah. Of with the Eagles. You wouldn’t be in it. Let’s see
LD:
Queens. And you had this equation. What was Queens? Uh, it was quite a few. I think Julia nannies hokey with fifth. Is it that you remember what you remember that at that time it was interesting to hope. It was like, oh, okay, what’s the last one to get drafted. But on the news that night, he was the only one they went interviewed. And that was interesting to me. I remember that, you know, the news, the TV didn’t interview any it didn’t do. Chris Williams was the first one to go. Then interview me. They went out, interviewed hokey. And that was always interested in how that process was going from bedroom.
LD:
You look at the bright side when he was always interested in how that at LSU though, it was all things always did work out. How do we, we did for, for real LSU, although it was not on my radar at all. I was muffled focus was my best friend. My cousin Ray Johnson was playing at nickel state. That’s all I knew I was hitting the NICAR state. LSU was nowhere on my radar. Uh, there was not a big at that time. It was not on TV that regular. So you know who was LSU. So, but I’m thankful that I had, they opened the doors, gave me the opportunity. Let me make the best of it. Because of that. What four and four, four or five years later, we able to sit here and have a conversation about
Greg:
Our journey.
LD:
It was a heck of a word to remember this young man. And I, we butt he every day. Our last two years of practice,
LD:
It’s hard to, they one-on-one every, they don’t even allow that drill anymore.
Greg:
No. Did all not Andrea. They don’t let you hit
Greg:
And pan that much now. And I don’t think they let you go. One-on-one like that anymore. I remember
LD:
When we, when was Nalco Scott got here. I mean, yukata, you know, you let Baca with first because you already know you had already been going against each other. And uh, Malcolm was always, you know, he stood up high. He didn’t know how to get it. No. So good blog to save his life. They gave you today. That’s because you can use able to block it. But we have a,
Greg:
I was able to block. I couldn’t hook you though. [inaudible] so
LD:
That was always pretty interested. But you had to, you was drafted by a Philadelphia,
LD:
Right? Third round.
LD:
I was drafted by Atlanta. Second round. You played the Philadelphia only what?
Greg:
Just that count. And again, things happen beyond our control. We had three T the Philadelphia Eagles had just gone to the super bowl and they brought me in and I was the third tight end. So we went through training camp and that’s a week before the first game. They give me a call, man, man, just everybody, everybody loves you. So I go see Dick for me. And he said, Greg, I’m so sorry. He said, listen, we having some problems with our offensive line. And if I put the lineman on injured reserve, he has to sit up for games, but he’s not hurting bad enough for me to put him on injured reserve. So I have to keep him on the roster, which means I can’t have three tight ends. And he said, we just went to the super bowl and I don’t want to have a veteran tied in and a rookie tied in on this team because we too good to have that big a drop-off.
Greg:
If the starting tight end gets hurt, you know, we, we have a chance to get back to the super bowl. And I don’t trust the rookie to start on this team right now. So we going to put you on waivers, but I don’t want you to leave Philadelphia because as soon as that offensive lineman gets well in two weeks, we’re going to adjust our roster again. And we’re going to bring you back. So stay in Philadelphia. Well, as soon as they released me and you know how that works, they put me on waivers and the minute they put me on waivers, the St. Louis Cardinals picked me up. So the time I left his office, I get a call from St. Louis that I need to go to St. Louis. So I had to fly to St. Louis that night or the next morning. And I played in that first game of the season and I made it all rookie that year. You not get all rookie, but all of those titles that they drafted with Scott and the guy from Tulane.
And I made all rookie that year. I don’t remember that. Yeah. That year got my bonus money. And everything was that the same year
LD:
That we, that you came to Atlanta that same year we
Greg:
Came to Atlanta. I had to play against you. That was, that was pretty interesting. That was hard. Yeah. That was hard, man, because you will, we will write across each other. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t visit you the night
LD:
Before, the day you came by the house and the next day I had
Greg:
To play against you. And, you know, we both fighting to, you know, make the it’s the stay on the team. And I had to try to give all I had, and I had to train my mind, like, okay, forget this Lima. And just try
Greg:
To go and have to, you know, but it was hard. It was very
Greg:
Difficult for me to do that because, you know, I knew what play was coming. You didn’t know. And I had to do my best to get you out of the way, you know, to block. And, uh, but it was very difficult for me to do that. That was tough because somebody had to look bad either I was on the bed or you were going to look bad. So I had to train my mind to not think that was you at. So I would try not to look at you. You know, when I break the hum, I kept my, my eyes on the ground because I didn’t want to look at you. You know? But that was, that was tough. Yeah. I thought you was doing it just to throw me off. You didn’t want to want me to read, you just didn’t want to look at you in the eyes because you know, I could, I have to come at you full speed, you
LD:
Know? Yeah. Can we just meet, you got through hanging out then the night before.
Greg:
And I know a lot of guys that played with each other in college play against each other in the pros, but nobody goes against each other head
Greg:
To head. Like we, we, we had a lineup
Greg:
Head said the whole game. Yeah. And we both want to make it.
LD:
No, we was on the team. It’s the second game of the season.
Greg:
I can’t remember what game it was, but it was a regular season game and we have to bring it. And you guys meet us. We did. Yeah,
LD:
I dunno. Was that it was early in the season. It was very, very who’s running back at [inaudible]
Greg:
And y’all had William Andrews, I believe when you bedrooms. Yeah. Y’all was bringing it man. Andrews. He was chilling,
LD:
But he was strong. He was, he was a big strong guy just to bring back all the memories like, okay. But of course our history is really, we know we, we we’ve been connected for a long time. We still together. We, we fought for each other with each other. And to this day we still do. You know, if there’s a need or something going on, I can call you. You can call me. We started organizations together. We did, we had done a whole lot together and to have the relationship. And also more importantly, David, to sit here and talk about this, this, this, this is pretty darn good.
Greg:
I hope people enjoy it as much as I enjoy me. And so
LD:
I just appreciate, uh, Greg, uh, being here, sharing this moment, this time, uh, with, uh, with me, it truly, truly means a lot. I mean, that that’s, that’s for real, for real, you are the first brand that, you know, Mr. Granger, you know, those, these, these are these older, all of the people I love and have a level of respectful, but you and I, you know, we get a whole lot of history. We ain’t going to talk about in between. We had to come to work together to overcome or let me know. I’ll let you know, we had, we had a whole lot with the work too and work around. So they just don’t know what to say, but thank you for showing up once again and, uh, participated in sharing your story, your history, and, uh, and being honest about the things that happened back back then, and, uh, trusting that when you say you showed up today and there was some, some strange things that happened in the last 24 hours. So I don’t know what this is all about. You want to share who you go with it?
Greg:
Yeah. It was interesting yesterday. I had to take a ride to Appaloosas, which is 20 minutes. And I saw you had a show. Your show was about Edwin Edwards and it had 22 minutes. So I said, well, that’s a good time for me to listen to your show about Edwin Edwards, the former governor. And so I was listening to the show and you started, you mentioned my father in your presence, in your, uh, in your presentation. And as you mentioned, my father’s name, my phone rang my cell phone ring in the car. But for a second, I thought maybe that was a phone ringing on the, on the shelf because it just, and I saw it was Dale brown. I’m like they’re around. And when I answered the phone there, brown started telling me how much he enjoyed a magazine you wrote. And he said, and you automatic, you wrote an article about Greg the floor, and you have this beautiful picture of Greg LaFleur on this, on this magazine. And he said, uh, so as he kept talking, I’m like, I don’t think he’s talking. I don’t think he realized he’s not talking to me. I mean, that he’s talking to me as a coach. This is regular floor.
LD:
Oh, he’s said, I thought I was calling on what?
Greg:
And he said, look, I was just on, I’ll call you lamb LD. He called you lamb. And he said, I would just own lamb a show this week. And he brought me in, we spent about two and a half hours together. And he said, I really enjoyed him. He said, he’s very, uh, very intelligent. He said, I had no idea. He was so intelligent. And, and uh, the way he asked the questions, he made it very easy for me. He never interrupted me when I was talking. And I said, of course I don’t, I don’t mean to cut you off. But I said, I’m headed to Baton Rouge tomorrow to be on his show. And so we just started talking and we talked for a good 30 minutes on the phone, but I thought it was so weird how that happened, you know, for coach brown to just call me out of the blue. But he was not trying to call me. He was trying to call you,
LD:
He thinking about me, but we’re looking at your name. Yeah. I guess that’s how he accidentally called me. That was pretty interesting. And so he said,
Greg:
Look, if you come into Baton Rouge tomorrow, he said, I’m speaking at the sports academy. Come meet me at the sports academy tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. I said, I’ll be there. I’ll meet you at nine o’clock
LD:
At night. I was supposed to be the, how did they go? Oh, so
Greg:
You get what I’m talking about. That’d be good. Yeah. It was good. You know, they had all the kids and then he came in and a lot of the former players were there, basketball players. A lot of, a lot of the former players were there, college temple with his two sons and, uh, Rudy Mac, uh, Stanley Roberts, uh, how it caught her Nikita Wilson. Yeah. Most of the guys that played for him, they were there.
