Huey P. Tales

Here are 4 I’ve heard for years, one of which I know to be true, one of which I know to be false:

- STADIUM: Huey P wanted a new stadium for LSU football. But the Athletic Dept did not have the funds. Undeterred, Long cleverly went to the Housing Dept and asked about their budget. They said “funny you ask, because we are about to build 4 new dorms!”. Long said “Yes you are. And they are going to be in the shape of a football stadium. East, West, South, and North dorms is what they will be named.” And thus Long got his stadium for LSU football.

- BRIDGE: When it came time to build a new bridge over the river, the clever Long asked his people “How tall is the average ship bringing cargo upriver to ports north of the city?”. Long was told 120 ft ( insert whatever height here ). To which Long looked at the engineers and instructed “Make the new bridge 110 ft”. ( insert any height lower than height above ). And with that Long cleverly increased the business for the port of BR. ( all the Long tales involve him being super clever. And, yes, the engineers just happened to be in the room at the time. )

- LAKES: Long got wind that a university for blacks was going to be built and built on open land right next to LSU. Right across from Sorority row, no less. Where the pretty young white girls live. Well, ole’ Huey was having none of it, so the clever Long ordered that University Lake be dug at once. Crews went to work. The lake was dug. Southern was instead built far upriver where the view was not of pretty young white girls but an ugly chemical plant. Ha ha. ( “got wind” or “got wind of” makes the telling better than simply using “heard” or “learned” because “got wind of” sounds like an expression that would have been used by Long and his contemporaries ).

- TUNNEL ( Or, a tale about tail ): Long wanted a means of going undetected when having liaisons with his stripper, “Blaze”, at the Capitol Hotel across the street from the Capitol. But Long was not one to don a disguise or slump down in the back of a car. He was too proud for that. No, Huey would walk erect ( in more ways than one ), like a man, but unseen by the public or any prying eyes. But how? Well, the clever Long ordered a tunnel built from Capitol to Capitol Hotel. And that is how he visited his mistress undetected by anyone. The tunnel is still there today. You can see the blocked entrance to the tunnel by going down the stairs in the lobby of the Capitol Hotel.

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