Red Roberts: A life of laughter, faith, The Brake

For the vast majority of his life, Red Roberts has breathed the fresh air, hunted and fished the abundant wildlife, loved his family, and lived on Turkey Creek, a.k.a. the “Brake.” He has never lived in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, Detroit, or any other major city, and that is perfectly fine with him.

Red and his brothers and sister were raised poor, like many of the other Brake families. They were close then and still share a close bond today. His loving mother, Daisy Laverne Crooks, had her hands full raising Red, but she had help from his father, Jesse James Roberts.

“I was half Crooks and half Roberts,” Red said. “I was raised on this creek. Momma just about had to threaten us to put shoes on. We were just country kids, and we just had a ball. We were poor.”

While telling of his upbringing, Red inserts one of his classic jokes.

“Our bathroom caught on fire, but we put it out before it got to the house,” Red said.

Even though they were poor, the Roberts family thrived. They did not have a lot of money, but they had each other, and they had plenty of food, according to Red, who cannot help but tell another joke.

“Momma raised us on fast foods,” Red said. “Ducks, rabbits, deer, squirrel.”

Besides the “fast foods,” the Roberts also had a milk cow where they received milk and butter. They had chickens, turkeys, pigeons, and caught bullfrogs and fish.

The interview was momentarily halted when the rural route mail carrier drove into his yard.

“Hey baby!” Red yelled, raising his hand. There is a reason everyone knows Red. She greeted him back through her open car window, and Red continued with the interview. He is a natural.

“We were just run-of-the-mill country folks, I reckon,” Red said. “If anybody needed any help, we would help them and vice versa. I had a happy childhood. My momma raised me in church. Best thing that ever happened to me. I couldn’t have had a better momma or daddy. I was blessed.”

His father was a World War II veteran, a fact that Red is very proud of. He is a patriotic person and quick to point out his love of the United States. He still has fond memories of his father.

“If we had passing grades, Daddy would get us a straw hat and a fishing pole, and we would fish with Mr. George Bass,” Red said. Bass was Red’s bus driver while he went to school.

The Roberts family associated with the Brake has numerous members. Some are more infamous than others, a fact that Red laughingly acknowledges.

“They always said we were kind of clannish,” Red said. “If you jumped on one of us, you had to whip all of us. You could depend on that. You never were by yourself.”

When asked about his days at Wisner High School, the perpetual smile across his face grew bigger. He described his classmates as “family.” He also told a story about his favorite teacher, Sally Frye.

Red, who was in seventh grade, put a snake in her desk. When she pulled open the drawer containing the snake, she called Red out in front of the entire classroom.

“She did not ask, ‘Who put this snake in here?’” Red said.

She told him, “Come get this snake out of my desk. If I hadn’t raised one just like you, I would beat you half to death!”

“That won me over,” Red continued. “She was the first teacher that I made the honor roll for. She had a way of teaching that made you want to do good.”

Frye connected with Red and his pranks. He said of his favorite teacher, “She would go out of her way to make sure you felt special.”

“When you are young and dumb, you don’t think about tormenting folks who are trying to help you,” Red said.

When he was a kid, he killed so many snakes on the Brake that he would pile the reptiles along its banks.

“I was barefooted as a goose, and never been snake bit,” Red said.

Growing up on the Brake, Red has always been an avid hunter, although he might not have followed all of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries rules in his younger years.

“The only season we knew was salt and pepper,” Red said. “We would rabbit hunt at night, and I had some friends who had a Volkswagen bus. They would put me and Tinker (Roberts) on top of the bus. He had a shotgun, and I had the rifle. If the rabbit was running, Tinker would shoot him. If the rabbit was stopped, I would kill him. Mr. Claude Frye caught us. He said, ‘What are you boys doing?’ We are rabbit hunting, Mr. Claude. ‘Boy, I know you are rabbit hunting, but it is night. Get down from that Volkswagen bus before you fall off and get run over.’”

