Columns

The children’s celebration of Mardi Gras in Church Point in the 1920s and 1930s seemed more like Halloween than the rowdy courir we know today, according to the memory of Marie Louise LaCaze. She put down her reminiscences in 1998 as part of a “life and letters” program at UL. In the course, persons of a certain vintage were encouraged to record their memories and life experiences.

As a reader of this column, you are striving to improve your life. You want to attain your goals and bring your dreams into reality. You want to break through your self-imposed limitations. So you follow all of the advice in this column.
But you think nothing is working. You are doing all the right things. Your attitude is positive. You are motivated. You have specific goals and a plan to reach them. You are taking action. Yet, still you feel as if you are not making the progress you had hoped for.

The thieves who broke into Captain Gerand Carriere’s warehouse in the steamboat town of Washington in October 1873 might get an A for effort but would surely flunk a basic burglary course.
The warehouse was a tempting target. Carriere ran several successful businesses and was a wealthy man. When he married Elize Roquebert de la Morandier in 1837, the marriage contract said the captain, then 27 years old, owned a $6,000 interest in Carriere, Gradnigo & Company. That would be about $200,000 today, and that was only one of his ventures.