LD:
They, they coming out, he he’d stay in touch with his players. He does a wonderful job. I mean, water football. We don’t, we didn’t get many calls. I didn’t get in a call. So I didn’t get, no, I can’t say I got to say this about, uh, Charlie McLendon. Every time he came to town because willing to be done with a deal till the saying he was stopped by by restaurant. So he did while he was still around, still alive, he was stopped by. And just how and keep on
Greg:
Moving one last thing, uh, about coach McLendon and see, you can attest to what I’m about to say, because when the teal with the Vikings, when they would go down to tamper, coach Mac would always call any LSU player that would go to Tampa because he was living in Tampa. So if I can play it in Tampa, he called Willie, Chris Williams went to Tampa. He called Chris Williams. So Emin play. I talked to John Alexander when they would go down to Tampa, he would call y’all. So we played Tampa. So I’m waiting for my call. I never got
Greg:
A call to go back when I got the thing, [inaudible]
Greg:
Again, trying to figure out why he called me out at that team meeting. So I guess that had something to do with it, but he never called me. And we, we played Tampa almost every year within the league. And you never got a call, never heard the quarterback
LD:
Guess he did with him. And, uh, with a PV him, he coached PV, PV, PV, PV. They would stop by the restaurant just for a brief second. But you become a, and they go by their business. Yeah. I
Greg:
Would still like to know why I was on coach max, bad list or whatever, because I didn’t break any rules. My grades were always good
Greg:
To, I didn’t date his daughters,
LD:
Click, click, click this lake that we didn’t, we didn’t know what to think that
Greg:
Y’all had the right to assume something like that. He was hard on you. Well, you know, a lot of times players come up with excuses like, oh, the coach didn’t like me to coordinate. Mine was not an excuse because the whole team saw what was going on with me. You know? It’s not like I’m just making these things, but I would put co Stovall too. Yes. That’s pretty serious. Yeah. We couldn’t convince callback to put
LD:
You on a beat with Costo Stovall so that you was well able and capable of playing on the next level where, and I’m glad to say too. I was your team captain. So as your captain, uh, but they were, uh, thank you for showing up, like people participated. Thank you for the many years of a comradery, our, our relationship and all that comes with it and appreciate you. Thank you for showing up and participating in count time. Remember it’s 4:00 PM. Stand up is counted. Thank you, my brother for showing up and participate. Well, thank
Greg:
You, LD. And I will be listening to the, the rest of the shows from here on out.
LD:
All right. You’re going to be on several of them from here on out. Thank you.
What years did Greg LaFleur play at LSU? Greg LaFleur played wide receiver and Tight End for the Tigers from 1976 – 1980
What years did Greg LaFleur play in the NFL? Greg was drafted in 1981 in the 3rd round by the Philadelphia Eagles and played through the 1986 season playing for the St. Louis Rams and the Indianapolis Colts
Greg also appears on another episode of Count Time where he and LD review Billy Cannon A Long Long Run which includes discussion of the legendary Billy Cannon Halloween run.
Selected quotes and notes from Count Time Podcast with LD Azobra and Greg Lafleur discuss Billy Cannon Book
This is a review of Billy Cannon A Long Long Run
LD:
Good evening. Good evening. Good evening it’s 4:00 PM. Stand up. It’s count time, time for every man and woman to stand up and be counted. Welcome to another edition of count time podcast. I am brother LD Azobra formerly named Lyman White. Thank you for joining us today.
LD:
Today, I have a special guest, a special friend, uh, someone, we got a lot of history together. We’ve been talking, he been keeping up with the podcast and I really, really appreciate him, uh, tuning in on our podcasts on a regular basis. And we just want to have a, a great conversation now is going to be unusual because for real is the first time we could be doing this, but we’ve got a segment. We call the living legend segment, and this is going to be considered one hour. Live in legends. Yes, Greg is one of our living legends. We’ll be speaking about another living legend. So right now I want to introduce my dear friend and a teammate and we go back a long ways. And I thank you for being here, Mr. Greg Lafluer.
Greg:
Thank you for having me Lyman. I’m excited to see you.
LD:
Thank you for coming out here, Greg. I know you’ve been traveling all over the world every time I speak with you in another place, another country, and you, uh, I think you moved there. Where are you? Yeah,
Greg:
Well, I’m living in Seattle, Washington. Now. I’ve been blessed that I’ve been able to travel all over the world for the last couple of years. I’ve been to France, England, Germany, Italy, Colombia, Mexico, just Tokyo, Japan. Just the name of you.
LD:
Yes, yes. A few, a few major ones too. That I would be even more out of. When you say Africa next time. Of course, that’s
Greg:
Next on my list. Next spring, we plan to go to Spain and then Africa,
LD:
Africa, Morocco, that because that’s where the great Moors came from, who conquered Spain and rules banned for 700 years. I know you know about that history, right?
Greg:
Not as well as you do because you’ve been to Africa. That’s one reason I want to go is because when you came back from Africa, you were telling me how great the trip was. So when the opportunity presented itself, I thought about you. I’m like, well, Lama told me how great Africa was. I need to make that trip.
LD:
Well, I forgot we had a conversation about that back then. It did a lot. It, it took me somewhere that I didn’t even anticipate on being mentally and spiritually. It was a rude awakening. It was a great awakening. Also, maybe the frustrated irritated, because I felt I’d been lied to hoodwinked. Bamboozled I been had like great X said by the system they taught us is almost like in our podcast. We say for all so long, the system has taught you what to think. Count time here to teach you how to think. So trusting and believing that that’s what count time is doing. That’s what count time has been able to do. And today we’re going to have a special, uh, dialogue conversation. We’re going to be talking about it. Another one at LSU legends, Mr. Deli Canada, a few weeks ago. No, probably about a month ago. Uh, gray called me to tell me about one of the podcasts he had heard and what he thought about it. He was excited, elated Ellis regarding the cost and live long. What did you tell him? [inaudible]
Greg:
Oh, it was one of the best interviews I’ve ever heard at least sports interview ever heard because it was so in-depth and I don’t know how other people would receive that information, because if you did play sports, I don’t know how you’d hear it. But if you were a football player or anybody that was involved in sports, that was one of the most enlightening interview I’ve heard.
He touched me. You a good friend can call and tell you that, that that’s, that goes a long ways. Now truly, truly appreciate it. And I truly appreciate you being here. And because of that, he got excited. He started telling me about a book. He read it. Yes. Greg fluid. I do read the dub jacks. He was so excited and elated. He would just feel with John about this book. Uh, tell us a little bit about the book right quick. Well,
Greg:
You know, when I listened to your interview with coach Lynn and the blog, he started talking about certain things that I read in the book. And when I called you, I’m like, man, you really enjoyed this book because some of the stuff goes from the Blas in, in, uh, in your interview. I had already read it in the book, but the interesting thing was I was headed to Columbia global top Columbia, and I was in San Antonio and I needed to get a book because I can’t speak Spanish. So I needed a book to read while I’m in Columbia. So, you know, during my downtime, at least I’ll be reading because I can’t go and talk to anybody. So I was just looking for a book and I was in the bookstore browsing around and I saw this book with Billy Cannon’s picture on it.
