Kurt LeBlanc Photography

My primary blog is located over at www.kurtleblanc.com/blog! Please head over and check it out!!

Thanks,
Kurt LeBlanc Photography

Picture of the Clermont Harbor house after Katrina....

Picture of the Clermont Harbor house after Katrina.... there isn't a structure standing from the Beach to the R/R tracks.

Memories of Clermont by Karen Coppick

My memories of Clermont are very good although a little cloudy, until I saw the picture of the flag hanging between two beams of a house that is no longer there.

I can remember the steps leading up to the house seemed so long and steep. The house was so high up, but I was a short little thing. The house smelled like pepere, like musty old fish nets and sea water. I can picture everything inside how it used it be; that blue rug on the wall above the sleeper sofa in the living room, the black kitchen swivel chairs, the back room with all pepere’s stuff, and the back stairs that seemed even steeper than the front. I loved swinging on the bench swing under the house. I think us younger folk used to fight for that one. (maybe the older cousins/brothers/sister broke the hammocks!?!)

My favorite memory was crabbing!!!! I still miss those days by the sea wall, fighting over who was the last one to pull up the nets! That was one of the neatest experiences I’ve ever had. It was so exciting to find a live crab or two or three in a net that you just pull up with your hands…….but you gotta be quick! Eating them was fun too, but tiring……just not all that much meat in those things.

I had a love/hate relationship with the floundering………I hated the needle fish poking at my ankles, and I was always petrified when Pepere would shine the light on the other side of the water and leave me walking into the dark, murky, sting ray infested waters! Was I a scare-d-cat or what? I loved it too though! I can’t recall the first flounder I stabbed and I don’t think it was many……….Gil & pepere were always hoggin’ the kill! (I don’t think they trusted me to stab it.)

I loved the beach of course, and having the freedom to walk all the way to the candy store to get treats!!!! It was such a long walk down that street, but I would have walked it a thousand times for that feeling of independence. I loved the sand bars. It was the coolest thing being able to walk so far out into the ocean and still be knee deep. I remember doing hand stands out there and digging for clams. One time Tammy and I were swimming and we dove in and got stung by jelly fish all over our arms. It stung pretty bad. Mom put sand all over it and immediately the sting was gone. That scared me for awhile.

My best memory though was bringing my baby, Jacob at eight months old, and hubby, Tommy to this magnificent place in 1995. This time, we had it all to ourselves, and I felt proud to be a part of this treasure and pass it on to my family. We got to sleep in the big King bed!!!!!!!! That was major! Usually I got the sleeper sofa during big family vacations. Tommy got to experience floundering with Gil. Jacob experienced the beach and was my only child to meet pepere.

The best memories of my life were here in Clermont! Thank you mom and dad! I love you! Karen

Faye's Memories

The Memories are many......a family united spending summers together. The drive was long, filled with chaos and never enough room....we were many....but knew we were headed for fun. The Clermont house, for me, stood as a stilted giant and yet humbly quaint, but always ready to embrace us all. I knew that it had been tossed around before, so so long ago, and I always worried for its safety - so close to calm waters that could grow fierce - so fragile did it seem.

I remember falling....from the Clermont front door straight down to the mud puddle that awaited me on the ground. It was painless - as if I had been caught - and to this day I recall being gently placed in that puddle. It was a holy place with St. Francis always standing in the wings. The wild life was always lingering in the night lit by the porch light..... mosquitoes! But in order to get the flounders you has to get through the light ....Dr. T. to the rescue - although the night was still always frantic with scratching!

My personal favorite activity was crabbing - not loading the nets with fish heads or chicken necks mind you, but pulling them up to the surprise of any sized blue crab - I'll take it!

And who can forget the snowcones - never being able to decide on a flavor, but always satisfied with the finely shaved texture of the ice - and knowing THIS is the only place that they make them like this...and being able to experience these somehow made us special.

A race to the hammocks...only two of them...and remember....we were many! It was always so quiet in the backyard with the giant gentle pines looking down on you....so skinny and soooo tall and so quiet. My love of hammocks stems from those sticky yet somehow comfortable summer afternoons.

Water is theme that runs the gamut...Taking showers was gritty and weird- the soft water was so....interesting....Drink the water only if it was ice cold from the fridge - otherwise it tasted.....interesting....Swimming in the neighbor pools - the water was green...I found that interesting - and swimming in the gulf was always warm, and mushy and shallow, unless you went out 5 miles and as a young kid I found that interesting - if not just plain scary! But the water always called to me and thus a swimmer was born- literally with Memere encouraging me to her side.

Memories of eating shrimp and learning how to peel crabs "the right way"....the smell of white bread in the toaster - we only got white bread on vacation - smothered in jam.....trying soft shell crabs not sure if that was my favorite - it just didn't seem right.....stuffed flounder and the gumbo - which I must say I appreciate much more with mature adult palette....french bread and shrimp poor-boys...and of course the candies we would purchase from the two little corner stores by the railroad tracks.

The death of a Pope watched on the little white T.V. ...I didn't really understand the significance until the death of St. John Paul the Great...and those memories came rushing back.

The walk to the local church on Sunday mornings - wearing the nicest shorts and tank top that you managed to pack.

Lining up cousins to see how we've grown.....aunts and uncles and grandparents too - the fashions forever captured to haunt some of us!

"Trouble" the dog - perched on the rough black couch under the airconditioner...trying to jockey for position in front of that airconditioner for a quick blast in your face....but I think Trouble always had the best seat in the house.

Spinning on the kitchen chairs - faster and faster....it was something to do so we did it often.

The smells the sights and the sounds are all still there as if it were all yesterday - and yet I've been married for 13 years and have 4 children of my own ....and still I can touch those days in my mind....

