Teacher In the Hall

This is going to be another long one... Grab a snack... 

My whole life I've been pretty good with words.

I've used them to document my own life's ups and downs, as well as the accomplishments of some great athletes, friendly politicians and, for a short time, criminals. I even used them to tell the story of a little miracle baby.

My words have been my strength -- my superpower, if you will.

But over the past few weeks, my words have failed me. Just when I needed them the most, it seems.

How can I put into words -- the proper words -- what it means to have your life's work acknowledged by your peers? What it means to have your longtime friends vote for you to receive the highest honor in your profession? What it means to see your name on a wall with some of the greatest athletes and sports figures the state of Louisiana has produced? I can't. I tried -- several times. I failed often.

There are no words descriptive enough to say what it means to be selected for the Distinguished Service Award, to be inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. If there are, I have not found them yet.

And I don't know if I have the words to describe what the past few months of my life have been like, since the November night I received The Phone Call from my friends Doug Ireland and Raymond Partsch III. 

As a Hall of Fame committee member, I was there the day we elected Alana Beard, Bruce Brown, Paul Byrd, Walter Davis, Wendell Davis, Matt Forte, Walter Imahara, Paul Mainieri, Eli Manning Ron Washington and M.L. Woodruff. But the DSA's are done by email vote a few months later.

I had tears the day I received the ballot and saw my name and my long list of accomplishments as a sports journalist in Louisiana. But there are many names with lists as long or longer than mine. You have to be pretty special to get enough votes. 

Apparently, I was. 

Honestly, I can't remember exactly what Doug and Ramond said to me that night on the phone because, already the tears were forming. So, I asked them if they thought there was enough Kleenex in Natchitoches to get me through it. Then I tried to thank them. I wished I could call my mama to tell her, and my brother and my sister.

And I tried to tell my husband but he didn't answer the damn phone! I tried to call my daughter. She didn't answer either. So I sat and cried with my two little poodles who seemed to be very happy for me. 

Marty did finally return my call, only to listen to me cry hysterically and ask if it was good news or bad.

As sometimes happens in our journalism business, I had to hold on to the news for a little while until all the proper ducks were in rows. I could tell a few family members -- and I did. Only one or two understood the enormity of it, though. 

But the world knew soon enough and thus began my feeble attempts to explain how it felt and what it meant to friends, family, reporters and, especially, to a bunch of middle and high school kids who have no knowledge of my former life as a sports reporter for just about every publication and website in southeast Louisiana. It definitely was a strange experience being on the other side of the interview.

I have been going to the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony since the early 1990s. I have sat in the audience every year and listened as grown men and women stood on the stage and thanked their parents, their siblings, their friends and family, their coaches and their players and, sometimes, every person they've ever met, for helping them get up there. Grown men have cried. And they made me cry.

It was incredibly hard for me to fathom that this time, I would be up on that stage. I also had an incredibly hard time trying to figure out what I was going to wear. It became a bit of an obsession. 

It also began a long trip down memory lane. I'm a little bit of a hoarder, so I have all of my first bylines and many of my middle and last ones as well. Many days and nights I sifted through them, remembering some of the athletes I covered, marveling at certain turns of phrases I managed to come up with on deadline, and wondering if some were the parents of my current students. Some were.

And it all came to a climax over a few blistering hot days in July in the tiny town of Natchitoches with my little entourage: my husband, Marty, cousin Larry from Chicago, cousins Bob and Kate from Florida, my kids Daniel, Courtney and Lora, my daughter-in-law Cori, my nephew Lee and his wife Regina, my nephew Beau, my grand-niece Ava, and my best friend since eighth grade, Janine and her husband Bob. I also invited my high school journalism teacher, Mrs. LaRose and she planned to come until she was diagnosed with cancer just a few weeks ago.

After the long drive up to the middle of the state, I walked into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame -- a place I have been so many times I can't even count them all. I was one of the people with a shiny shovel when we broke ground a long time ago. My name is on some of the paperwork as president of the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. And when it opened in 2013 I was one of the short people out front with the giant scissors and Shaquille O'Neal as our marquee inductee. 

But what I remember are the countless times I've watched grown men and women beam and cry as they found their exhibit and showed it to their wives and children and grandchildren. They all posed for photos next to the wonderful painting by artist Chris Brown and asked him how he managed to do that. Then they went to the computer kiosk and typed in their name.