Greg:
I’m like, well, if I’m gonna get a book, I will get the one about Billy Cannon. I’m not doing anything. So I just read that book. And then that book shook me up. I was because I can relate to everything that he talked about in that book, because I knew Billy Cannon LSU Great from 1972, he and, uh, Paul Hardy, the agriculture commissioner of agriculture, Gil Doscher flew to Ville Platte. And I picked, and, uh, Billy Cannon was with those two guys. And when I picked him up at the little airport outside of their plant and drove him to my parents’ house to meet with my father, my father said, do you know who that guy? And I’m like, no, I don’t know who he is. He said, well, that’s really cannon. Who’s Billy Cannon. He said, well, he won the Heisman trophy. So then I started paying attention to Billy Cannon and you know, he was at my parents’ house and I’m sitting there looking at this guy that was built so well. He had only been out of the league like three or four years. So, and a few years later I get recruited by LSU and now Billy Cannon and I have something in common. We both went to LSU. So that’s how my interest started in
LD:
Billy Cannon. It’s pretty interesting that he came to your house. He came
Greg:
To my house, they were campaigning for the 1972 election, the first election, Edwin Edwards one and Gill Dorsha and Paul Hartford was on that ticket back then you got to tell him who your dad, my father was Gervase from the floor and he was Edwin head was right-hand man, back in 1972, when he was running for governor for the first time
LD:
You got, you have a lot of history with this state is, uh, with LSU and your dad made a big, had a big impact on you coming to LSU and getting you involved with the community. So, I mean, we, he has a whole lot of history. We appreciate that. And I only know Billy by way of LSU ran it. One of the first golf tournaments. I was invited to the show with country club and I might’ve been, might’ve been me and one other brother there. And cause he lived in Sherwood forest at the time. That was my first time meeting him at a golf tournament probably in early, early eighties, like 81, possibly. So that was my first time meeting him and Jim Tilly both was a very respectful, just peer, very considered. They accommodated me. They knew I would kind of like out of, out of place in a lot of ways, but he was, they was very accommodating and very, very, a good guy.
LD:
So when Greg, he was so enthused and excited about the book, he said, he told me I need to read it. I’m thinking, man, I got some other stuff going on, tend to read a book right now. But he was so, uh, I asked him about it where I said, I’m gonna have to read this book. So I got the book started reading it. It is, it’s an awesome book. The book is titled Billy Canada, a long, long run look proud was written about four or five years ago, right before his transition when he passed on. And it’s a book covers a whole lot of his history. And even from Addie Nando, Billy Cannon was from Mississippi originally. So that was a great learning part right there. And sober you call
Greg:
It. I can’t remember his hometown, any
LD:
Soap, the show, Mississippi, Philadelphia, Mississippi. So he grew up in a small town and his mom, his dad dad’s name was harvest or Harvey and his mom name was Virgin. And it was a pretty good history. Let’s talk about, uh, what the [inaudible] matter of fact, we did, we got determined. This is going to be our first. So we talked, we discussing a book, I guess we know we got a great scholar, Greg Fluor. So people would be like electors. I don’t know what to call it sex. I guess we’ll call count time, booking, Clover, that booklet booking and clue. So I don’t know, but I appreciate you sending me a capita book. The book was really, really first-class it very engaging. They’re honest. You know, he bought for a lot of information.
Greg:
And what got me about the book lamin was that I’ve known Billy Cannon since 1972. And then when I came to LSU, you know, I got to know him even closer. And then when that incident happened with him, he kind of became a recluse. And so, and I always wondered why that hadn’t been a book written or a movie written, uh, made about Billy Cannon and come to find out. When I read the book, Billy Cannon didn’t want a book written by about him or move it down about him because he could have made a lot, a lot of money had he had a movie made by him about him, but that was not his thing. And he said in the book, the only reason that he let this writer write this book is because that guy worked at the penitentiary with him. He was a minister at the, at the, at Angola and he trusted the guy and he finally decided to, uh, do an interview with this guy and allowed him to write this book. And that was toward the end of his life because he didn’t walk people to totally know about him until toward the end. And that’s what I thought that was what was interesting when I first picked up the book,
LD:
When that movie came out years ago, when we was getting out of college,
Greg:
I can’t think of what he talks about it in the book. And he said they were trying to portray him, but that was not about him. They’ve tried to make a movie about him, but it didn’t.
LD:
That was not yeah. With the movie, but it did. But the movie we know was really dealing with, he was attempting to portray the cannon, but it was not the true story. They didn’t know, really have a story
Greg:
That slipped my mind, the name of that movie. Cause we all remember when they were filming that movie here in Baton Rouge,
LD:
Because I was like, I’ll look at the movie a few months back. Right. And, and I did not know coach SAM, Nader was in the booth that was interested, needs to see ghost data at a pretty beat over the Kevin comic. They call it Cammy. Gabriel appears right now in a culture culture in the movement. But it was a, it wasn’t a no that as we well know it, cause a lot of guys went out to, they asked former athletes to come out, talk, try out for the movie. Right. And a lot of players went out and I saw some of the guys in the movie. Yeah. So it was pretty good. But I put the deliver where we built the Canon plate. It wouldn’t do any of us playing at the time. So they would, that would made it kind of hard to, but, but deli in his book and in, in life too, he was very, he respected all people, you know, at the time he did see me.
LD:
Matter of fact, one of last time I really spent the time talking with him was when Nick Saban was in town, when Nick’s day would run, it won the national championship. I had a bunch of footballs I would to get side because saber signed the books when the ball was. And when I came out of the, uh, the facility with the bowels, the Canon was coming across the street. I said, Billy, so he’s, Hey, how you doing? We started talking, started engaging. So he said, uh, I say bad guys. We got all of them, all of them down bowls. I said, I just got upset and said he was offered some friends of mine who expert, uh, you know, one of the few national championship they had since yo D’s right. Yes. And I said, I wouldn’t get upset and say, I need for you to sign.
LD:
But two or three of them said, what my name would be. Why do you want my name on? I said, well, since you here, you don’t know the first, uh, national championship fee. I said, so it’s going to be, might have that much more value. I don’t know what happened to the balls or the way they are, but he did sign about, I had about eight and he signed about three of them for me. So that was the last time I seen him. But let’s talk what we want to start at there, but where the, what part that really captured you. And, and I
Greg:
Hope everybody go out and buy this book because you really enjoy it. Particularly if you’re an LSU fan or a person that grew up in Louisiana, it’s not just an LSU book. It’s a really a Louisiana book, but what stood out the most was that, and more, and I don’t want to say too much about books because I want people to read it, but I want to talk about this because this is knowledge that you can find anywhere else. The thing about Billy Cannon that I had heard about that when I first came to Baton Rouge in 76 to go to LSU, Billy Cannon is the first athlete to lift weights. Most people don’t realize that, uh, weight lifting was taboo for sports. Back in the day, people thought weight lifting would make you slow and muscle down that type of stuff. Well, there was a gentleman named Alvin Roy who was from the stroma high school and he was in the military. And because he traveled all over the world like Russia, Germany, and the Russians and the Germans were always beating the U S and powerlifting, would he learn what they were doing in Europe? And he brought that same method back to Baton Rouge. So he went back to his high school, Istrouma high school and he went to talk to the head football coach and ask him, could he let him work out for the football team? Well, that was such a taboo to lift weights, to play football. The coach like, ah, I don’t know about that.
LD:
Who’s who’s the coach, uh, fuzzy brown coach. That’s correct.
Greg:
And, and uh, so he said, well, look, I’ll let you work with the tractor. So he first worked with the track team and Billy Cannon was on the track team and did the Canon speed increase so much that it convinced the football coach. Okay, I’ll let you work with the football team. Well, Billy Cannon is the only person I know of my entire life that won the a hundred yard dash and the shot put in the state track, meet those two competition. Just don’t add up, you know, either you’re a sprint or a jump or a field guy with the wind, the shot put and the hundred yard dash and 200 in the state meet. So that proved that weightlifting increased your speed, your size and your, uh, and your quickness. So not only did he win the state track, meet his high school team, won the state championship in football, his junior year.
Greg:
And then they won the state championship again, his senior year and would have it that Paul diesel came to recruit, uh, Villa Canada come to LSU. Well, Alvin Roy convinced Paul [inaudible] and Paul Leeson was against it, but he convinced Paul Dietzel to lift weight. Well, LSU was the first college football team in the nation to lift weight. They won the national championship in 1959. And then, uh, Billy Cannon not only won the Heisman trophy. He was the first player picked in the draft. And I didn’t know that. I didn’t know if he was drunk. First player picked in the draft. Now he didn’t go to the NFL because the year he got drafted in the NFL, they started the NFL. And then Billy Cannon went to the Houston olives and he stayed with the olives. Then he went to the Raiders.
LD:
Yeah. The first time with the Rams. It matter of fact that the book said that he signed this contract after the sugar bowl game, right on the field, on
Greg:
The field. And then the, all us got him out of that contract. And you know,
LD:
And at that time I think the contract was worth 30,000 a year. And that was like a multimillion dollar contract back in those days. Yeah.
