Even before I knew what it meant, I can remember celebrating Mardi Gras. It was a special day for us South Louisiana Cajuns.

Most communities had their own way of celebrate Fat Tuesday, the day before the start of the Lenten season. Large communities like New Orleans and Lafayette held a carnival with hundreds of costumed children, clowns, ballerinas, large parades and lots of fanfare. Few of us rural people ever attended those festivals. For the country folks, the day began in the early morning with masked horseback riders going through the countryside collecting chickens for gumbo to be enjoyed later in the day. At the gathering, the country gentlemen always came with their finest horses and often left with a horse's tail cut off. These same boys were responsible for putting red pepper on the dance floor. Drove all the "partiers" noses crazy. The boys would hide and roll with laughter. As usual, the adults were well juiced in the spirits and having a great time.

I rec...

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Doing it his way made him a legend

It seems ironic that the day after I wrote in this column about Ned Theall’s death I would get a call from Jivin’ Gene informing me Bobby Charles had just died. I had mentioned, in the Theall column, that Bobby was the only one from the original group of talented youngsters that I had grown up with who was still living in Abbeville. In fact, after the World War years things started to change in our Cajun community in many ways. A group of youngsters, boys and girls alike, came along that displayed a lot of talent in many forms, not just musically but in other fields as well.

Many went off, did well and never returned.

There is so much I could write about Bobby Charles that I don’t know where to start, plus the space of a column can’t cover it all.

By going back to the beginning and hitting some high spots along the colorful road in Bobby’s life I might give the reader a glimpse into the talented life ...

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The death of Ned Theall, 72, caught me by surprise. He had lived the nightlife of a musician for years and in time that takes it’s toll. Ned however, never smoked, drank, used drugs or abused food. I have been aware for many years of heart problems in his family history. My half-sisters, first cousins of Ned, fight the same problem that killed their father and Ned’s father – who were brothers, at an early age.

Ned’s brother Skip and I were the same age, Ned three years younger but always just a couple of grades behind us in school. He had a younger brother, Gary who is an attorney in Abbeville and a sister, June. His mother was head of the draft board in Abbeville.

After serving in the Air Force, Ned became a college music professor but his call was always to play and write music. Several years ago, after playing with the Fabulous Boogie Kings since the 1950s, Ned bought and managed the popular group. Over the last few years we had visited about his hanging up his horn, ...

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“It’s really not amazing that we’ve been married 55 years, what’s amazing is how quickly the years have flown by.”

It was Friday, the last day of the year of 1954. The date didn’t hold any particular significants. The year had seen the New York Giants win the World Series over Cleveland in just four games. In fact, that game was the first color television broadcast. “Determine” won the Kentucky Derby. President Dwight David Eisenhower had been elected in 1953. Allen Shivers had succeeded Texas Gov. Beauford Jester, who died in 1949. Shivers, who worked with my father and my mother-in-law in Port Arthur was elected in 1950, ‘52 and ‘54.
A postage stamp cost three-cents, gasoline was 21 cents a gallon, a brand new Ford cost between $1,500 and $2,400. The average yearly income was $3,960 and that was a good job. The most any of my friends were earning was $50 to $60 a week to raise their families on. Unemployment was at 2.9 percent. A new, top-of-the-li...

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From childhood Christmas to present, quite a ride

 The joy of Christmas for me has taken drastic turns as I’ve traveled down this life’s highway. Raised a very poor youngster in south Louisiana, I had very little to look forward to on Christmas morning. We lived in a small, one-room shack, raised by a single mom. A lot of people were poor but real poverty, hanging at our door Christmas morning, brought very little. A fruit, a piece of rock candy or maybe a three-inch piece of a big peppermint stick.

The highlight of my Christmas, which I’ve written about before, was midnight Mass at St. Mary Magdalene Church that sits on a knoll, on the banks of the Vermillion River, in downtown Abbeville. The beautiful mass was said in Latin, the Gospel spoken in both French and English. The large choir sang beautiful hymns. The service was that of the old Catholic faith. My grandmother and I would brave the weather to walk the two miles down the dirt roads to...

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He was a benefactor to a grateful community. Respected by many, he never lost sight of his roots.