But this time, it was my name on the wall and my picture along with a long list of my accomplishments. This is one of the moments that will live with me forever.  The joy, the thrill, the disbelief. The pride.

A few minutes later, I spotted fellow inductee Walter Davis looking a little lost and out of place. I went over and grabbed him.

"Have you seen your name yet?" I asked him.

"No."

"Come on! You have to do it! It's so cool."

So I kind of dragged him over to one of the computers and told him to punch in his name. And there it was. And he had the same look of wonder and disbelief that I had. And I was so happy.

"Give me your phone! I'll take your picture."

A little while later I did the same thing to Wendell Davis. He got the same look in his eye. Pride. Joy. A little disbelief. 

That afternoon there was the first press conference with 11 of the 12 inductees. Eli Manning didn't arrive until the next day. I was certainly out of my comfort zone, being on the other side of the interview. My friend Doug asked me about my career, about my husband (although I never said his name!). I talked about my children. I was asked about what difficulties I had to overcome as a female sports writer before being a female in sports was cool. Then we drank.

Over the next two days there was a crazy celebrity bowling event at which I was considered one of the celebrities. I finished last. 

There was a big party by the Cane River where I was united with all of my entourage for the first time. It was very hot and very crowded, but we got to hobnob and mingle with lots of people, including Eli, who I wrote about a few times when he was in high school. The highlight of the event was when all of the inductees were brought up on stage to be introduced to the crowd. Then there were fireworks.

There was a junior training camp with basketball and football drills for all the kids. I asked if anyone wanted to do some sentence diagramming, but no one did so I went back to the hotel. Then there was a lunch and roundtable interview with fellow Hall of Famer Tim Brando. He asked me about being married to a coach.

When that was over, I went back to the hotel to chill for a while until it was time to get ready for the induction. As I've already confessed, I obsessed over what I was going to wear for this thing -- a dress, pants, a suit? I also have an issue with shoes. Because I wore heels in the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s, I can't wear them in the 2020s at all. 

But after finding the perfect dress and shoes, I learned on Monday morning that I was supposed to have been fitted for a blue plaid sportscoat that I was to wear during the induction. This was the first I heard about it. I was fitted. It was ordered, but it did not make it to the ceremony in time. I can't say I'm sad about it.

I wore the dress and the sparkly flat sandals.

There was a pre-party at the Hall of Fame where I was finally able to show everybody my name in the computer and on the wall. I had to walk the Purple Carpet and get interviewed again, this time by another old friend Victor Howell. We talked about how strange it felt to be on the other side of the rope. He also asked me about teaching. Then it was time to go inside and I was ushered backstage.

My favorite part of every induction is The Walk of Legends, where the past and present inductees are introduced and walk across the stage to the theme music from The Natural. It's stirring and gives me goosebumps every time.

This time, I was backstage with the legends. I was lined up alphabetically as one of the legends. I was about to walk across the stage as a legend. And as each one walked across the stage before me, I watched through the backstage curtain with goosebumps and tears in my eyes. 

The induction itself was a whirlwind. They kept telling me it would go by fast, and it certainly did. The DSA winners are introduced first, so I was second after Bruce Brown. My friend Teddy Allen introduced my introduction video, which just blew me away.

With tears in my eyes, I stood next to Doug in the dark and watched as my friends and colleagues and my husband said all kinds of nice things about me as a montage of photos of my life flashed before me. I  didn't want to cry because I didn't want to miss a minute of it. It was so heart-warming. So humbling. So surreal.

Then it was my turn to go on stage to be interviewed by Lyn. We joked about my tendency to cry at these things. I gave a shout-out to my peeps in Houma and the River Parishes who might be watching. He asked me about the story I've told about having a crush on the high school quarterback and how that lead to my interest in sports. I talked about the success of my kids and my journalism students at Riverside. And I corrected one mistake.

All along people have called me a "trailblazer." Maybe I was as one of the first women to do what I did. But I wasn't the one who went first. That was Robin Fambrough and I gave her the credit. As I said, she was the one with the chainsaw, I just followed along with the machete. I owed her that. I would not have lasted one year on the job without her guiding hand and support. 

But, again, I forgot to talk about my husband. Marty Luquet. The Coach, the man who supported me from day one, who never belittled what I did or tried to stop me, who drove me to Louisiana towns no one has even heard of, who drove while I typed, who found me phones to send my stories, who sat on top of the pressbox with me in the snow, who defended those who tried to tear me down. I would not have been on that stage if it were not for him either.