Red still hunts (legally) when he can. As a matter of fact, he is one of the few people, at least that he knows of, who still gigs gar. Gar gigging is a method of hunting gar using a sturdy, multi-prong spear. Often done at night, it involves locating gar, which frequently roll on the surface for air, and using a sharp spear to pierce their thick, bony scales.

He received his gar gig from his uncle. It has a double latch with a head that opens upon impact. When a gar is chasing shad, Red will gig it. When the gar is struck, a rope attached to a paddle and the gig acts like a cork.

“I get close enough to where I can see his head and shoot him with a .22,” Red explained.

He remembers as a young child running and hunting on the very land where we now sat and enjoyed the cool afternoon. He asked his father if he could have the land. According to Red, his father answered, “If you live long enough, I’ll save you this house place.”

A gal from California

When Red was a teenager, his church, Kings Pentecostal Church, received a new pastor, Rev. Parker and his wife, Sis. Parker, from California. With the ministry couple came a young Denise. Soon, Red and Denise were dating. The couple stayed at Kings Pentecostal Church for seven years.

“He stayed too long, and I married his gal,” Red said, laughing.

“I more or less raised her,” Red added, still laughing. “I think I did a good job too. She never stops. She stays wide open all the time.”

“His wife asked him if I was hard of hearing? I said no, I was tired of hearing.” Red’s jokes keep coming when talking about the love of his life, a sign of his endearment.

Red and Denise, who will celebrate 55 years of marriage on May 10, have gone to California several times to visit her family. What did the family think of the young man from the Brake?

“Her family treated me like family,” Red said.

The young couple moved away from the Brake in 1971 to Ferriday so Red could work as a Winn-Dixie butcher. After just a year, the couple decided to move back to the Brake at the homesite where they now live. And they never left.

Soon, ironworking came calling, promising Red more money. He worked at Port Gibson at Grand Gulf Power Plant for 10 years. He also worked at various locations and plants until he got a call one night.

“Neasie called me one night crying,” Red remembered. “She said, ‘I am ready for you to come home.’ I said, ‘Well, leave the light on for me.’”

Red told his foreman he was going home and never looked back.

“I took an oath to keep that gal,” Red told his foreman. “I didn’t take an oath to keep this job.”

He started working at McLemore’s in Winnsboro for half the money he was making ironworking, but “I was home every night, and I was at church every time the door was open.”

He worked for McLemore’s for eight years until Walmart was built across the road. The new super center hired him to be a butcher.

“I said that ain’t far across that road,” Red said. “I saw an armadillo do it. I figured I could do it too.”

He stayed at Walmart, cutting and stocking meat while entertaining fellow workers and shoppers for 30 years.

“All those folks treated me like family at Walmart,” Red said.

His current life

Red no longer cuts meat or ironworks. Those days are long gone. Now, he enjoys spending time with his wife, keeping up with her as she works in the yard, and sitting with her in the swing in the evening while watching the beautiful Brake sunsets.

“There are no two sunsets the same,” Red said.

Red is also a musician who plays the banjo in a small group of family members. They play at nursing homes and churches.

“We went out to the nursing home, and I leaned my banjo up against that counter,” Red said. “I asked that lady, ‘Do you know who I am?’ She said, ‘If you go to that next counter, that lady will tell you who you are.’”

At that point in the interview, I stopped Red and asked him why all the jokes. He sensibly answered, “I ain’t never seen nobody look as good crying as they do laughing.”

Red is 77 now. He is not as fast physically as he once was, and he has a few health issues. But through it all, his faith remains strong, and his appreciation for the prayers of others is evident.

“I don’t think people get no better than these folks in Franklin Parish,” Red said. “I’ve worked all over the country ironworking and lived out of a suitcase. I’ve met a lot of good people and made a lot of friends, but I really didn’t realize how good these folks were in Franklin Parish until I had my heart surgery.”

“I have been happy on this hill all my life,” Red continued. “I love people, and I thank everybody that has ever said a prayer. You don’t realize how precious prayer is until you get down and get so weak that you hardly know the world you are in.”

One more piece of advice from Red. And this time, it is not a joke.

“If you get your spiritual life right, everything will come out even,” Red said. “Church has been my mainstay.”