Columns

David Abbott, who came to Crowley from Michigan in 1888 and settled down to grow rice, was not the first farmer to realize that we needed more than rainfall to irrigate a big field of water-loving rice. But he is credited with being the first one to do something about it.
In 1894 he built a canal 15 miles long and 40 feet wide to irrigate his crop, and created a clumsy but workable system to lift water out of the canal and get it into his fields.

You’re bombarded by information from endless sources on a daily basis. There’s the internet, television, newspapers, magazines, strangers, friends, and relatives. There is no shortage of opinions and ideas, along with supposed facts and advice as to what you should and should not be doing.
There is more information available today than ever before. Everyone has opinions and advice. So, who do you listen to? How do you separate information which is helpful, accurate, and relevant from that which is wrong, useless, or even damaging?

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.”