And then it was over. I spent the next few hours trying to pay attention to the other inductees' interviews, staring at my plexiglass State of Louisiana, having a few drinks and eating the Chex Mix we snuck in to tide us over until dinner, which was another marathon in itself.

Then I got to reflect on it all.

It was one of the most extraordinary moments of my life with the people who mean the most to me -- my husband, my children, my nephews, my bestie since the eighth grade, my cousins. Growing up in Houma, where there were a bunch of mean girls who liked to make my life miserable, I was determined to leave, to get out and to make something of myself. I didn't necessarily want to be famous, I just wanted to be somebody, do something. I think I succeeded in that.

As a person who has traced her family tree for decades trying to find missing pieces of a gigantic puzzle, I've always said I didn't care where my body ended up, I just wanted my name to be somewhere. And now, it is. Forever. In the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.

And even if no one remembers who I was or what I did, they'll be able to punch it into a computer and find out who I was. 

Links to some stories

L'Observateur

LSWA Bio Story

NOLA story

Hall of Fame Recap Story

Herald Guide Story

Rebel Express Story

Video: Hall of Fame Induction

Video: Bowling

Video: Welcome Reception

Video: Press Conference

Video: Interview

Behind the Glory -- mini documentary

'Tis the season

I don't wish this on my worst enemy.

I've been there more times than I've cared to. And could joyfully live the rest of my life without ever having to do it again.

Because I know.

Jim Cantore is on The Weather Channel. Anderson Cooper is on CNN. And some poor sap is on some beach, trying to stand up in the wind and the rain.

And somewhere out there is a woman -- a mom -- standing in her living room. Going insane.

She's watching that big white blob on her TV screen and all she really wants to do is cry. Her phone is ringing every five minutes from family members telling her what to do, asking her what to do.  But she's standing there frozen, and she's asking herself: What do I do? Do I stay? Do I go? Where do we go? When do we leave?  How do we get there? Do we board up the house? What will we come home to? Will it be here when we get back?

And, the question that will haunt her forever: What do I take when we leave?

I have so been there. Done that. More times than I ever cared to, thank you. I've stood there in the middle of my living room, my bedroom, my little girl's room, my front yard -- agonizing over such decisions.

Some are easy: Her baby book, the keepsake box from her adoption finalization day, her school keepsake books, our wedding album.

Some are hard: Which of the other photo albums? The silver? Cherished books? The china? My wedding dress? Great-grandmother's chair? The giant portrait hanging over my piano?

And some things you just forget.  Like underwear.

But I know that the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life was lock my door and walk away from everything I own, not knowing if it would be there when -- if -- I got back.

Hurricane Katrina taught us all these lessons and so many more:
Water, batteries, gasoline, cash, important papers, medicines, glasses, radio, zip lock bags, baby wipes, toilet paper, paper towels, paper plates, garbage bags, peanut butter, canned goods, potted meat, tuna, a non-electric can opener, a land line, a cell phone charger, how to send a text message, a contact outside the storm zone, solar lights (!) and every photo you can grab.  And that the most valued commodity after a storm is ice.
 
You certainly learn what is important. What cannot be replaced. What you cannot live without. What you can live through.

I do not have one single baby picture of my husband. Not that there were many to begin with, he being the third of three boys born in the 1950's.  But the few were stashed in the attic of his parents' home in Waveland, Mississippi, six years ago when Katrina churned pretty much right up their street.  They were left with nothing but a slab. And two days' worth of clothes. And a few pieces of jewelry my mother-in-law thought to grab at the last minute.

For about four days, we actually thought they had died. They did evacuate their house a half a block off the beach, but only a few miles away to Kiln, the home of Brett Favre, who reported that his mother had to swim out of her home. We could not imagine two 80-year-olds doing so.  They chose wisely, however, and escaped unscathed in a house away from water. They moved in with us two weeks later and stayed a year and a week.

I have friends and co-workers who lost everything they owned, their houses destroyed by the putrid waters that deluged New Orleans when the levees broke.

I know some who were at the Superdome, trying to survive. I know some who worked to tell the story of what happened there.

I know some who left and never came back.  I know some who died.

And I have a daughter who was scarred for years by the entire experience of watching "The Big Red Storm" as she called it, for days on TV from our safe haven in Natchitoches, in northern Louisiana. And our mistake of staying home for Rita just a few weeks later.  She and her friends in pre-school used to play "Evacuation" from the pretend house in her classroom.

Riding out the storm is not an option.

