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3. ON A PERSONAL NOTE:
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Out Our Way:
This month was a fun-filled month that spanned the Sugar Bowl
to the Super Bowl. For over three years the fortunes of our two football teams, the LSU Tigers
and the New Orleans Saints, have tracked each other - through losing seasons, coach firings and
re-hirings, going to post-season games in 2000 and winning, and well on into this season, when
in mid-season their fortunes drastically diverged as the Saints went into the Toilet Bowl, and the
Tigers went into the Sugar Bowl and beat the big noise from Illinois.
The City of New Orleans wins by hosting both the Sugar Bowl and Super Bowl this year to sell-out crowds and street-filled revelers. And with the early Mardi Gras on Lincoln's Birthday,
February 12, this year, the Super Bowl has plopped itself right in the middle of Mardi Gras
season. This Saturday is Groundhog Day and Election Day for a new Mayor in New Orleans. If
the Groundhog sees his shadow and pops back in his hole, we'll have six more weeks of chilly
run-off weather as the two top contenders from a large field of wannabees do their last minute
vote buying, er, shopping.
On Sunday, Super Bowl visitors will become the street parade as they march down Poydras
Street to the Superdome. Laissez bon temps roulez is the year-round motto of the Big Easy and
the good times literally roll down the streets during Mardi Gras, which follows immediately upon
the Super Bowl festivities. If you don't have a friend in New Orleans that likes you enough to
send you a King Cake during Mardi Gras season, by all means cultivate one. If it's too late for
this year, you might bake one yourself using Haydel Bakery's recipe at:
http://www.wwltv.com/morning/recipes/kingcake.htm If you're not a baker, call 1-800-442-1341
and order one for yourself. Ask for the cream cheese filled one and tell them Bobby sent you.
Talk about good!
Our January was a time of warming fires in the hearth, Dad's homemade hogshead cheese cold
on crackers, minestrone soup hot on the stove, and movies on our new DVD player that Santa
installed for us in the Screening Room. We signed up for netflix.com and always have three
DVD's ready to watch, or on their way to or from our home.
I went tuna fishing out of Venice with our
son, John, and his father-in-law, Rod, at the Midnight Lumps about fifteen miles offshore of the mouth of the Mississippi River out of Venice, Louisiana. We boated over three hundred pounds of fish, amberjack, blackfin tuna, and our prize for the day, a 100-lb yellowfin tuna. I caught a 40 lb. blackfin tuna. It was a messy, bloody business and for me it was a case of "Once in a Row is Enough!" See photo of me with my blackfin tuna.
What a busy week! Tuna fishing Sunday. Monday, lunch with my daughter, Maureen, who
turned 40 years old. Friday, Annual Meeting of the Timberlane Civic Association, with good eats
afterward. And Saturday, Maureen's surprise birthday party at Legends. Her two younger sisters
came in town with my two grandsons for the occasion. And the next day we had a Day Retreat
with our Anam Caras.
To round out the month, I received a copy of the interview tapes of Edward Reaugh Smith
[middle name is pronounced "Ray" - like in Foxborough, the "ugh" is silent.] with Dr. Roméo
Di Benedetto. He was interviewed on the material in his book, "The Burning Bush," for the
Renaissance Series of El Paso Community College.
On the 27th we met our friends Ruth and Ted for brunch at Café Marigny. I had the wild
mushroom risotto with eggs and andouille sausage. Later we walked into the French Quarter and
caught the Krewe of Barkus parade marching down Dauphine Street. Barkus is a dog-oriented
takeoff on Bacchus - the carnival parade consists of dogs, costumed, marching, and riding in
shopping carts decorated as floats. This is New Orleans' idea of a dog show. Brass bands, beer,
and bulldogs. "It don't get no bettah dan dat!" as Boudreaux would say.
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