Our unpaid British correspondent, Martin Hugh-Jones, of Baton Rouge, says our climate (and the way it's dealt with) differs from that of his home isle.
He imagines this conversation:
"'How and when do you know someone lives in southern Louisiana?'
"'Good question. How?'
"'They wear a sweater in summer.'
"'Oh.'
"'The air conditioning is arctic.'"
Rat wrangler
"When I read on Friday about the rats at LSUNO, I almost fell out of my chair!," says David Muller, of Folsom.
(The story was about white rats that escaped from a lab and terrorized parents and children in a clinic waiting room.)
"I grabbed the phone and called my wife, visiting in New Orleans. I told her she was written up in the morning paper — however, not by name, just by what happened. We both had a good laugh!
"She was Susan Wiegan, and she 'ran' the rats and fed them daily. She was a psychology major working her way through LSUNO.
"The weekend after her graduation we were married, on June 7, 1969; 55 years ago."
C'est truc
May Waggoner says, "I can't believe that with all the talk about 'thingamajigs' and 'doolollies,' no one has lauded the French ability to use le mot juste, just the right word to describe something.
"The word? Truc (thingamajig).
"If you want to get more complicated, say 'Truc machin' (thingamajig whatchamacallit).
"Très simple, n'est-ce pas?"
No outhouse!
Missy Molett Guillot, of Lafayette, says widespread mishearing of Creedence Clearwater Revival's lyrics, "bad moon on the rise" as "bathroom on the right" led to a float by her 1971 Lafayette High School class that was almost in the homecoming parade:
"The parade theme was 'Age of Aquarius.' Our float was titled 'The moon is in the seventh house and the Tigers (our opponents in the homecoming game) are on the run.' We built an outhouse with the traditional moon, and a tiger.
"The faculty did not appreciate our humor. The float was not allowed in the parade."
Special People Dept.
- Ruth Brown, of Baton Rouge, celebrates her 101st birthday Monday, May 27. She loves cards, dominos and "a good gin and tonic." The Louisiana OMV just renewed her driver's license; she’s good until she turns 107.
- Ann Gubancsik, of Baton Rouge, celebrates her 99th birthday Monday, May 27. She worked at the Log Cabin Restaurant in Baton Rouge.
- Frank and Carol Frederic, of St. Amant, celebrated their 67th anniversary Saturday, May 25, at the Gonzales Jambalaya Festival.
- Barry and Marie Allen, of Baton Rouge, celebrated their 56th anniversary Saturday, May 25.
Roughing it
Referring to our seminar on outhouses, "Marvelous Marvin" tells of folks without that convenience.
"I can relate to people who grew up without indoor plumbing; my childhood home also was without this luxury.
"I felt better after visiting my brother in-law's family in the Ozarks. They didn’t have indoor plumbing or an outhouse!
"I asked a boy my age about this. He pointed to some trees some distance away.
"'The one on the left is the boys' tree,' he informed me."
Clean but dull
John Kalinosky likes this limerick by humorist Edgar Guest:
"The limerick fits words anatomical
into lines which are quite economical.
But the good ones I've seen
are so seldom clean
and the clean ones so seldom comical."