Paul Cormier, 90, was the last of a breed of independent oilmen who laid their money down, drilled a hole and bet they would hit black gold. Sometimes they didn’t, other times they hit pay dirt. It was all a gamble for the men with the nerves of steel. Mr. Paul, affectionally called “The Boss” by many of us, didn’t come from old money, he came from no money.

Three years after being born in Ged, La., Paul’s family loaded up the house on skids and in four days the mules drug it to the Orange oilfield. The oil boom was on and workers came from around the country. Many slept in tents, others commuted from Orange. The Cormier’s had brought their lodgings with them.

The rest begins a poor boy’s true American success story. Right after completing fifth grade, the only formal education he would have, Paul at 12, in the heart of the Great Depression, left ...

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I’ve known very few people more colorful than Ed Lovelace. When he arrived in Orange from Port Arthur and bought the local radio station the city was loaded with colorful people. It was a time when businesses were independently and locally owned. Ed blended in perfectly with the likes of Oldsmobile dealer Claude Brookshire, Neal Miller and Jimmy Conn, furniture store owners, Lutcher Stark, Judge Sid Caillavet, Sheriff Chester Holts, Joe Blanda, local barber; Frank Zeto and Clay Dunn, whiskey merchants, Mayor Joe Runnels, realtors Tony Dal Sasso and Sid “No More Land” Johnson, Ted Belile and Tony Griffin, rag merchants; Gus Harris, rancher-merchant; Bill Stringer, Gulf dealer, Bill Sexton, James Neff, John O. Young, attorneys; Raymond Sanders, police chief; Lannie Claybar, undertaker, Henry Stanfield, policeman-firefighter; Crip Trahan, Charlie Wickersham, car dealer; Hubert Spradling, boat dealing; Duponter, Ovie, Jackie, Corky and Don Harmon, car traders; Elmer Newman, banker; Edga...

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“The sun is going to shine in our lives once more”
It was approaching high noon, Sept. 12, 2008. Our little community was eerily quite, most residents had evacuated fearing an oncoming hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico that was pushing a lot of water.
Son Mark and I had decided we would stay and await Hurricane Ike. We would hold up at two different locations. He and Sharon would weather the storm at their home, us across town from our place, in a two-story, brick house.

Before leaving our office, we discussed taking our computers and equipment. I argued against it, citing the difficulty of resetting and rewiring the network. “ In a couple of days the storm would be gone and we would already be set up to put out our next Penny Record and County Record newspapers.” I argued that otherwise we may lose a week, besides I added, the computers are on 32-inch high desks, if the water gets that high all of Bridge City would be under water and no reason to publ...

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Cal’s loyalty and generous heart made him special. He’ll be missed

 I’ve dreaded this day even though, over the last few weeks, I knew it was coming sooner than later. My buddy Cal Broussard, an ex-Marine fighter and former boxer, was not one to throw in the towel until the fight was done. Over the last year, Cal had been in a battle for his life. Fourteen surgeries, seven months without swallowing food or drink, he had insisted he would beat it and one Wednesday show up to dine with his friends at a Lunch Bunch gathering.

After all those months in the hospital he did come out temporally, at first walking on a walker, then a cane and finally on his own. He was his old self again and for a couple of months enjoyed the weekly gatherings with the gang. In fact, he mentioned that when he did go, he wanted the Lunch Bunch to serve as his honorary pallbearers.

After a doctor suggested he should have chemo and radiation just for prevention, Cal ...

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Everyday it seems I discover something that meant a lot to me that Ike and its surge took away. I’d been a longtime collector, although most of my stuff wasn’t serious, expensive collecting. A great deal of the things I treasured had to do with the people whose paths crossed mine. Gone are all the Elvis stuff and other artists who I had known. Just yesterday I thought maybe my “Gone With the Wind” movie and “Lonesome Dove” series might have been spared or the hundreds of albums, many signed, and a load of great books but they are all gone. Boxes of newspapers recording historical events from World War II, JFK, the landing on the moon and the controversial election of president George W. Bush over Al Gore are all gone.

Our son Mark was able to dry out and save a few items. Interviews with some of the famous, some of the not to famous, valuable because they recorded a time long ago.

Those folks are gone, never to be recorded again. Don Jacobs had written and recorded a son...

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