Columns

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).

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.

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.