Columns

Charles Amos, 53, said when he was convicted of second-degree murder and given a life sentence in 1995, he didn’t think he would amount to much, but he wanted to change. He began educating himself by reading.

Sweet, sweet summer-time is here! And with it comes one of my favorite things of the year: real food. This is the season when gardens are over-flowing, roadside stands pop up along the highway, and neighbors start showing up with sacks of tomatoes and more squash than they know what to do with.

I do not believe that I have ever been as disappointed over candidates for a public office as I have for the two GOP candidates in the U.S. Senate race.

As I write, my three-yearold son is sequestered in his room having a roaring fit. He’ll come down from it soon and the screams will turn into those cries that come when you can’t quit but have nothing left – the heaving chest, his red-eyed, tear-streaked face shaking from the toll of the tantrum.

Fresh, homegrown tomatoes are as much a symbol of summertime as pool days, ice cream and backyard barbecues. If you don’t have a lot of space for gardening, you may have resigned yourself to missing out on the refreshing flavor of a ripe, just-picked tomato you grew yourself.

500,000 a year. 44,000 a month. 10,000 a week. 1,400 a day. 60 every hour. 1 every minute. That’s how many and often men kill themselves. Recently someone in our community took his own life. It broke my heart to think that he felt like taking his life was the answer. And it broke my heart knowing that he won’t be the last.

This weekend, I had company. My aunt Marilyn (if you remember her, you would remember her as Marilyn Hart) was visiting from Dallas. She takes care of her husband, who is an invalid, and, while she lives in Texas, I promise you her heart is still in East Carroll Parish.

Louisiana lawmakers adjourned their annual lawmaking session Monday after dramatically altering Louisiana’s congressional election map and amid a frantic funding search for teacher pay stipends. The three-month session started with little excitement as Gov.

Louisiana lawmakers have approved a bill that significantly reduces the training requirements for licensed plumbers and dissolves the autonomy of the state plumbing board, making it a subcommittee under the state contractors’ board.

It has happened to most of us. You bend over to pick up a sock, reach awkwardly into the back seat of the car, or simply turn over in the bed, and BAM! Your back is out. You freeze for a second, afraid to move because even breathing suddenly feels risky. By the time you can straighten back up, you are walking crooked through the house wondering how something so small caused so much pain.