Clermont Harbor will forever remain the same in my childhood memories - standing - and for that I am grateful, but for those who have been greatly affected by the power of Katrina, my prayers are with you all.

As for the memories they can never be erased.

God Bless,
Faye (LeBlanc) Wilkinson
Chester, CA

Mothers Memories

Memories are made of this.....standing at the front door, age 5, watching the wind blow and wondering if I'd ever see my dolly again....I had forgotten it on the bed in Clermont Harbor when we escaped the coming hurricane of 1947. Everyone was sad when they returned to say the house had floated off its foundations and everything inside was ruined except my dolly had floated on the mattress and was returned to me safe and sound.

I was too young to appreciate how much work went into rebuilding, but I was grateful for the many years of careless abandon....swimming, fishing, crabbing, floundering, riding our bikes anywhere in town, meeting daddy at the train in the old green Chevy or maroon Pontiac or
even the Ford station wagon...eating on the "picnic" table on the new back porch, swinging in the hammocks, helping Dad build the Gils and Gals "speed" boat that pulled the homemade "surf" board....fanning ourselves in the little, white St. Ann's church with the holy picture advertisement fans. Gee, that church left us when Camille hit in 1969; but I was busy with babies at the time and missed all of that rebuilding time as well.

Clermont Harbor....what memories....running out to daddy in the backyard hammock to look up and see Jesus in the sky...full color, no less, and I had just made my First Communion at age 8. I was impressed! That same hammock tree held the three apartment bluebird house.

And every year we took our brood of five, wild Indians (Memere's expression for one's five offspring) to play on the Gulf Coast and stay at the house in Clermont Harbor. The word "JOY" comes to mind when I recall those yearly visits to see family, play on the beach and take the kids floundering after eating hotdogs and marshmallows around Uncle Gil's huge bonfires on the sand.

And then there was Katrina.....couldn't sleep.....stayed on the couch watching CNN.....made gumbo to distract my mind....kept going to the library at school to watch more news....lost more sleep....kept watching CCN and making phone calls....the boss finally sent me home one day and said to get packed to go camping with the grandkids and get my mind off the disaster....at least my family was alive.....it was a somber camping trip.....the 55 campers prayed the prayer to Our Lady for protection for the City of New Orleans that I had received from the CCL chat line.....then I was able to reach Kurt and find out that Shirley and Eddie were safe in Tulsa....what a relief.....and Gil still had a job...no house, but a job....and Johnny thanked God for not getting the job in the New Orleans high schools....he still had a job....and Sharon's dad's house didn't flood in Waveland....what a blessing! So I started making baby blankets to replace the ones Katrina had probably stolen....I had to do something, even if it seemed a bit small and even silly.....it kept me away from the tv.

So much is gone now....but I am grateful for what has been spared....Gil and Sharon lost almost everything at their place and so did Mike and Tammy...which makes me very sad.....but Aunt Suzanne and Uncle Michael lost very little and Johnny's house on Short St. in New Orleans only lost what was in the garage. It was so hard to sell the house Memere and Pepere built, but now it is totally gone as well as Joan & Tommy's home at Treasure Isle, Slidell.

Katrina was the big one Daddy always talked about....the Lake was going to flood the city one day....at least everyone was wise enough to get out of town. And for Ralph's sister and brother-in-law who did stay....thank God they were able to get out unharmed 6 days later and had insurance to cover their losses.

Only God knows how all this will turn out....my prayer is that we will be stronger and closer and ever so grateful for the wonderful memories. With mom and dad and Carolyn watching over us from up there, I'm sure they'll be putting in the good word for all of us to be reunited in heaven one day.

Thank you, Kurt, for starting this session and for those who share their thoughts!
Mom/Joan Tosso LeBlanc

Daniel's Story

Well, as far back as I can remember (and that's quite a bit) WE have spent most of our summer vacations there. Often staying for a month at the house clermont harbor, hanging out with all my cousins an aunts and uncles. MY first memory from there is I used to play with the toys in the drawer that my older cousins had left there in the bed room, and go walk out into the ocean for a quarter mile.

And who could forget the crab netting, and afterwards the crab gustation competition... news papers on the table and a pile of crab a foot tall, waiting to be ate.

And there is nothing more fun than walking down to the beach with pointy sticks, and stabbing fish in the dark. :P

I was so excited, my fist flounder I shoved the spear all the way through it, and the wood was burried in the sand.

I'll really miss the sand that they had there. The silty dredge sand, with just enough clay to hold it together when building drip castles. YOu can see in the satalite photo, the sand is GONE. I've been all over the world, and it's rare to find sand that perfect for building drip castles. I don't think I've ever found sand that good.

I don't know if they will import new sand, or if they do, how long it will take to build it back up. Looks like the next family vacation/reunion, we're gona be sleeping in tents. (that was supposed to be joke)

Remember the gecko that lived in the house, eating roaches?

The Clermont Harbor House

A real emotional loss is the destruction of the house my grandfather, Pepere, built on the Mississippi gulf coast. Clermont Harbor is between Slidell and Bay St. Louis near Waveland. It is sadly in ruins now. I have real emotional ties to that one; it's where I spent most of my childhood vacations. It was our beach vacation house on the gulf coast for many years. All my early fishing experiences came from there. My brother Paul and I had a Polaroid picture taken and posted at the local country store of us holding a huge flounder; Pepere gigged it the night before with us boys. I have memories of my grandmother, Memere, and my mom letting me have my first guitar with the raffle money Memere had won; the little country Post Office where we'd go check for mail; the snowball stands near the beach; the night fishing and bon-fires on the beach! Wow, I’ll miss it!

Kurt LeBlanc

I'd be interested in other family members' insights and memories if you're so inclined.