On a recent work-related trip into the August swamps and green, late summer rivers near the Gulf Coast, I had the opportunity to understand the full implications of air conditioning in the South. Outside, it was so boiling that you weren’t sure whether to sweat or cry. Inside, however, behind panes coated with water beads [...]
They have no course like this at the Ad Center or Portfolio Center. They don’t teach copywriters or art directors such things. Basic training at Fort Polk is probably the best place to learn this side of the biz. No luxuries or lattes out here where people may curse and pray all in the [...]
In Alexandria, Louisiana, out in the country off Highway 28, past Paul’s Paint where a cobbled-together, silver rocket car has been cockeyed constructed on the roof like a cross between the “Batmobile” and a DeLorean, on down a dead-end road in a turtle slew of Lake Kinkaid, there is a low slung, wooden, multi-leveled, funkily-weathered [...]
There would be no roads in southern Louisiana without bridges. We left New Orleans, crossing Lake Pontchartrain. It is still raining as we drive the 24-mile-long bridge across this lake that is so big we can’t see the shore when we’re in the middle. We stop and eat Italian on the other side as the [...]
“It was pitch dark and we huddled in the middle of the house listening to the trees fall. Suddenly the toilet made a strange gurgling sound and within just a few minutes, we had five feet of water in our house. Everything we’d stored to eat was floating, ruined. We ate nothing but crackers for [...]
We stand beside the road looking at the flat tire as cars and 18-wheelers fly by so fast the wind shoves us away from the road. We see the man in the Volvo 100 yards back hit the same piece of wood, blowing out two of his tires. He gets out and walks around his [...]
Headed south toward New Orleans. We have driven for days mostly below the ankle of Louisiana’s boot. Almost every road is a long bridge through hundreds of miles of flat land rowed with undulating waves of sugar cane. Massive plumes of clouds cushion the sunburned blue sky above palms and sawgrass hiding at the edge [...]
If they are honest, anyone who has ever read a James Lee Burke novel wishes they could write that wonderfully. He can describe a place and make you taste the air there. So when I found myself in New Iberia, Louisiana, I had to find a way to get to Books Along The Teche, downtown. [...]
Blogging On The Bayou
The following is a series of blogs from a recent trip to southern Louisiana.
Southern Louisiana. We’ve just finished a lunch that would knock Emeril off the air for a week. Eddies BBQ, at a Texaco. The best barbeque I have had in a long time. In the South, it’s not exactly news [...]
Blogging On The Bayou
The following is a series of blogs from a recent trip to southern Louisiana.
She gets on the small plane headed for Alexandria, Louisiana. As I deposit my carry-on in the overhead, I notice her in the seat next to mine, straight posture, fresh face, camo uniform. She is a soldier coming home [...]