Posts Tagged ‘report from louisiana’

Report from Louisiana: Random Thoughts

Posted: February 7, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT -A few random thoughts today:     

On Living in Louisiana: Even though Louisiana is at the bottom of all the important economic growth lists, bottom of education, bottom of job growth, there are some definite advantages to living here. I’ve written often about the differences between north and south Louisiana – it might as well be two different universes, and I do love south Louisiana. But, even up here in the northern part of the state, we have our perks. It’s never a bad day, for example, when a friend calls out of the blue on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon and says, “We droppin’ a big ol’ batch of crawfish in da water right now; come get you some!”

When that happens, you drop what you are doing, grab a six-pack, and follow the directions to a renovated industrial looking building in the shad of the interstate where three 45-pound sacks of crawfish await the hot boiling brew over the propane fire that turns them into spicy, tasty delicacies. I could eat my weight in crawfish.

They aren’t crayfish or crawdads around here; they are crawfish. Sometimes mudbugs. Always delicious.

Another perk of living in Louisiana is the weather; yes, last winter we had a five-day snowmageddon event that had us shut inside for a solid week. Unheard of. We have already had our one day of snow this week, so now we look forward to spring. Oh, the cold isn’t done with us yet. We will have a few more spells where the temps go below freezing, but for the most part, I’m looking for spring.

I mean, college baseball kicked off this weekend. Nothing says spring like college baseball!

We have Mardi Gras parades coming up beginning in the next week or so and that harkens to Lent and then the Easter season, and well, spring.

Here in Shreveport, we have “city Mardi Gras” as opposed to “country Mardi Gras” celebrated by many of my friends in Cajun country down south. Very different events! But always fun.

I’m the first one to get on my soapbox and complain about the crime, the terrible politicians, the urban decay, the potholes, the low teacher pay, etc.; we are far from perfect here in Louisiana, but dang, I wouldn’t live anywhere else.

On The Super Bowl: Are you going to watch? I’m probably not. I haven’t watched an NFL game in three or so years and could not care less about it. I do love Joe Burrow however, and so I rather would like to see him win, but I won’t lose any sleep over it. We usually watch the Puppy Bowl instead.

On The Vanishing Louisiana Coast: I know we all hate the NYT, but I do want to share this article. Last week one of the books I share with you was the Mosquito Supper Club cookbook and this article references that book, the author, and her very real concerns about the danger of the Louisiana coastline. I’ve seen it. It’s read and it’s shocking. We can debate the whole climate change angle, but whatever the actual cause, or combination of causes, we are losing a lot of land down there, as well as entire communities and even the sustainability of our seafood industry. It’s troublesome.

Y’all have a good week and be kind.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and at Medium; she is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

Report from Louisiana: Fun at the Grocery Store

Posted: January 31, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT  — My husband has taken to walking through the grocery store commenting in a very loud voice, with obvious disdain, “Let’s go Brandon!”

He does most of the grocery shopping in our house and does a lot of it on the nearby Air Force base where the commissary allows us to save a bit of money. We also shop at a couple of neighborhood grocery stores; you know how it is…this store has better meat, that one better produce.

My husband is absolutely incensed at the rising prices for groceries and is quick to comment, “And we haven’t seen anything yet!”

As it turns out, he’s not wrong.

Kraft Heinze and Proctor & Gamble have announced huge price hikes coming to a store near you very soon.

Kraft Heinz (KHC) said in a recent letter to its customers that it will raise prices in March on dozens of products, including Oscar Mayer cold cuts, hot dogs, sausages, bacon, Velveeta cheese, Maxwell House coffee, TGIF frozen chicken wings, Kool-Aid and Capri Sun drinks.

The increases range from 6.6% on 12oz Velveeta Fresh Packs to 30% on a three-pack of Oscar Mayer turkey bacon. Most cold cuts and beef hot dogs will go up around 10% and coffee around 5%. Some Kool-Aid and Capri Sun drink packs will increase by about 20%…Last week, Procter & Gamble (PG) said that it was raising prices for its retail customers by an average of about 8% in February on Tide and Gain laundry detergents, Downy fabric softener and Bounce dryer sheets. Conagra (CAG), which makes such brands as Slim Jim, Marie Callender’s and Birds Eye, recently said it will raise prices later this year as well.

We are seeing the steepest hike in prices in nearly forty years.

Add to that grocery shelves that still have bare spots on every aisle and it’s no wonder that grocery shoppers are getting irritable.

Sometimes I even feel like a hoarder…my son, for example, favors a certain blue sports drink. It’s been very hard to find, but today I went to the store and found the shelves full of this drink! I bought several eight-packs just because I wasn’t sure when it would come back around. I know this only adds to the problem, but….

And so, my husband blames Joe Biden for all of this and walks through the store with his blood pressure rising, angrily tossing things into his card, saying “Let’s go Brandon” in a loud voice, ignoring the side eye glances from other shoppers.

Imagine how fun he will be to shop with when all these companies raise their prices this spring!

