Not that Governor John Bel Edwards doesn’t already have enough to worry about, but each year around this time as the weather teases us with a slight chill a person, even a Governor, can be forgiven if his thoughts…
Not to be bragging or anything but I once met one of the Jazz Fest’s all-time biggest celebrities. I think it was at a cocktail party, I’m not sure where or why, when I fell into a conversation with…
Twenty years ago this past weekend, Louisiana was a part of the story as a staggering nation looked for stability. What happened at Barksdale Air Force base across the Red River from Shreveport would also provide the setting for…
I thought I saw a ghost of New Orleans, a sad apparition of a glorious city that once was. I will always remember the moment during the evening of August 29 as the city lights flickered then went out.…
On my desk is a baseball - now browned and tattered, bruised in places, its innards exposed in spots. It was found in a box on the bottom rung of a shelving unit, pushed to the back of the…
On Jan. 28, 1986, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States, approached the White House podium that is used for televised addresses. The nation that he was about to speak to was in shock that day. Many Americans craved…
As the 1980 Mardi Gras season neared, there was anxiety among Carnival watchers. A year earlier, in 1979, all parades had been cancelled in Orleans Parish during a tense Carnival season. The local police had gone on strike wanting…
There is a lot to see from looking upward in Las Vegas. There is the Big Apple roller coaster which races along the top of New York, New York casino; the High-Roller, a Ferris wheel is so big and…
One evening this past April, I attended a wine tasting that was held in a converted warehouse that wine expert James Moises has made into the location of his distribution business. The idea was to also use a section…
Have you noticed? There is a fleet of new RTA buses around town. Look at their upper right side corner - there in full glory, written in bold script is a phrase which has been flummoxing me for years:…
It just so happened that during the week that began with Edwin Edwards’ funeral a deal was finalized, nearby at the capitol in Baton Rouge, for the Superdome to be named after Caesars Entertainment. Edwards had been a supporter…
Accused of having taken an illegal campaign contribution, Edwin Edwards, who knew the law better than most judges, once offered a novel defense. For someone to have made the contribution was illegal he explained, however it was not illegal…
Last week the President of Haiti, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated creating more instability for an island already know for disorder. Even the legitimacy of his presidency was questioned, yet another sign of a country teetering. There is seldom good…
We know the day was the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. It was during the time when Morten Andersen was the Hall of Fame kicker for the New Orleans Saints. On this morning, one of New Orleans’ finest…
John Moore, known to the world as “Deacon John,” was acknowledging a picture taken at an event he had attended recently. Pictured with him was Archbishop Gregory Aymond. Moore broke into his characteristic loud laugh, which punctuates nearly every…
A levee’s riverside is called a batture. For a few hearty souls it is also called “home.” Author Macon Fry lives in a camp on a batture at the edge of Orleans Parish. He has been chronicling stories of people…
Once while performing at the city’s Municipal Auditorium country singer Hank Williams got married. That was on a Saturday. The crowd loved it so much that he got married again, to the same woman, during the Sunday matinee. There…
Louisiana has always had some dry parishes where booze was limited by local law, but the state and especially New Orleans did not take too well to the period from 1920 through 1933, when alcohol sales was curtailed nationwide. Prohibition…
Last Sunday afternoon (June 6) around 6:15 I was driving toward the river on Canal Street waiting for a light to change on the block between South Rampart St. and University Place (Now called “Roosevelt Way”). All was quiet,…
What does it mean when the top 10 movies set in Louisiana are discussed, two of them have the word “Easy” in the title? After much discussion, we have concluded that it is probably only a coincidence because the competition…
Some kids were playing on Omaha Beach, building sandcastles. Nearby an adult couple walked along the sand at shore’s edge, presumably looking for shells, the nautical kind rather than those fired from cannons. The shards of war have long…
For many, the image of Jewish settlements in the United States have been mostly on the East Coast and in major cities. However, there has long been a Jewish population spread across the South and in rural areas. Dating back…
Not to be bragging or anything, but I once happened to meet and talk to the Queen of the Creole Tomato Festival. The festival is held annually in the Dutch Alley section of the French Market. Given the demands…
Bre'r Rabbit was a trickster who loved to defy authority and who pulled his stunts throughout the South. He is known for finding seclusion in briar parches but in Louisiana, his spiritual home was Laura Plantation where former slaves told…
Sometimes neighboring political bodies join together to forge historic agreements. Few are as anticipated by those who remember the old days along the lake as the efforts by Jefferson Parish’s and New Orleans’ councils to redevelop West End. The…
Don’t you just hate it when you’re walking in the yard of an old farmhouse and there is a ghost staring out the window? How about that strange noise some folks claim they have heard coming from the barn? And…
According to the legend, “the night was clear, and the moon was yellow, and the leaves came tumbling down.” At this point Lloyd Price, a native of Kenner who was one of the top rhythm and blues performers of…
Louisiana was one of the pioneering states at offering free healthcare to its citizens. And there were several state-run Charity hospitals, with the New Orleans facility being one of the largest in the nation. James Ciaravella, a retired surgeon turned…
Several years ago, when e-mail was young, I got a message from a freelance writer in New York state who was pitching a story idea. A couple of times during our exchanges she used the word “scrum.” Born and…
Louisiana, we know, is the creation of many ethnic groups but one that doesn’t always get the credit it is due is the Sicilians. The port of New Orleans was the largest arrival point of migrants from the island off…
