The Old South:::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The Old South::::::::::::::::::::;

So went to this Ante Bellum Plantation house (pre civil war is what all that means) to attend a kind of festival that was on the news and advertised in town. It was interesting, guides in the “Big House” in period dress, the grounds and all… there were lots of booths set up that reminded me of A Taste of Colorado with lots of food and such. Was there perhaps half an hour before I realized, there were no black people there. Ok.. Louisiana is about 60% black and I had not been in a nearly all white crowd in forever… it actually set me back a bit thinking.. “Did the Klan advertise this?... am I somehow contributing to a bad element here?” So the Plantation is a perfectly touristy place………. But as I got to thinking about it, I guess I realized it is not the sort of place the Blacks in this part of the world would ever go for food and fun… So you do not have to think long to see why… they have the old slave quarters, and the sharecroppers housing all that and it is impossible to not notice the comparison to the Big House which was very luxurious no matter what time frame you compare it to. It drew thousands of people this little festival…still part of the things that make you go Hmmmmmm.. down here though..

I have also decided that Louisiana is the home of four breasted women. Saw a comedy special where one of the comedians was talking about this phenomenon in a funny way so I immediately connected to this part of the world. Four breasted women have the regular breasts.. then.. another sort of set that pooches out the top of the bra leaving a kind of bulge up there….I have not decided if this is a local fashion statement as I have also been mystified by other clothing choices I have seen.

There was an all hands meeting here today with some big wigs from Washington trying to give a pep talk, exhorting people to “stay the course” and “never give up….. never surrender”…. About our new plan for this year which all things new seem to begin on June 1 (first day of hurricane season) or all projects are complete by June 1. It is interesting that one of the new initiatives here (due to be complete by June 1) is an evacuation plan for the 100,000 plus people in FEMA trailers that must be evacuated even in a tropical storm due to the fragile nature of the FEMA trailers. For some reason these big wigs felt obliged to do a planning exercise with the state over this issue as if they did not have confidence that Louisiana could organize an evacuation for these people… hmmmmmmmm…

They announced the Morgue they built at Carville is going to be a permanent FEMA COOP… (Continuity Of Operations) location.. essentially a disaster planning place for something that happens in a disaster. If a hurricane comes on shore and drowns New Orleans again then the AFO there moves essential operations to this COOP and work continues…. This I gotta see…. It also is a staging area for hurricanes hitting anywhere in the region 6 gulf area.. pretty close to the action and large enough to work for everyone