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and at Medium; she is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

Report from Louisiana: a Book Roundup

Posted: January 24, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Life has been busy, y’all. So busy I slap forgot to put up my post last week. It’s a wonder Pete let’s me hang around. One thing about being retired is that I lose all track of time and I never know what day it is. On top of that, I started a part-time job at my church working Tuesday through Thursday so Tuesdays feel like Mondays and Thursdays feel like Fridays and I don’t know which end is up lately.

One thing I have been doing on my off time is reading a lot. I’ve always been an avid reader and I read whenever I get a chance; I prefer actual books, but I do have a Kindle and I read some things on that. I’m on NetGalley and preview books there prior to their publication for purposes of review and so by necessity those are on Kindle. Books that I don’t plan to keep on my shelves forever are also often read on Kindle. I can get my library books there too. Books I plan to keep, usually nonfiction or collector copies of fiction, are obviously real, paper books.

Anyway, I thought I’d share my most recent reading list with you. It is heavy on Louisiana thematically, but there’s nothing wrong with that!

For Christmas, I bought for myself a copy of Mosquito Supper Club by Melissa Martin. When this beautiful cookbook came out last year, I am embarrassed to say that I dismissed it as yet another chef hawking yet another Cajun cookbook with overblown and impossibly stuffy recipes fluffed out with pretty pictures. I could not have been more wrong. Martin’s photographs of swamps, bayous, fish, crabs, shrimp, and landscapes are stunning, but her recipes are from her family and from her childhood on the bayou in the southernmost parishes of Louisiana. She writes extensively about the vanishing marsh, sustainability, and the history of her Cajun people. The book is a gastronomical feast for the eyes and belly. I have thoroughly enjoyed this cookbook that is really so much more than a cookbook.

Speaking of the vanishing marshland, the nonfiction Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell is part history, part travelogue, and totally entertaining. Tidwell is interested in the vanishing Louisiana coast; as he travels down the bayou on one shrimp boat or another and talks to the locals, he is stunned to see how much land loss Louisiana has suffered in just one man’s lifetime. The rapid rate of this land loss is devastation. The book was originally published in 2003 and holds up still. Beautifully written, Tidwell takes you along the bayous and into the homes and around the dinner tables of the Cajuns that he meets. I read this book slower than I needed to because I did not want it to end.

Moving north from Cajun country, the next book I want to share with you is Shreveport Martyrs of 1873 by the Very Reverend Peter B. Mangum, JCL. This book tells the story of the 1873 yellow fever epidemic right here in Shreveport that wiped out at least a quarter of the population. The epidemic is the stuff of legends here, and tours of the historic Oakland Cemetery on the edge of downtown include a pass by the Yellow Fever Mound – the mass graves of the victims. Sometimes new dirt has to be brought in and put on the mound as sometimes pieces of fabric or bone might work their way to the surface. During this epidemic, there was obvious panic and concern as the affluent tried to protect their families by sending them away to stay elsewhere. Five missionary priests stayed behind, stayed with the sick, to minister to them, sacrificing their own lives to the fever. It’s quite a story and well researched.

And so, that’s one little bit that has been keeping me busy! My links are Amazon affiliate links, which I’m duty bound to disclose, but it doesn’t matter where you buy your books! These are good ones.

What are YOU reading?

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and at Medium; she is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

Report from Louisiana: Why is Covid testing still so difficult to find?

Posted: January 10, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By: Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – One of the benefits of retiring from the classroom is that I no longer pay attention to the hysterical headlines about Covid, whether there will be another national shutdown, how high the case count is, and what the spread rate among school children may be.

I don’t pay attention to any of it. I don’t read it.

So, that being said, I may be a bit behind the curve on what’s what in Covidland.

What I do know is this: my and my spouse both had Covid in January last year. It wasn’t fun. But hey! Natural immunity!

And call us sheep if you must, be we both opted to be vaxxed and boosted, but that’s our own personal choice and I think that’s how it should be. Personal choice, like a flu shot.

There’s been a Covid outbreak at our church in the past couple of weeks; that is, several people have tested positive. Everyone is doing fine, nothing to worry about, but today my husband thought maybe he should get tested. He’d been directly exposed and has been feeling a bit under the weather for a couple of days.

We went to Ochsner Quick Care so he could get tested. This is where we both went last year in January and at that time we were in and out quickly. Today, it was going to be a two hour wait for a test.

Seriously?!

We went across the street to a Velocity Care and it was a three hour wait there.

He said never mind, came home, and decided to just self-monitor and self-isolate if necessary. He felt well enough to get out and do his daily three mile walk so I guess all is well.

But my question is why in the world at this point in this pandemic are we having to wait two and three hours for a nasal swab?!  I’ve seen people posting do-it-yourself swab tests but there are none to be found around here and even if you could they’re at least $30.

Something is just upside down it seems to me. 

I can’t bear these polarized discussions about Covid; that’s not my point here. I know people who have died from Covid, some with comorbidities and some not.  (Those with comorbidities, by the way, were living just fine with diabetes or COPD until Covid got them). The politicizing of the pandemic has been absurd, if you ask me, and caused much more harm that ever should have been the case.

Anyway, not to tread those waters, but I would be interested in knowing why it’s so damn hard to get a test now, two years into this pandemic and when this is supposedly basically a harmless variant.

I was happier in my oblivion.

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