I had a great-aunt who rode out Camille in Biloxi.

My mother rode out Betsy in Houma in 1965. She tells stories of the big picture window in the dining room bowing in the wind, of the floor boards rolling, of tying my brother to her with a belt and me to my grandmother. She also rode out Andrew.

I rode out Andrew at my sister's in Baton Rouge, terrified of every noise, every sound, every report on the radio, and the fact that my poodle was cowering in the bathtub.

We evacuated for George, taking six hours to drive to my sister's in Baton Rouge -- normally a one-hour drive. We spent 12 tortuous hours driving to Houston for Ivan, and another 11 back.  With a potty-training toddler.

We stayed for Rita and scared my daughter to death.

We learned other lessons as well. How a government can fail. How a community can come together in times of crisis. How a nation can.  How quickly people forget. How to appreciate the little things. How long it takes to rebuild.

How to prepare for it the next time.

And how to pray every day that we won't have to.

To all in Irene's path tonight, may God bless you.

Walking with the legends made my feet hurt

We normally think of professional athletes as being unflappable.

They always appear to be so calm, cool, and collected as they do what they do on the playing field or on TV. We can't feel their sweaty palms or their racing hearts. And the TV cameras never show them throwing up, so we don't imagine that they might actually be uncomfortable out there. Or nervous. Or downright scared to death.

And maybe they aren't when they're in their comfort zone, where they know what they're doing because they've been doing it all of their lives.

But put them on a stage, under a whole bunch of hot TV lights, in front of 600 strangers, their mom, their dad, their wife and children and their high school coach, then give them three minutes to deliver a speech and they turn to jelly. Just like the rest of us.

Mortal.

I got to witness this transformation up close Saturday night at the annual Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction ceremony. In fact,  I got a front row seat. And it was one of the highlights of my life.

I've been attending this event for more than 25 years, sitting in the audience with my friends and peers, the sports writers of the state of Louisiana. Together we huddle in the dark, drink southern sweet tea, eat our dessert first and get the frissons when the former and current inductees make their way across the stage in the "Walk of Legends."

Then we sit through endless speech after endless speech. We laugh at the good jokes, groan at the bad ones and offer our completely unsolicited critiques of the gratitudes given by the men and women we have elected for enshrinement. One colleague even keeps track of how much time they take.

But this year (and next) I am the president of the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. The Chief Chick. And among the perks are, I'll get to buy a fancy new dress, a new pair of shoes. and sit up on a stage handing out little crystal carvings of the state of Louisiana to some of the greatest athletes who have ever played in the state.

This year it was former New Orleans Saints players Buford Jordan, Vaughan Johnson and Morten Andersen, former major league baseball player Todd Walker; prolific softball pitcher Kyla Hall Holas (now a college coach); former NBA player Slick Watts , Louisiana high school coaching legend Don Shows, and the grandson of the late T.P. "Skipper" Heard, the LSU athletic director who decided the Tigers should play football on Saturdays under the lights.

But it also meant that I was separated from my friends and my family for the evening. While they ate their filet mignon and strawberry cheesecake and made repeated trips to the bar for free beer and $2 soft drinks (WTH?), I was perched on the edge of a rented wing back chair under 10,000 watts of hot TV lights in a long-sleeved dress and too tight shoes, worrying about whether or not I was flashing too much cleavage.

Me, at my spot on the stage

I had gotten to eat only half of my dessert before I was called to the stage to deliver my own little speech  in which I thanked a long list of state politicians for their help and support in getting our actual Hall of Fame halls built. The two-story, 27,500 square foot building on historic Front Street in downtown Natchitoches, Louisiana, is scheduled for completion next fall (after my reign is over, natch).

I returned to my seat at the the table with my oh-so-supportive husband and stepdaughter and forced-to-be-there 10-year-old daughter, to wolf down the rest of my dinner. After a quick trip to the potty, I returned to the stage where it was my privilege to greet the inductees and award winners one by one.

 And I've got to tell you, for all their fame, all their fortune and all their years in the spotlight, all those big, tough athletes became mere mortals at that moment.

Maybe it was the vision of me in my striking blue dress and too-tight shoes. Or the 10,000 watt lights, or the 600 spectators, or the cheesecake.  But all these big, tough, macho athletes turned to mush in my presence. They sweat. They fidgeted. They forgot all about the X they were told to stand on to take a photo with me and their little crystal boot states. Then nearly every one of them almost dropped the darned thing. After just the first one I started to hold on to it an extra second just to be sure. But most of them handed it right back to me.