Greg:
And the other thing that was interesting about the book is that while he was playing professional football, he went to medical school in the off season. And now, you know how hard it is just to play a sport. I can’t imagine going to medical schools during the off season and to prepare to play in the national football league at the same time. I’m like, I was amazed to read all this
LD:
In, in the learn that, that Billy, when he moved from Mississippi, they had a farm. Uh, his dad had a farm, they lost the farm, moved to Memphis, moved to Tennant, Memphis, Tennessee. They moved to another part of Tennessee looking for work in standard R uh, during the time of the, of world war one, I believe a world war II, world war one standard are in Baton Rouge, but nice. Which now we call Exxon was hard. Cause they was producing a lot of our robo or whatever they need for the military. So that was a lot of money. It’d be in the bedroom area. So he said the family moved here for that to get some work. And Billy that’s when he began to, yeah, he got in a lot of trouble, even back then, he talked about the trouble that he got into. He was called himself a little, they call him a third so far for word third was popular. And he said it was, it was called him a third back then. Yeah.
Greg:
And that’s the part I would like for people to read because I had no idea he failed in the eighth grade. And then when he repeated the eighth grade, the second time he made all A’s. And as you know, he never had trouble with school after he flopped the first time in the eighth grade and everybody realized he was a great student, as well.
LD:
Matter of fact, he was really, he was, he wasn’t a big guy at all. You know, he went into his junior, senior weight, put on a lot of weight. He weighed at, I think 1 25, 1 50, right. Most, uh, you know, uh, first year too and high school, but he had great speeds. It, his speed was there when he put on that when they haven’t Roy came about and Roy was here when we first got to LSU.
Greg:
Yeah. Albemarle was around the Baton Rouge area when we got to LSU, but he was the speed coach for the Dallas Cabos strength, conditioning coach for the Cowboys around that time. But Alvin RA built the first gym in the United States. So you see those anytime Fitness’s planted, all those gems, the first gym was built in Baton Rouge in 1955. And it was on Oklahoma street right across where the old prince Murad was. If you went across the street on Oklahoma street, it was an old
Greg:
House to the left. It’s right off of Nickerson drive right
Greg:
Off of Nicholson drive. And, uh, the house was on the left and, and they, they turn it into a gym. And when I first got to LSU, my first time going to a weight room was at that Alvin Roy gym. And that was back in the summer of 1976. And then we started working out, uh, they made a weight room in the stadium. It was not very big.
LD:
So when you first got Delancey, there was no weight room
Greg:
In his head one, but they would still work out.
LD:
Yeah. I know when I got a lot of guys was still going to win. I forgot. I came the next year. It was still going, going. A lot of guys wanted to be, he wasn’t near as much anymore. Right. But a lot of guys wanted him to,
Greg:
Well, I didn’t realize it was still there when you cave.
LD:
Okay. Because it got a lot of, a lot of guy was going. I never went, I don’t remember ever going.
Greg:
The first time I got here, I went to the Alvin Roy gym before I even went to the LSU was wait room. So
LD:
Billy flop in the eighth grade repeated a angry, went back to school with a different attitude and decided he was going to do better for himself. And he excelled in academics. So he knew that he was capable of doing the work, not knowing that he was going to exhale to the level he did in sports. So he was a three sport guy, right? Basketball, football, and track and field. And he’d done exceptionally well at all three, but he said he was better in track then football then basketball. So that was pretty interesting to do that at Dillard, uh, you know, play. But there was one thing that happened to him that his dad, his dad got hurt, uh, working at Exxon Exxon standard or at the time he was, uh, he was the two man, I guess he did a lot of, um, I guess we call mechanical type of work now, you know, preparing, uh, working on different, uh, pipes or whatever it might be. And he slipped off the top of a scaffold, fell out, hurt himself and never really recovered. And there was a network was able to go back to work with the applicator’s leg, amputate his leg after almost a year, the opportunity is late. So he wasn’t able to go back to work. So he became the wife, Virgin had to go to work and he had to stay home and be a stay at home mom, which effected his two boys, Billy and Harvey Jr. Probably was what about three years? Four years old. And Dylan,
Greg:
Maybe two years
Greg:
Older than me. And he did well in sports too. Right.
Greg:
They won a state championship with his brother two
LD:
In a row. Yeah. His brother wants to have a role in football, football, and football. So, you know, all I was at the now what, the interesting thing about the story bill is that his dad told him that their genes came from athletic genes gave away. You remember that part helped me with, that came from when he lived in, uh, Mississippi, he said the great grandmother was married to an Indian. Yes. And he said, they came from the Indian side of the family. And that was pretty interesting when he talked about it,
Greg:
See, you remember this? You just read it because I read this a while back and you bringing all this back to me.
LD:
Yeah. That was that. Cause that was saying we’re holding on an Indian. So it would be, you know, they got a, you know, he got a combination of, uh, genes with him and I was in there. And also he talked about when Billy talked to, he made it a point to make a comment about his best friend when he was a real young boy was a little black boy in Mississippi that he hung with it. He grew up with, in a Tennessee that he had, he got to know, and that was it like when his close close friend. And it was just, you know, he made certain points of emphasis on certain things that he thought wasn’t that I guess he was important to him in his growth, his growth in, when he came to Louisiana based when he was saying that Mississippi was more integrated than
LD:
Louisiana. Right. So
Greg:
Because he never played with a black player, you know, neither in high school college. And once he got to professional football, that was the first time he ever had a black teammate. But when he was growing up around a stroma area, he always played with the black kids. You remember that part, you know, he played with the black kids. So it was, he had no prejudice in him. He, uh, he looked at people as they were, and he didn’t have any bias toward anyone. Right. You could tell when you met him, he was that with,
LD:
Yeah. He treated everybody. He was just straight up type of guy. And you know, then you start thinking about LSU. LSU was one of the last teams to do what LSU
Greg:
Was the last team in the nation to integrate its athletics. Uh,
LD:
Even old miss visit. The state had integrated
Greg:
The Southeastern conference. The conference that LSU belongs to was the last conference in the nation to integrate. And LSU was the last school in the conference. They integrate LSU was dead last when it came to integrate in as athletics, as a
LD:
Matter of fact, you and I were there. We had some tough times dealing with things at LSU. Cause we was, it wasn’t the first, but we were still close to it. We weren’t that far behind. And there was a lot of issues and concerns, but when it came to what they call black and white right back then, and we, uh, we’re not going to talk about a lot of that right now, but it was a lot of, a lot of different diff the sermon.
Greg:
You see the alarm alarming. The first black athlete to play at LSU was college temple in 1969. And it took two or three years later for LSU to have his first black football player. And that was Mike Williams and Laura Hinton. So that was 1972. And I got to LSU in 76. Mike Williams had just finished his last year. I didn’t get to play with Mike and lore
LD:
College got in 1970 or was it seven it’s. Okay. But you know, neither of us got, had a chance to play with the great Mike Weaver and Laura Hinton. Matter of fact, it’s just now I think this coming Monday, the, in the sea of LoRa Hinton can be on a hall of LSU hall of fame, uh, that they can be voting on this Monday at LSU to make him, uh, you know, why not? I mean, you know, he’s, he’s, he’s a outstanding man and the community hard worker and he did done his, done his part to deserve it. But, uh, Billy was very versatile in a lot of ways, you know, not just his personality, where he treat people, he had this, what they call a bad boy kind of attitude to that at, uh, like that John Wayne and Elvis Presley, [inaudible] he, he had a unique kind of person that he was, he wasn’t afraid, you know, stood for what he believed in. He took a chance, you know, he would, you know, I, I could not believe that he would just go out and Rob people. So he would do it, things like that at a young age,
Greg:
When people, when he was a junior in high school, he almost didn’t play his senior year in high school. Uh, they had to make an exception for him to play because he was in trouble. He got in trouble and find it, the courts dropped it or what? I can’t remember the details right now because I read the book, uh, a while back. But, uh, thank God that the, the justice system dropped it. And then he could go on and play his senior year.
Greg:
Right. Because Billy, after his dad, Harvey gotten hurt, there was no money coming in. That’s correct. And him and his brother also, he said, he worked at a man does meat market, which is still located right downtown now, nearly near the state Capitol. And he worked there as a young boy. He say packing and unpacking chicken and sausage. And in a whole half of a cow, he said, so he was, he was a hard working young man. But when his dad got hurt, there was, there was all traumatized by that. Cause his dad being the bread winner, the stable part of the family, your mom didn’t work at all. So after a while, he had to figure out how to, how to survive, how to keep money in his pockets when he was out there, dug it. And I guess in a convenient, different, you know, the people in the community, totally the doors don’t mess with it.
