Every now and then, you stumble across a story that simply must be told. This is one of those.
It’s a story about how a thriving business idea was born in the house where I grew up in Ruston from 1945 to 1968.
Unfortunately (for me), the idea was hatched by someone I never met after I married and no longer lived there.
And the craziest part is I had no idea of the origins of the business until a recent visit to Alexandria to sign copies of my new book, Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption.
It was at the book signing that a man stepped up to purchase a copy of the book and to thrust a copy of another book under my nose. “Remember this book?” he asked, smiling knowingly.
The book was a hardbound copy of a 1968 book (more accurately, a pamphlet, or magazine devoted to a single subject) entitled simply Bonnie and Clyde.
It was a copy of my very first book which, in reality, was just a reprint of articles I’d written for The Ruston Daily Leader in an effort to capitalize on the popularity of the Warren Beatty-Faye Dunaway movie of the same name. (The outlaws had been ambushed in 1934 in nearby Bienville Parish, 25 miles to the west, and the couple they kidnapped in real-life and in the movie was from Ruston, so the movie and my book carried considerable local interest.)
“Where in the world did you get this?” I asked. I hadn’t seen a copy of the book for at least 30 years and didn’t even possess a copy of my own.
“Out of a house on Fielding Drive in Ruston,” he replied.
Well, there was only one house on Fielding Drive in Ruston and that was the house where I grew up under the watchful eyes of two of the greatest grandparents a boy could ever have. They’d taken me in when I was abandoned by their ex-daughter-in-law (my mom) in Galveston, Texas, when I was 18 months old. When my grandfather passed away in 1971 (and believe me, I still miss him dearly), my grandmother moved in with my oldest uncle where she remained until she, too, passed away (and I miss her must as much) 21 years later as Bill Clinton was locking up the Democratic nomination for president.
When she moved out, we rented the house on Fielding Drive to Louisiana Tech students and one of those tenants, my new friend informed me that day in Alexandria, was one David Ervin, a forestry student who really didn’t care that much for forestry but did have a talent for marketing.
Unfortunately, neither the street nor the house is any longer there or the building might well be a shrine today for a novel business idea that had its genesis in that little three-bedroom frame house—an concept which seemed at best a mere fantasy of some starry-eyed college kid at the time:
Drive-thru daiquiris.
“David came up with the idea right there on Fielding Drive,” the man told me. I was incredulous, to say the least.
The irony of ironies was Lincoln Parish at the time was dry. Add to that the fact that my grandfather held franchise rights to the term teetotaler. The man despised alcohol almost as much as he despised organized religion and the Klan (I honestly believe the rankings of his detestation trifecta was subject to fluctuations, depending on the particular day in question).
He had a strict moral code that would not allow for compromise, no matter whom it affected. I still remember the day my dad was arrested in Monroe for DWI and called our house to have his dad (my granddad) to bail him out of jail. I had the unpleasant duty of delivering the request to my grandfather who was working in the garden. His response: an emphatic and unequivocal, “Hell, no! He made his bed, let him sleep in it!”
End of discussion. And for a full year, my dad did just that, cooling his heels in jail.
No compromise. No exceptions.
My mortal fear of the consequences probably had a lot to do with my refusal to even drink a beer in the military; I was morbidly afraid of incurring the man’s wrath from 600 miles away.
But I digress.
The story of David Ervin and his Fielding Drive conceived drive-thru daiquiri shops was chronicled in a Daily Beast story last July. To read that story, click HERE.
Louisiana Voice 
I remember Fielding Drive; I remember that house; and I have an original copy of that Bonnie & Clyde book!
Great story, pretty much sure my Dad was like your Grandfather, but was really quiet and so loving (and forgiving) especially toward all of the “religious” folks. He had his limits, we rode a “church ‘ bus and the driver Grover, was Proselytizing and mentioned his Momma may not go to heaven, because she was not a member of _____ (his church). Daddy ate many biscuits at her house. He said “Grover Stop the DAMN bus” and we got off and walked home. I was blessed with a great childhood.
love always ron thompson
Great story and a great dad who wouldn’t tolerate religious bigotry…much like my grandfather.
My grandfather used to participate in every work day at Cooktown Cemetery (across the road from Cook Baptist Church—he and my grandmother are both buried there), though he did not attend church. One day when he was working with the others (mostly members of the church), a dark cloud suddenly appeared and there was rumbling thunder. One of the women—a pillar of the church—was overheard to say to her husband, “Come on, let’s get out of here before we’re struck by lightning for being out here with Ed Aswell.”
Yet, when a car later struck and killed one of her white face yearlings, guess who she called on to butcher it for her so she could salvage a few steaks and roasts? And did this fine Christian woman so much as offer to pay my grandfather or give him any of the beef? I think you know the answer. And my grandfather showed far more restraint than I ever would or could. He never said a word about it to anyone but my grandmother.
So, just who displayed the best example of true Christianity in that little series of events?