Jim Bradshaw
The celebration of Rayne’s Old Spanish Trail Day on September 23 is a reminder of how important that roadway (essentially the old Hwy. 90) was to south Louisiana, and also of the town’s connection to a significant bit of OST history.
The event has been organized for some years now by Eddie Palmer (epalmer@bellsouth.net).
Jim Bradshaw
After the hurricane on Sept. 8, 1900, that destroyed Galveston, the headline in the Abbeville Meridional read, “We Missed the Storm.” It’s true that south Louisiana felt nothing like the Texas coast, but we were not entirely missed.
The hurricane was the worst natural disaster ever to devastate an American city. It came ashore between Freeport and Galveston, cutting the island off from the mainland and completely submerging it.
Bryan Golden
Larry who was 55 years old, had worked for the same company for 25 years. The company was then acquired by a large corporation. Larry was being laid off as part of the corporate restructuring. Larry didn’t know what he was going to do.
He thought he was close to retirement. But now, Larry was facing the prospect of starting over. He was worried about having to compete with people 30 years younger than him for a new job. Larry wasn’t optimistic about his prospects.
Jim Bradshaw
Once upon a time, this was the time of year when ads promoting snazzy new car models for the coming year began to fill the newspapers. Some of you may recall the days when people still recognized cars by their brand names, and when most manufacturers began to tease potential buyers with ads about the new ones that would soon show up at their dealerships.
In 1950, for example, Ford and Chevrolet were the top sellers for families on modest budgets, but dealers promised more than a nice price. Smooth new automatic transmissions were featured in lots of the ads.
Jim Bradshaw
If you read enough stuff that was written a good while ago, you will eventually run across the claim that Bayou Teche was named for Edward Teach, the infamous pirate better known as Blackbeard. I most recently came across it in an 1868 piece in the New Orleans Crescent describing the discovery of salt at Avery Island, which was then called Petite Anse Island, for its little wooded coves.
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