Columns

It was sensational news when actress Julia Morrison walked onto the stage and shot her leading man dead.
She was the wife of Frederick James, who had been the druggist at Moss Pharmacy in Lafayette, “where his genial smile always bade you welcome,” but the couple stayed in Lafayette only a couple of months after they were married.

Life is what happens while you are making other plans. I have devoted a lot of space in this column to planning and goal setting. Reality offers an endless barrage of diversions, detours, challenges, and obstacles. This fact doesn’t negate the benefit of preparation. It simply requires an understanding of the type of forces at work.

When we think about boats on Bayou Teche in days gone by, we think first about steamboats. But a surprising number of ocean-going schooners regularly visited Franklin and other bayou towns, bringing fancy goods and staples from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and other places.
According to a story in Harper’s magazine in 1853, this schooner trade started by accident. A captain uncovered the rich Teche trade in the early 1800s when he was hunting for a place to weather a storm.