Columns

Spring always brings a rise in the Mississippi River, and that almost always brings a rise in the debate over if, or when, the Atchafalaya will capture most of the Mississippi’s water.
It would be a really bad thing if that happened. Ships could no longer get to Baton Rouge and only small ones to New Orleans. Salty water creeping up the river from the Gulf would corrode pipes and taint drinking water. A score of industries depending on fresh water would shut down. And that’s not even half of what could happen.

January 6, the feast of the Epiphany, is the official end of the Christmas season, but that doesn’t mean we have to give up our festivities; it is also the beginning of Carnival, the season leading up to Mardi Gras. Even more importantly for those of us who are not overly worried about girth or diet, it is the official start of the King Cake season, when it is downright rude to refuse a slice — not that anyone I know would want to.

I was looking for something else when I came across a listing of every post office in the United States at the beginning of 1851. It points up the fact that most of south Louisiana was still sparsely settled just fifteen years before the Civil War, and that it was no easy task for mail or people to get across swamps, marshes, and prairies in those days.