Columns

Louisiana lawmakers adjourned the 2025 regular lawmaking session last Thursday having passed a budget with hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure spending; bills aimed at lowering insurance races; and a massive rewrite of state ethics laws.

There’s a popular belief that you can measure whether someone is a “good person” or not by if they put their grocery buggy in the return area, or just leave it next to where they parked their car. Because I know this, I always put the cart back. But does that defeat the act, since I’m doing it to be seen as a good person? Or would I always have put the cart back, even if I didn’t know the saying? What about the young man trying to make a few dollars working at the grocery store? Am I taking his job away by pushing my cart back? If we all left our buggies where we parked, there’d be more work for the cart-guy.

School is out, and summer is near. Here’s something else to celebrate: Blueberries — those refreshing, deeply hued orbs of sweetness — are now ripening on bushes across Louisiana.

DEAR EDITORS: I recently sent the following letter to U.S. Rep.

I have an unusual but important topic on my mind this week...your liver! Your liver is just hanging out under your ribs on the right side of your belly, quietly working non-stop to filter out the toxins from everything you eat, drink, and even breathe. It is always on duty, taking what we put into our body and whipping it into essential proteins, storing energy for when you need it later, and making good cholesterol to keep your heart healthy. It really is the body’s power filter!

When it comes to artificial intelligence and technology are you pro or con? Or have you even thought about it? If you’re over 60, I’m sure you’ve told your loved ones a story of your childhood. How you played outside from dawn to dusk with siblings and neighborhood kids. How your best “toys” were only limited by your imagination. Unlike today, where kids are face planted in iphones, ipads, video games, virtual reality devices and numerous other contraptions that seem to multiply yearly.

What's gonna happen in Lake Providence every twoto- three months? First, the power will go out at the drop of a hat. Second, the water is going to be off a great many times throughout the year. These two issues have always been a part of our town's biology and culture. In fact, it is accepted as, 'business as usual'. However, both are quite unacceptable and absolutely ridiculous.

“Take your hand. Put it on the end of your nose. That’s where your business stops.” A quote told to countless nosey children with too many questions. Not really an accurate statement though, because our business extends far beyond the bridge of our nose. Just ask my mom, who’s been elbows deep in my grandfather’s business for over a year now. “Business” is too vague of a word. I believe “responsibility” would better serve in this instance.

I think so much about the word community. How I longed for it in my years away from here because I have never witnessed or experienced a community as all-encompassing as this one. How free I often felt without it. How deeply I treasure being back in it now and how mad, in the insane sense, loving it can make me.

As a child, we moved around a lot. (A long story). I think I was nine or ten when we moved into an old two story pre-civil war house in Tallulah. I had eight siblings, and there were still six of us at home, one of whom was older than me, and four younger. The house was huge; it was drafty; it was spooky, and we loved it. For the first time, we had plenty of room. It was two stories with a winding staircase, a banister made for sliding, and a wraparound porch with a swing set. There were fireplaces in every room, but I can’t remember if we ever lit any of them. Space heaters provided the only heat. The first floor had the living room, two absolutely huge bedrooms, the kitchen, and a butler’s closet. And one bathroom for the eight of us. A drafty, huge bathroom with a clawfoot tub that was so large you had to enter it almost head first. I still don’t like clawfoot tubs. The second floor had three huge bedrooms, although the younger kids were too scared to sleep in them. And it had an attic. The attic had a fire escape. It was a dark, musty room that we never utilized for anything except to play. But it was also the source of our fear.