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"I met an old black man who knew
       your great-grand-father."

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This story was told to me one evening many years ago by Robley F. Poché. 
Robley said that he knew my great grandfather S.A. Poché through an old black
man that he met in Donaldsonville. The old man told Robley that he had worked
for my great grandfather as a teenager.  It seems that before and after the Civil
War S.A. Poché had been a "Mechanic" to several sugar plantations near his
home. Today we would probably call these people part engineer and part inventor. 
S.A. Poche had a little lean-to shop and forge attached to the side of his house
where he built "things".   The black man asked Robley to feel the side of his
head.  There was a large indentation in the side of the man's skull.  The old
man told Robley that my great grand father had given him the skull fracture. 
It seems that as a teenager the black man used to help S.A. Poche.  One day,
they were working at the forge and the old man was hammering out a hot
piece of metal from the forge with a clinging rhythm and the teenager was
holding the piece in a set of tongs for the old man to hit.  The black man said
that as he was holding the piece when  he looked up happened to look out into
the street to see a young lady who he was familiar with walk by in front of the
shop.  As he gazed at the woman, he accidentally pulled the piece from the top
of the anvil and the rhymthic clank from S.A. Poché's hammer when "clang"...
"clang"... "clang"..."thud".   The old black man told Robley that the old man
never missed a beat and that he got hit in the head for not paying attention to
his work.

- David Poché         

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