Greg:
Like, you know,
Greg:
Stay away from here. And, but because of everybody, the coaches, his teammates, the teachers, everybody liked him. He knew he was a smart, smart guy. He knew he was a good guy. So they really would do it all. He can, they help him to make sure that he succeeded. I mean, they all do bad with his day. But Billy also talked about, and this, I guess this is why I really liked the book too. He emphasized that at the stroma games that, although there was none, not one player after they sit on the team, they would allow them to go to come watch the games. There was a lot of them to go in the south part of the stadium to watch the game. But bill has told a story too, that came along with that, that really worked hustling cellular and pro programs at Memorial stadium when Kalin high played when Southern university played. Right. And he said that he used to watch the great old deposing. You remember that guy? Yeah. So was the poster was a running back for Southern university. He said he watched over the poses. School is out LJ. LJ was, and I moved through the holes and he made all these long run. He said, that’s what he wanted to be like, oh, the pool.
Greg:
Yeah. I was interested to me, but you know, he has, that was his idol only. Oh, the poses. Yeah. It always, the poser was, uh, one of the best running backs. And he was a tennis player at Southern and he played, I can’t remember who he played for, but he played in the NFL for a few years and he owned a gas station. The last time I saw old pools, it, it was quite awhile ago. He had a cup of beans in north Baton Rouge. So I don’t know if you remember.
Greg:
Well, I know of him, but I don’t. I’ve never met him. Well, he was in
Greg:
Bed. He lived in bedrooms for quite, quite some time. Had I believe he passed in bedroom because he had a gas station right there in north bedroom. But he also has another bit, I can’t remember what type of business it was because a friend of mine played my friends. My dad played with him and that’s how I had a chance to meet. And everybody was bragging on how grateful I read it back. I smoothed the runner. He was, and then they just talked about it, but they still rebuild a cat, a book. And he made quite a few reference about the great old deposing that’s who he wanted to be like.
Greg:
And I guess Billy, Kevin had a little something to do with the things we got involved with. We got to LSU and I thought it was interesting when he talked about how he’d sold his tickets in high school to make a little extra money. You know, he bought the tickets, you know, you’d inflate the price a little bit and he’d go out and sell those tickets. And, uh, people couldn’t believe he would buy so many tickets at one time because like, he won’t be able to sell those things, but he did and made money. Well, when he got to LSU, he did the same thing. And when we got to LSU, I didn’t know what that was originated from. But I think maybe that’s where that came from. When we got to LSU, I heard
Greg:
That Billy would buy a whole sections of LSU tickets or just whole sections. Cause that’s why he walked away because he figured if I buy the ticket,
Greg:
Cause he can sell his chicken in a different motivation. He was a businessman. He was a businessman
Greg:
Ways to make it, make it for himself and his family, which was pretty ingenious. And, and
Greg:
The ticket manager at LSU at the time, they couldn’t understand what he was doing when he bought all those tickets at one time, because it was a risk because if LSU would not sell it out, the first time they ever sold out was when you heard cultural law, talk it on your show. When they played together, they had that first sell out at the LSU at that time. So he bought all those tickets and they were able to sell out the stadium. So he made good on his, on the risks
Greg:
He did very well. And when we was there, uh, that was that we talked about it a little bit later, but we did sell out tickets. But also Billy talked about not just selling the tickets. I can remember the part came, bring it back and working to bring it back, memory field. We don’t want to bring it back, but you just want to tell the tickets another aspect of that, that he had figured out. But also he talked about in this way, I really connected with it. You remember the great eight? Pardon the airport. You know, he talked about airport in the book. My junior year, I worked for airport. You have a workforce.
Greg:
I never worked for him, but y’all got paid well paid. Well, and I always wanted to get off on the stuff. Lives, got to work as a team with ed fund. I had to do that. You know, hard labor job. Yeah. But no, you have to be, you have to be special to work with ed. Oh, I realize that not everybody got to work with him.
Greg:
I had a chance to work with it. Like you said, he looked out for us.
Greg:
He put me
Greg:
Partner queen. Uh, we went over there, the big cages and then he called me in to come. And he was [inaudible] at this hotel on, on airline highway came every day. But the hotel, it was the bell. The bell is further back down on the coming back south. It might’ve been what the bay about the hotel. It’s a small place right next to all star cars, car dealership. That’s what we used to go meet him all the time. Him and his partner, big deal. They call it a big deal. But I can’t remember his name. He was a guy like the bouncer. So he would act to meet us there if you have you sit to eat with it. But we didn’t realize until we did, we left years later that we really was a lot. All of us was a danger because people had threats out on this life. We didn’t even know that.
Greg:
Yeah. He was close friends with, huh?
Greg:
Jimmy Hoffa. He testified against off. So we need to blame LSU for putting us at home.
Greg:
Cause we didn’t know that all that was going on only the superstars. See, you didn’t even realize you were a superstar. I didn’t know that you got to work with ed part and the Teamsters. I worked at big Cajun too, but I was a laborer. I had to go to the local union place and your check to get assigned, to go work somewhere else. The star players got to work as Teamsters where y’all just got to ride a truck, just drive around in a truck. And we out there shoveling digging ditches. And so you could put pipes in the ground at big Cajun when they were, I worked with the pipe fitters, but I had to work with the ones digging the ditches. So they put the pipes
Greg:
In, but we had to come pick y’all up.
Greg:
So yeah, that’s what girl did go pick us up.
Greg:
So Billy said that he had been a dealer work with work for the teachers, right? [inaudible] he really, he looked out for each left out for us. He did it. He did a great job. I have never forgot, always think about airport. And he really looked out for us and I really appreciate it for that. So bill had that experience and he moved on from winning championships from trouble, young man, but from a great family, mother fault who really cared and respected and show him a lot of love. He, the one chose to go the other direction and he shares a lot of this in his book. And we do know that later on that Billy had gotten into some serious trouble and we know what all that, but that’s about what you want to share that right quick.
Greg:
Yeah, because I always wanted to know why would Billy Cannon do something like that? You know, because we knew he gambled, uh, he was a big horse fan. You know, he go to horse races and when that incident happened, people thought it was because he was betting on horses and lost all his money. And that’s what everybody thought for a long, long time. And I’m in. And so when they wrote the book, he got into details on what happened to him, which caused them to get into the trouble that he got into. And it was because the economy had fallen apart in the eighties, he had bought all types of real estate. And when, when the bottom fell out, he was in debt so bad. And that’s how he got, uh, involved with that kind of fit. That was a guy I don’t, I don’t want to say too much about it, but that was a guy in Baton Rouge who had already been arrested for counterfeit.
Greg:
And he knew that that, and the guy just made a comment to him and in joking and Billy Cannon thought about it and you’re like, well, maybe we should try that or something. And that’s how he got caught up in that counterfeit thing is because his is, uh, cause he had a very successful dental practice, but he was getting into real estate and the bottom fell out. And that’s why he got it, uh, got into that counterfeit thing to try to make money, to pay the debt that he owed on all the real estate that had fallen apart.
Greg:
But even as a young man, he was a pool hustler. He used to hang out at the pool hall. So he called himself like a pool shark or figuring out ways, make a hustles, even hustling most of his life. And you know, you and I both, you know, Billy got some serious trouble, but you and I have went through different things in our lives. Uh, like, you know, I had to do time too. So for Medicaid fraud, you went through some things that use the cues, uh, you know, say falsely accused of something that caused you embarrassment, heartache stress and in annual job. Right?
