Pense Donc!!

BIG SPREAD . . .

The Advocate of Baton Rouge had a huge spread on Breaux Bridge in the Magazine section of its Sunday, March 30, issue.

The article (by Cynthia V. Campbell, travel editor) and a dozen huge color pictures took up half of the front page and the entire middle two pages. It was a great piece and covered most aspects of the Crawfish Capital, stressing all the attractions that have made the parish community a popular spot for relocating artists, antique dealers and businesses as well a mecca for tourists and visitors from the surrounding area.

RISING RIVERS . . .

Heavy rains and stormy weather con-tinue in states north of us, dumping more and more water into the Mississippi River drainage system.

State officials last week were making sure all is in order with the Bonnet Carre Floodway just west of New Orleans. The floodway is designed to move water from the Mississippi into Lake Ponchartrain to relieve pressure on levees in the New Orleans area. Completed in 1937, the facility has been used seven times, the last being in 1997.

At this time it doesn’t appear likely that the Morganza Floodway will have to be opened. Our older readers will recall that the Morganza Floodway, completed in 1954, has been used only once, in 1973. And that caused some major problems for us here in St. Martin Parish.

Right now things are getting a bit dicey for the folks in Lower St. Martin near Morgan City, where the Atchafalaya had reached 6.48 feet, almost 2½ feet above flood stage.

THIS & THAT

Way Back When – A notation in my desktop journal shows that this newspaper acquired a Linotype in April of 1938, enabling the production process to transition from the days of handset type (that had been used since 1886) to then state-of-the-art semi-automatic metal linecasting. The new machine took a big load off the makeup of the paper and freed up editor/publisher Marcel “Blackie” Bienvenu to begin his long running “This & That” column.

With our amazing Mac computers and digital formatting, we’ve sure come a long way since that landmark of 70 years ago.

Washington, D.C. – Our first stop on our Easter Week trip to Washington was Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home near Charlottesville, Va. Everyone should be a little familiar with this amazing home, since its likeness adorns one side of our 5-cent coin.

While the home is not so grand in the sense of some of the South’s massive antebellum mansions, it is singularly unique for its special features designed by the author of the Declaration of Independence and our third president, one of the best educated and intelligent of our Founding Fathers.

Jefferson’s inquisitive mind explored a variety of topics from natural history, science, art and architecture to agriculture and botany.

He designed weather vanes, a huge clock powered by a ponderous cannon ball, dumbwaiters to move food and wine from the unique cellars below the home up to his living quarters.

An underground complex ran from one side of the house to the other and enabled servants to access the kitchen, wine cellar, beer brewery and huge ice house that were all beneath ground level without having to be exposed to the weather.

Jefferson amassed a huge library (he could read French and Spanish) and, in fact, sold his 7,000-book collection to the government to restock the Library of Congress after its books were burned by the British during the War of 1812.

Monticello boasts a host of special features crafted by Jefferson. His bed was located in the wall between his bedroom and study, so he could exit to either room. He designed a contraption that allowed him to create a duplicate copy of everything he wrote via a second mechanical pen. He had a shallow pond dug near the house where fish caught in nearby rivers could be kept fresh until ready to be eaten.

The home and grounds, along with the nearby family cemetery, have been restored and are kept in excellent condition, despite the crush of visitors that pass through year round.

I’ve only scratched the surface — it’s a place you could spend a couple of days visiting and I certainly hope to return one day to see it again.