Columns

Back in the days when there were no NFL games to keep us glued to the screen of our choice, we regularly piled into my Dad’s old Pontiac on a pleasant Sunday afternoon to take a ride in the country. That seemed to be a popular pastime even before there were Pontiacs to pile into, but also a bit more perilous.
At least that proved to be the case for a Lake Charles newspaper writer who on a Sunday morning in 1894 decided that “instead of attending church in the usual orthodox way” to “start out for a day’s drive with Mr. Mathews, the popular agent of the Singer Sewing Machine Co.”

How you start your day sets the pattern for how you’ll feel and what you will accomplish during the day. Your morning routine has a big impact on whether you have a good day, or a bad one. The tone for your entire day is set by your first couple of hours.
You’ve already experienced this phenomenon. How does you day go when you are late for work due to circumstances beyond your control? Perhaps you encountered much heavier than normal traffic, or the train or bus you were on broke down. When your day starts off wrong everything that follows seems tainted.

Jean Lafitte left New Orleans and the ruins of his Baratarian kingdom in 1818 to make a new start on Galveston Island, but not all of his band went with him.
One of those who stayed behind was known as Billy Bowlegs, and he became almost as notorious as a Gulf of Mexico raider as Lafitte himself. He was said to be worth millions of dollars when he died at the ripe old age of 93.