"Hold it for me," they pleaded as they made their way to the podium to give their 3-minute speech.

Yeah, their speech. The one they’ve written, rewritten and maybe practiced in the bathroom mirror a dozen times. Or not. Most of them went overtime.

Oh, not Kyla, who came up to the stage calm and cool with her speech all written out on her iPad.

But then Todd forgot his notes on the table next to me. Buford dropped the stopwatch he brought with him to make sure he didn’t go over his allotted three minutes. And Vaughan forgot to thank his wife. (He returned to the stage later to give her a really big shout out).

And only one -- my dear friend Larry Hymel, who was receiving the Distinguished Service Award for his years as a Sports Information Director at a local college -- gave me one. A shout out, that is. His school's mascot is, appropriately enough, the Lions. And he remarked that he was pleased as punch to get a boot for the Lions from the Lyons. (Get it?)

But for the rest of the audience, the highlight of the night was the introduction of former Saints kicker Morten Andersen by former Saints quarterback Bobby Hebert. The boy from Cut Off, Louisiana, handed off to the boy from Copenhagen, Denmark, and brought down the house doing it.

In his 15-minute “introduction” Hebert ranted about the NFL lockout, the greed of the owners, the virtues of Vaughan Johnson and every other subject, before finally getting around to talking about his friend, Morten Andersen --  including a creative description of what happened to Morten's lower digestive system when he lined up for those kicks.

At his front row table with his wife and sons -- one of which was celebrating his seventh birthday --  Morten merely laughed along with all of us at Hebert's jokes and  one-liners, waiting patiently for his buddy to finally get around to him. And he finally did.

Bigger than life, Morten Andersen, the final inductee of the evening, made his way to the stage. Morten Anderson, whom nearly every woman in New Orleans crushed on back in the 1980s (yes, including me and I even told him so). Morten Andersen, who gave us all heart palpitations when he kicked those game-winning field goals, then broke our hearts when he went to play for the Dirty Birds of Atlanta.

"Thank you, Bobby, for your concise Cliff's Notes of Vaughan Johnson's career, thank you for your comments on the lockout situation, the viewership of the NFL game and anything else but me. Thank you very much," Morten said. "When I asked him to do this, I knew it was going to be bad."

He went on to ask the audience of 600 people if they wouldn't mind singing "Happy Birthday" to his little boy before delivering his own heart-felt speech about achieving the American dream.

"Only in America," The Great Dane said, more than once.

Only in America can a boy from Denmark become an American football hero after a 25-year career.

And only in America can a girl from Houma, Louisiana, move to New Orleans, become a sports writer for a major metropolitan daily, join a 50-year-old organization of crusty old sports writers (nearly every one of them male), be accepted by them, ascend to their presidency, be moved from the sports beat to the crime beat a month later and then, one year later, sit on a stage (for three hours) and hand out little crystal boots to a bunch of sports legends. And take pictures.

Vaughan Johnson and The Prez,

Buford Jordan and The Prez

The Prez with Bobby Hebert

The Great Dane, Morten Anderson, with The Prez

And when it was over, their hands were dry, their pulses were back to normal, the minions bowed at their feet and the crystal boot states were handed off to their wives (or husband) for safekeeping.

And I couldn't wait to take off my shoes.

**Here's a little video highlight reel. Yes, I'm in it... 

I have the Power!!!

Sometimes we wonder whether it's good to have an old house.

Today, it's good.

Our house, the first brick house in Norco, once belonged to the dentist for Shell Oil Co. Now it's ours. We're thinking those old boys at Shell musta taken care of old Doc Almerico. Cause we got home today and we have power, AC, Internet, Cable TV. Only our block. .. Y'all, the butter didn't even melt in my fridge.... The ice cream did.

It's good to be home. Especially after a hurricane.

There are lots of trees down in our yard. My banana trees took a beating. And the ginger. And the calla lillies. And I'm pretty sure we're going to cut down that young pecan tree that drops nuts in our pool all the time.

And that pool is a really, really ugly shade of brown.

We lost some facia on one side of the house.

And Lora Leigh's little play house needs a new roof.

Oh. And one small, old window in our bedroom upstairs broke. It was already broken. It kinda fell out.

The next door neighbor's metal awning came down. The guy behind us is on a generator. We can hear it.

We are soooo lucky.