Greg:
So I guess we all, the three of us all have some income. We all said we can add on to what we have in common,
Greg:
Stupid, uh, whatever was it, uh, what, what his name is, uh, Tupac. I’m going to be the three most mornings, the three boats that you just, just to kind of highlight your situation that you went through quite a few years ago and you finally got vindication
Greg:
This year, right? Well, no, it was, it took a whole year before I could go to court. And then it’s very rare that somebody that that’s arrested for soliciting a prostitute goes to court and fight it in court because it’s, it’s a very low crime other than the publicity that you get. But I had no choice, but to go to court and defend myself because I didn’t do anything wrong. And, and luckily, uh, this undercover police officer that came up to me and started soliciting me, and this was on a Sunday afternoon, at six o’clock in downtown Houston, right by the Toyota center weather with the rockets,
Greg:
You, you was going to a championship game. What
Greg:
Was the final four for Houston for the final four? And they play on that Saturday and that Monday, and this was
Greg:
2011. So you talked about 10 years ago. Exactly.
Greg:
And, uh, so I’m, I’m, I interviewed tick price for the job at Southern and I, I was in my motor home at a camp, route 15 miles south of Houston. And after my interview with Tik price, uh, I said, well, you know what? I need to go get something to eat. And it’s a 15 mile drive to Houston. So I drove it to Houston downtown. It was a free concert or whatever. When the concert was over, I said, I’ve got to get me something to eat before I take that 15 mile drive back to the campground where there’s no place to eat. You know? So as I was walking, I stopped at the stoplight. Walking is about 6 30, 7 o’clock that afternoon. And some lady came from behind me and started soliciting me. And first thing I know police officers came out of nowhere, plain clothes police officer grabbed me in handcuffs and what we, the jail about three blocks. I was handcuffed walking down the street in Houston with three or four undercover cops on east side of me. And I’m walking down the street handcuffed, taking me to jail. And, uh, so I had to, once I was released three days later, uh, Southern university fired.
So it’s a use on lockdown for three days. You’re stuck, stuck.
Greg:
They wouldn’t let me out on about, they said I was a flight risk. I couldn’t believe it. I almost fell out. I had to see a judge with the video camera, you know, and, and he was in his office and I was standing there and he said, I’m going to deny your bail, your flight risk homo stated my knees buckled. I’m like, I live in Louisiana. Where can I go? And he said, well, look the university. Yeah, yeah. And he said, I was a flight risk. And then, uh, so they said, well look, let me see what I can do. He said, okay, Tuesday, I’ll assign it to, to be arraigned Tuesday in court or whatever on that Tuesday. So they not letting me out that Tuesday morning to go to court. And then, uh, you know, that process started. But when I had to defend myself lamin and that Josh Florida thing that came out just bought back a lot of memories or what happened to me because in the police report was totally different on what happened to Georgia, Florida.
Greg:
And thank God that young lady had that camera because the police report and the camera, what we saw in the video was not even close, but that was the same thing with me. That police officer report was nothing about nothing. Like what happened. Her store was totally different about what happened, but what saved me was she was wired and the conversation was on tape. So when we, when we went to court, all I had to do all my lawyers did was play the tape and I testified. And normally when you’re in court, uh, your lawyer don’t normally let his client testify. So they know we want you to go and testify and tell your side of the story. And all I did was going told my side of the story. The jury went in 34 minutes later, they came out, um, not guilty. So he had a jury, had a jury trial. It was a jury trial. Yes.
Greg:
And whenever reason a year later that went unchecked. Uh, notice nobody, no publicity, no like nobody I knew about it because you know, we all know each other, but very few people knew that you had been dedicated that you had it
Greg:
Didn’t have near the amount of publicity that I received when the incident happened. So a year later, when I’m vindicated, the mountain, Africa did a great job. They did a big story, but ESPN didn’t do anything. I even called ESPN. I’m like, Hey man, you guys need to say something about this because they blew me up when it happened. And they didn’t even mention, I was bending
Southern university had long let you go. Within the first months of university, first couple of weeks
Greg:
Ago, on my way back from Houston, they called me and told me I was fired. So you need to get back to work, make it back to campus. They called me as I was driving back to the bedroom and told me I was fired. No.
Greg:
So when we get into more of that,
Greg:
He put anyway, you can see what we have in common with bill. Again, I know we kind of went a direction here, but you can see,
Greg:
But that, that, you know, we all had a long, long run in some way with the law. I mean, it’s a long, long road, but it’s long run with the law. That’s how we got look at it. Yeah. But we all came out of it, unskilled and harming if able, if the city and talk about it. And, um, I’m excited that you’re able to sit here and share that book with me because the book was written by, uh, how you pronounce that name.
Greg:
John D D grew up Veles
Greg:
[inaudible]. So this is a great book. Uh, we know a lot of you, or might’ve wrote, written, read the book by an app. A lot of you have not. And, uh, and I’m sure that the canner family will love for you to a bad purchase. The book, read it. Their grandfather’s story is a great story. He’s a great man, a great human being. And we, I truly enjoyed it. I learned a lot and I really thank you. Great for sending me the book. There’s one other part I want to share about the book. It is, you see escape me right now that I’ve really enjoyed about the book, because it talks a lot about a lot of guys from Canada who end up all playing at LSU. They all are playing for one rap. Yeah. Well, the interesting thing, kitchen, they
Greg:
All played against each other in high school when he was at a streamer and Baton Rouge high was that biggest rivalry. And when he got to LSU, those stars from Baton Rouge high, uh, uh, [inaudible] uh, one route one route. I was the quarterback
Greg:
Cause kitchen. And they all played together at LSU and that would be such a great team. They, they always great high school star. They played against each other. They’re competitive also. So where at the end of the book, well, what about our coaches to the purpose? That purpose? I had no clue. Pete played with Billy. Yeah. He was the backup running back to the, again I had, no,
Greg:
I knew, I knew coach probably played running back, but I didn’t realize he was the backup to [inaudible] until I read the book
Greg:
Out of Mississippi. So I’ll be in coach purpose, coach LSU while we were there for three years. So we had a chance to get to know him. He was so he was a hard worker. He was a deep defensive back coach and he worked his guys hard. He got the both side. And you
Greg:
Know, when you had your interview with coach and then the bla, uh, cultural Oblon played off as a tackle. And I didn’t realize, I mean, I knew he played on that championship team cause he always rate. But when I heard your interview with coach of law, I didn’t realize he started the whole time. He was at LSU
LD:
That that would accept his senior year. He started senior year. He started Southwood junior year. Cause he couldn’t play as a freshman, sophomore, junior, senior year competition. He said, but uh, he, I mean he gave up his store was so great. I coached, he was my coach. And uh, you know, he, he really took care of me. So I can’t complain about that. Coach deployed. He just told me don’t get hooked. That’s what we did. So once again, we take, uh, my dear friend, uh, catheter, Mr. Greg Lafluer, uh, showing up today to do this interview and on the great Billy Cannon title of book, a long, long run. And we’re going to close the bus in it because all three, as we all had a long, long run with the law. So when we take it, Greg, thanks for being here and sharing your book, share this book would be the cattle with us.
Greg:
Thank you brother LD. I really enjoyed this time together.
LD Azobra describes the similarities between the U.S. Judiciary and the banking system. This is one of a series of topics set to decode the American system. LD asks the question is the judiciary a court of justice or a court of equity. Is the court a bank? What do you think? If you haven’t yet, subscribe to the Count Time Weekly Alerts.
Selected quotes and notes from Count Time Podcast with LD Azobra on the Judicial System
Good evening. Good evening. Good evening it’s 4:00 PM. Stand up it’s count time, time for every man and woman to stand up and be counted. Welcome to another edition of Count Time podcast. I am brother LD Azobra formerly named Lyman white. Thank you for joining us today.
The question is, is the court a bank? Yes. You heard me correctly. Living our everyday life, doing what we do on a daily basis. And in between that sometimes we get a ticket to go to court or something happens as we live in our daily life. And this subject matter is going to help all of us. I believe they don’t give us something to think about.
The question is, is the court a bank? How are you going to cross over from one to the other? How the court will be a bank or how the bank can be a court. That’s why Count Time is here, to enlighten, to engage you and to awaken those who are civilly dead.
And we know that we go to the courthouse. We always see these long lines. So you sit and stand in line to pay off Fine. So is that the same as going to the bank and the bank? Tell us there and you making a deposit or making a withdrawal. But at least at the bank, you can make a withdraw. But at the courts, you just simply paying off what they call your debts or charges or fines fees.
These people, also who collect money, are called bank clerks. But at the court system, we just call them court clerks, and their job is to keep ruckus, make sure everything is in order, make sure all five and fees and debts have been paid. So if there’s a difference between a Bank teller and a clerk, they all do the same thing. But we know the bank, at least you can make withdrawals. But the court, you only make deposits and they keep all deposits. They don’t send you nothing. They only sit there to collect.
