Moments after marrying for the third time, former Gov. Edwin Edwards did on Friday what comes so naturally: He stepped before the cameras.Of his bride's dress:
With his 32-year-old bride, the former Trina Grimes Scott, close by his side in the Hotel Monteleone lobby, Edwards, who'll turn 84 on Aug. 7, tossed off quips, joshed with reporters and glad-handed hotel guests who seemed happily surprised to find themselves in the middle of the tangle of reporters, cameras and microphones.
The couple had just been united in marriage, in a 14th-floor suite, by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Catherine "Kitty" Kimball.
Her strapless, knee-length white dress was "Italian silk, with a Cajun twist," Edwards said.The romance began while Edwards was in prison, with letters first and eventually with visits by Scott to Edwards in prison and finally a proposal of marriage.
I kissed Edwards once, you know, and it was all my fault. The filters in my brain completely malfunctioned. I've already told the tale here at Wounded Bird twice, but I'll quote myself to give you the story again.
Although Edwards was a crook and a notorious womanizer, there was something about him that I found endearing. (God help me!) Perhaps, it was because he was seldom hypocritical - a welcome relief in a politician.Edwards was twice tried and acquitted, but the law eventually caught up with him for his shenanigans on the third try when Edwards was 73 years. A good many of us thought the 10 year sentence was a bit harsh, but Edwards paid his debt to society and lived to tell the tale and make a new life for himself.
He'd campaign in black churches and tell the congregation, "I don't drink, I don't smoke. Two out of three is not bad."
In fact, on one occasion when he arrived at a gathering at the university where my husband worked, there seemed to be no officials there to greet him. I was standing there with a group who may have resembled a receiving line, and he came right up to me.
That was one occasion when words came out of my mouth seemingly without passing through my brain, because I said to him, "Does a kiss from the governor come with the greeting?" Of course, he promptly kissed me on the cheek. Grandpère was standing next to me wide-eyed and astonished.
After Edwards moved on he said to me, "What did you think you were doing?" So. There you are. I'm in the company of an enormous number of women who have kissed Edwin Edwards.
October 8, 2007 12:19 PM
The ex-governor had charm, charisma, choose your word, but he was a rogue and a rascal who hustled the citizens of the State of Louisiana. Still, he never left Louisiana as damaged as the present governor, Bobby Jindal, will leave the state after 4 and probably 8 years of slash and burn governance. I'd swap Edwards for Jindal in a heartbeat.
