Mike "Pops" Klumpp

The first excerpt from Tanglewood, a novel that is currently a work in progress, is posted on the blog here . Today I am dropping another cutting from the novel which I hope whets your pallet for further reading. Enjoy!

2 – La 10

            Baton Rouge is the capital of Louisiana. That is true if you ask google. It is also true to most who live in the state. There are, however, those who still feel that the capital of Louisiana should be the heartbeat of Louisiana and that the heartbeat belongs to New Orleans. New Orleans which was founded in 1718 was the heartbeat and in fact became the capital of the French colony of Louisiana in 1722. New Orleans remained the capital until 1829 when the title was moved to Donaldsonville, Louisiana away from the busy noisy streets of New Orleans. By 1831 the legislature must have missed the frolic and corruption because the again began to convene in New Orleans until 1845 when it was decided that the politicians needed to flee “sinful” New Orleans and bring sin and corruption to a new home in Baton Rouge by 1849. The congress, however, bounced around during the Union occupations of New Orleans and Baton Rouge meeting in such cities as Opelousas and Shreveport where there was in fact also ample corruption. After the war the state legislature again met for a time in the Crescent City (New Orleans) until the Old Sate Capital was built in 1880 in Baton Rouge under the direction of William A. Freret. Since that time, Baton Rouge has been the capital, not the heartbeat of Louisiana.

            I mention this foolishness to highlight two things; the foolishness of politics and rivalries and the confounded and confused nature of the world in Louisiana. This matters because the substance of my journey and the report of my findings is if nothing else ironically well housed in Louisiana.

Tanglewood was built in the fashion of a sprawling plantation in 1840 on land that farmed rice and cotton in the rich delta soil of Louisiana outside Jackson, Louisiana in East Feliciana Parish. In the 1920’s as cotton declined as a commodity giving way to the new synthetic fabrics, farming suffered. In the great crash Tanglewood itself was falling down. Early 1930’s the family sold the farm to a group promoting mental health treatment options for families needed to seek support for family members and could afford private treatment rather than state institutional care. The main house at Tanglewood became a receiving area. Patients and staff alike were housed in the facility. If someone needed care or a family needed relief from a suffering family member, delusional thinking, substance abuse, depression, anxiety and general dysfunction whatever the malady, Tanglewood was an option. Far enough away for wealthy New Orleans families and yet accessible. A polite option.

Over the years, the community and the facility grew. Aspects of treatment changed and developed with the times. And yet, to step into the facility in 1990 was to travel back in time to 1940 post war. The furnishings, the campus, the reception area, the office and family rooms were just the same as they had been only fresh paint and fresh faces. White and crisp. Not unpleasant to see. Unless, of course, you were being delivered there against your will.

To travel to Tanglewood from New Orleans, one would drive, in the modern era, I-10 to Baton Rouge and join Highway 61 north of Baton Rouge. Earlier, highway 61 known as Airline Highway was the thoroughfare from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. I had had opportunity to travel both routes. In the 1960’s as a boy, I had travelled from New Orleans to Jackson, Louisiana to the state facility to visit an elderly ill family member who was housed there. Highway 61 went from New Orleans through Baton Rouge and on north. At Louisiana Hwy 68, we would veer off and continue north to Jackson turning left at Hwy 10 traveling through Jackson and on west until the long shell drive that led to Tanglewood.

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