Which one is true is the court a bank? We’ve been taught that the court is just simply a governmental body consisting of one or more judges who sit to adjudicate, disputes and administer justice. A question of law for the court to decide. Now, we’ve been taught that a bank is an officially Chartered institution empowered to receive deposits, make loans and provide check ins and saving account services all at a profit. So the bank purpose is to make money. We all know that.
So what’s the purpose of the court then? And how do you connect the two together? Now, many of us know that the bank charges you for fees. That’s what we call bank fees. So we know that the bank can charge you. But also, do you ever think when the courts charge you for a crime? So when you heard me right, you spell it the same way C-H-A-R-G-E charge. And the word is defined the same don’t matter how you look at it. So I want you to go back and pull the word up and look at his legal term. The word charge we hear in the course that John caught a charge or John have a drug charge. So what do the word charge mean?
These are things that we’re going to be talking about to enlighten you, to awaken the mind where you no longer can be deceived or tricked by this system. Because we’ve been hearing the word charge used in court system for a long time. We just never thought much of it. But the word charge, whether you had a bank or in the courts, has the exact same meaning. What do I mean by that?
Just like you open up a bank account, right? What is the bank account is simply a contract between the customer and the banker, whereby the bank obligates itself to honor a check or deposit. But also that, you know, in the court system, you have a court account. What do I mean by a court account where the court can charge you on several counts? Count one, count two, count three, et cetera, et cetera. So the court set up an account for you. You didn’t realize it. It’s the same word.
The coming start of the 2021 Olympics reminds LD of the pyramids and phoenix from the 2012 Olympic ceremonies. If you haven’t yet subscribe to the Count Time weekly alerts.
Any thoughts about England using ancient African symbols for display at the 2012 Olympics? Let us know what you think by commenting below.
Selected quotes and notes from Count Time Podcast with LD Azobra
Good evening. Good evening. Good evening it’s 4:00 PM. Stand up. It’s count time, time for every man and woman to stand up and be counted. Welcome to another edition of count time podcast. I am brother LD Azobra formerly named Lyman White. Thank you for joining us today. (listen to why I changed my name, it’s not what your thinking)
Today. I want this discuss a matter or issue that has been concerning to me for quite some time. Something that transpired quite a few years ago went unnoticed and unchecked, but as the lord would have it, time has come around again. And this subject matter might not mean much to many, but I just want to bring it forward. Maybe you have some discussions and dialogues and conversation about yes. What did happen? Why did that happen? How did that happen? And what am I talking about? Well, we know tomorrow is the start of the 2021 Olympics, which was cancelled in 2020 because of the Corona virus. What we now call COVID-19 where we know that the summer Olympics is always during the even years, like 10, no, 8, 12, 16, 20, I guess the same as all presidential race, I guess it just coincidental. Right. And I don’t know, but it’s just always doing those times of year just to be they missed last year.
So 2020 Olympics will be played in 2021 in Tokyo. Japan would be hosting the 20, 21 Olympics that starts tomorrow, July the 23rd. But what I want to bring forward is July of 2012 at the Olympics that transpired in London. So what happened that we won’t bring forward the 2012 Olympics from what I mean? That was, oh, I’m sorry. That was nine years ago. Well, something that I noticed and I was questioning to myself like, okay, how did this come in about where we know the Olympics, every country that hosts the Olympics, what they normally do is highlight spotlight, their greatest moments in their country. They had the history, they had development, what brought them to where they are, their greatness, their evolution that transpired in their country. And that’s the way everybody does it, right? To showcase their country where people can come in tour, people can come and be a part of their, their history come.
People can come and share because they want everybody to come and be able to spend money in their country. Where in the 2012 Olympics that took place in London, England, that was a few unusual things that I thought was happening. And I couldn’t figure that out. Like, okay, well, how did this come about? How do they do that? How did they do this? Where we know the first part of the Olympics is what they call an open end of the Olympics, where Queen herself showed up with James Bond. He jumped out of the helicopter with a parachute, which we know she didn’t actually do that. But symbolically, symbolically, you know, they had her like she was jumping out like she still is the Queen she’s in great shape. She’s still in position to rule and power to rule. But throughout the opening ceremony, they show the Europe as they came out of the, they didn’t really show the ice age, but we know that’s how it came about, it came out of the ice age.
And from there, they moved into many countries all over the world. And they showed that when he came out of the ground from under, under the tree and it showed them moving out continuously the men, they didn’t show that they didn’t show any women coming out of the, out of the ground with the show. Oh man. And it’s had men of different ethnicities coming out, which I thought that was kind of interesting, you know, some was of African descent and I guess, uh, some other origins origins, but it was pretty interested in to see that because I didn’t figure out, I couldn’t figure out how many of people of African descent came out of, out of the origin of the European culture. So that was unusual. I know that what they was just playing that they’ll multicultural, which is a new term, not in that they work with everybody, but anyway, they came out of the ground.
And, uh, I guess that ground also record represented a cave of the Europeans have been known to come out of a cave. That’s what a term cave may come from or what I was taught and what we was taught back in the days of school, but also with the ships and learned to navigate through the waters. They begin to travel all over the world and it took over many places, you know, to go with many other countries that they still rule to this day. And they were showing that they went abroad and, you know, they took their culture, took their, uh, their expertise, which we know they will businessman with the top hats on. And one guy had the book so that, you know, the deer rule, they control the knowledge and now let could be true, but we’d also know that a lot of knowledge would take her from other places that they utilize to their benefit.
And that’s what we all do. Right? We take knowledge from others and use it for our benefit, but fast forward. So as the people coming up, the men are coming out of the ground. I will say, coming out the cave of Europe, moving into other places, other countries, traveling the world, they begin to, they created the industrialized society that we all know to this day. Although the Africa was the first install, smite and iron, but it uses the use of iron thousands of years ago, but the Europeans did take it to another level. They started building a lot of different factories and trains and everything by using iron metal and made it where they can, you know, from the horse and buggy to cars, to airplanes, to where we, now we can, they talking about traveling to the moon and traveling tomorrow as a traveling space where I’m getting to is that yes, the opening ceremony was that they had shown showing their industrialized society, how they move from one place to another phone or one evolution to another transforming the world, transforming themselves.
And all that was great, but there was a part of the Olympics that was kind of, it wasn’t subtle, but it would just sit in there that I could not figure out how the Britain Angland claim this. If anybody can remember, I guess you can pull it up. You can just, you know, pull up the 2012 Olympics and the opening ceremony and the closing ceremony. As you look to watch ceremony at the top of the stadium, they had pyramids. I can’t remember how many, if I was a guest, they hadn’t had one in the front and had one in the back. So you’re talking about 30 pyramids or more of design that was on top of the stadium. Or maybe I would say 24 to 30, 30. There had to be more than 24. I would say at least close to 26 to 30 pyramids on top of the stadium.
Well, to me, even back then in 2012, I was wondering, and I was like, how, how and why do Britain have pyramids on top of the stadium? The pyramid is not part of the European culture. It’s not part of European history. Matter of fact, I don’t think there’s one pyramid in Europe. I have heard that several years ago, they found pyramid that they stay up here made in Bosnia when the European countries, but one of the first and few, besides the one they built quite a few years ago, a glass pyramid that was built that they use in front that was put in front of a mule, their museum, that when you, before you walk in the museum, you walked through the pyramid because also in the European museum, they got all the African history, right? If you want to study Africa, you got to go to Europe because they got all the history that it took it all from Africa.
It brought to Europe because the African history is so, so vast it’s phenomena. It goes back so far, all the things they’ve done, the development with all it created. I mean, it’s endless when you think about it, but how and why did Britain put pyramids on top of their stadium? That’s been a question I’ve been having in my mind. It just so happened. The 2020 Olympics is now being held in Tokyo in 2021. And us just started the podcast several months ago. So we have a chance to have this dialogue on the pyramids in Europe, which I don’t think they ever had that dialogue yet because there aren’t any, from the knowledge or understanding that I was taught or that I know of. So why did Britain put the peer? Me is on top of their stadium. What are they saying? What are they claiming our Britain now, or London, England claiming that they ought to create a, of the pyramid, which the pyramid represent high knowledge.
It’s a pass as any other knowledge because in organizations for the masons, the Scottish rights, the different organization, they all used to peer me. And we shared this once before the pyramid is so powerful, they put it on back a dollar bill. So that’s how powerful the peer mediator. But the pyramid is the history of the ancient people of Africa, not just north Africa. It’s quite a few places in Africa. We do know that Mali, Morocco, Ethiopia, Sudan, and ancient Kemet, which we now call Egypt, where all appear. And you can find plenty of also in other countries, you can go to Mexico, go chase the Nia, find pyramid. You can go to so many different places and find pyramids. You can go right here to the United States and find pyramids. Matter of fact, I attended LSU. They had two pyramids. They have two pyramids to this day on LSU campus that they claimed that some of the oldest pyramids in the world.