So my mom and my sister-in-law and a niece are here. And my stepson and his girlfriend. We cooked spaghetti and meatballs and shared stories. Now they're trying to catch up on all the news they've missed the last couple of days.

And, while I've got everyone's attention (if anyone's), I'd like to say this:

Thanks for NOLA.com, and the St. Charles Parish folks who put up a blog to keep us all up to date. Greg Champagne, you rock. So do you, Pat Yoes. Thanks to Brett Duke for driving by my house and calling me to tell me it was OK. And to Ralph Deroche for doing the same -- and for unplugging the Polaris.

Thanks to Daniel for cleaning up my yard before I got home.

And thanks to all those electric company guys from North Carolina and Virginia and all parts in between for coming down here to help us get power back up and running. And all those military guys we saw headed this way while we were heading out of town.

And, especially, thanks to you Courtney for choosing to go to school in Natchitoches and for letting us take over your apartment and your life -- again.

There's no place like home.

A Guy Named Gustav

Here we go again!

It's a familiar refrain among the people in my family, in my town, in the bottom of my state.

With Hurricane Gustav bearing down on us, we're all saying, "Here we go again." Literally.

After much debate, much angst, much thought and many changes of plan, Marty, Lora Leigh and I, plus the two super poodles, are in Natchitoches, hunkering down with Courtney in her college town apartment.  It's the same thing we did three years ago when a bitch named Katrina headed our way -- only, that apartment was a lot more crowded and on the third floor.  Courtney only has one roomie now, and she has politely gotten herself out of our way.  I'm not sure if that's for our benefit or for hers.

This was our first plan all along, to come here. But then a lot of people started to plan to come here -- Courtney's mom and stepdad and stepbrother and sister-in-law and nephew and brother and his girlfriend, not to mention Marty's parents.  So, we started to rethink.

Then MY sister offered us the use of a big old vacant house in Baton Rouge. We jumped on that. We could just camp out for a couple of days on the floor.

Then Gustav headed right for Baton Rouge. And he started to weaken. So, for a fleeting moment, we decided to hunker down in Norco. I went to the grocery store and carbed up. Then Gustav got bigger and redder out in the Gulf of Mexico.

So, we thought we'd go to Lee and Regina's in Slidell.

But Gustav got bigger and redder.

So, here we are in Natchitoches.  We left Norco at 9:41 a.m. Me, with every outfit I've worn in the past 10 days, Lora's baby books, scrapbooks, school memory books, four boxes of old pictures, my wedding album, all of my sentimental jewelry, the French family silver, all of the family videos and my hard drive. WE also took the Wii and the Playstation2 so Lora and Courtney can challenge each other for as long as we have power.

It was a surprisingly smooth ride. We took Hwy 61 (Airline) through Gonzales and Prairieville, where it gota little sticky because Ascension Parish refused to put deputies on the intersections, and Baton Rouge, which had slightly higher than normal traffic. Then we turned on 71 north through Bunkie, to Alexandria. After a little more traffic at the Interstate, it was smooth sailing. We got here after 2 p.m.

Of course, the intersection at Natchitoches and I-49 was jam-packed with refugees, looking to fill their tummies and their tanks.

My mother, my sister-in-law, two nieces, a nephew-in-law, a grand niece, an ex-brother-in-law and his wife and, I believe, her daughter, son-in-law and child, are hunkered down with a nephew, his wife and child in Baton Rouge. Oh, there's a poodle and a chiuaua there too.

Marty's mother and father, meanwhile, the ones who evacuated Waveland, Mississippi for Kiln, Mississippi for Katrina, and lost everything they owned, are staying put in Kenner.

Daniel and Rebecca went to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It's raining where they are now.

So, here we are. High and dry. The sun is shining here at 6:55 p.m. There's a gentle breeze. The WEather Channel is locked and loaded and they're talking about my home town. In fact, Jim Cantore is in Houma. And there is a tornado warning at home.

All we can do is pray that we have a home to go home to when this is all over.

Stay tuned,

Lolo

Tags: Jim Cantore, Hurricane Gustav, Houma,

Louisiana Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame

After so many false starts, and too many false promises, the LSWA finally broke ground on its long-awaited Sports Hall of Fame Museum on Thursday. It should be open in 2010 -- which is about the time I am due to become the president.

You can see it here: (you may have to cut and paste). I'm in the blue sweater. Click Play.

http://www.kalb.com/index.php/news/article/once-a-vision-now-an-18-million-dollar-dream-come-true/2549/