So to this day, they’re pyramids all over the world, except Europe. Why was that high as that? Why would they have no period pyramid built in Europe of food for thought, but your claim, the pyramid in the 2012 Olympics. So as we, I saw this happening, as I saw this unfolded, I would just add, I asked like stunned, like, why are these pyramids or pyramid structures sitting on top of the would call it Olympic stadium that was built to the 2012 Olympic in Europe. I still don’t have an answer. I’m just want to have a conversation. I need some help to understand how and why did this come about? But not just death. Let’s fast forward to the closing. 2012 Olympics. Another phenomena transpire as the limping was coming to a close, they started this, they had a fire that was part of the closing, which represents the torch and the Olympic fire.
They got to keep burning. So then also there was a, I thought was an African group, which they are, but they are without a Brazil. Their Europeans invited some Brazilians people to participate in the 2012 Olympic for the closing of the Olympics and the way he was dressed. I mean, you know, an African people, Brazilian people, the cultures best deal veer, very similar, you know, in Brazil, still to this day is the second largest that the second largest nation of African people is right there in Brazil. So they had them to come during the closing of the Olympics. I get to represent the Africans. And what happened at this time as the torch has been lit and the torches rising and opening, it went, it was open like a flower. Then it started closing. But also when it lit the torch, yes. What rose up the Phoenix bird, anybody know anything about the Phoenix bird is the bird that we say that rises out of his ashes are rises from the ashes, or was this important?
Once again is not a part of the European history. This was not taken out of the European history. It has nothing to do with the European history. I know the Greeks claimed it once they learned about it from the ancient people, but we all know the Phoenix bird came out of the great continent of Africa, Northern Africa, and others who worshiped and honored the Phoenix bird every 500 years. The Phoenix bird has been known to rise from his ashes to his elegance, his greatness out of the fire. And guess what happened in Europe, in August, 2012 as the burden of the torch, the closing of the ceremony, the Phoenix bird, the great ancient people, the great African people bird that they, we don’t know if it was a real Burr or symbolic men. And do not know to this day, it had been taught to say that every 500 years his rises out of his ashes to his greatness to show that you can’t kill him, can’t kill it.
We arise at his time. So I know your might’ve been in, we arising out of our ashes at this time, but it’s not their history. So why would they use a symbol that is not part of the history of culture? I doubt up to Japan. If Japanese or Japanese, we use a symbol. That’s not part of their culture. A doubt of the JIP Japanese would use a similar that is known for the European are known. Footer for India are known for some other country of India, of a China though. They gonna use symbolism. Everything they’d probably use to represent them in their culture, in their history. They would not use any of the symbols that has nothing to do with their culture, their history. So why did Europe chose to do that? They don’t have a great enough history to be able to use, to bring forward where we know that’s where all the violence took place in Europe.
Podcast History Africa
They’ve been known for all the great war warriors and creating wars, the general rules and the different, you know, people that came out of Europe over the years. But very few, besides the ones they call the great philosophers, Aristotle played tool, you know, so many more in the Aristotle’s and the Plato. If you go read their history, they’ll tell you, they went to the ancient cities of Africa, of Kemet to learn what they learned. They was not tarted in Europe. And we know when the, when, when the so-called Alexander the great, uh, the interesting thing about that, uh, you know, all my life I was taught. Alexander was the great when I went to Egypt first time, my only time and 1990. So over 30 years ago, I went to Egypt. It was the first time I ever heard. They called him Alexander the barbarian.
So that’s when you start learning, everything’s a matter of perspective on the side of the war I came from, they call him the great on the other side of the world, where he went and stole, did damage to the people, to their culture. They called him a barbarian, but the name of city after him in the great country of Kimmy, who we did the now called Egypt to this day. But we also know in that great city of Alexander, they had the worlds. It was the world first library. So I’m telling you, the library had must have been now four or five, 6,000 years old. The oldest library in the world was in north Africa who knew, who would have thought about, but when Greeks, the Greeks got there, they say they burned the library. I guess they did. After they sit and copied plays, awry, took all the knowledge, wrote it, rewrote it, and took credit for it in saying that the great Greeks are now became your great philosopher with the ancient people, call himself the great Sage, you know, cause they had to be, you know, they call it, they also call themselves, uh, what we call it.
They call ministers today, but it had people like the great IMHO tip the first physician, the first doctor out of ancient Egypt, Kimmy M hotel, and the Europeans call him. I got to get this name, right? Eckler I can’t say the word. I don’t want to get it wrong. But to this day they still pay homage to him because him old tip was the father of medicine. But to be a great Sage as him hotel, great doctor, the gratefulness, very grateful, the great Sage Sage and a philosopher or similar, but a Sage, you had to be proficient in science, math, chemistry, law, everything. So you have to understand how all these things work together, how they all are one. So sort of great men and women of Egypt. They had to go to school for 40 years to learn this just they, they was proficient in all of these things in order to become a great Sage.
So they was able to map the universe, the possession of the star, the rotation of the moon, the sun. And to this day, we know we still worship these things, but let’s get back to what I was saying about that. So at the 2012 Olympics, when Europeans displayed the pyramids and the Phoenix bird rising out of his ashes, were they claiming that African people history, what it taken at the birthright of the ancient African people by claiming that this is their rightful history culture. Oh, they do have a showcase. Nick, could they really like him? And if they really liked what he meant, where those who don’t know, you probably would have thought, well, that must be part of their culture. That’s part of their history. Well, I’m here to let you know, none of it was part of their culture or part of their history.
So why would they even showcase that? Why would they even close out with debt? And even to have these pyramids on top of their, uh, Olympic stadium, that whenever he looked at the stadium, you saw these pyramids. So pyramid pyramid represent far knowledge and power. That’s how, that’s the power of a pyramid. We say, well, now, you know, pyramid is okay, where to this day we know how powerful a pyramid it is, what you mean by to this day where almost every church I know has a steeper on the top of it. When you pass by a church, you see a steeper and steeper represent a place, a worship place, a power, a place where the Lord dwells a place where energy fire take place. Cause the steeper is nothing but a pyramid. It does that same shape of a pyramid. So it represents power due to mass fire.
So that’s what we’ve been taught. That guac gut, that’s what we’ve been taught. It’s where God dwells. So to this day, a church has a steeple, which is only a representation of a pyramid. Now you can make it, you can call it whatever you want to call it. But it’s only a pyramid that triangular shape that came out of ancient Africa. So to this day and the days to come, we know that we still use the pyramid to represent a lot of things, but why would the Europeans claim the pyramids and the Phoenix bird to say that they’re rising out of that? Their ashes, not a UX, meaning Europe is the country that burned down other countries. So other countries theorized now the ashes and the damage that Europe cost to them. You know? So I’m just having a conversation with myself that I wanted to share with you and help that hopefully that you can help me to come to some understanding and hit us up, go to our, uh, website and leave a comment.
And let’s have some conversation dialogue on why did Europe use the pyramid and a Phoenix bird at their greatest moment that they could have displayed the greatness of Europe, but they displayed the greatness of Africa, the pyramid and the Phoenix bird, not the greatness of Europe. So why did they choose that? Why was that important? So important for them to utilize those symbols? Because we know the power and importance of symbols. So anybody see the pyramid today do they think of Europe? when you, when you see the Phoenix bird, do you think of Europe? No, I wouldn’t think so maybe the younger people, they, they were branding themselves. So they might’ve been rebranding themselves, right? To be the cradle of knowledge. And we know that’s not true, please we know that’s not true. So please help me by hitting us up and let us know what you think about Europe using the ancient African symbols to display at the 2012 Olympics.
Are you a terrorist? You might want to listen to this episode before you answer that question. LD Azobra describes how he learned about OFAC and what happened to him. This episode delves into the Department of Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Sanctions Lists. OFAC publishes lists of individuals and companies owned or controlled by, or acting for or on behalf of, targeted countries. Are these lists ever used as a vendetta against US citizens? If you haven’t yet, subscribe to the Count Time Weekly Alerts.
Selected quotes and notes from Count Time Podcast with LD Azobra
The Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Department of the Treasury administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries and regimes, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and other threats to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States.