Columns

Once upon a time, this was the time of year when ads promoting snazzy new car models for the coming year began to fill the newspapers. Some of you may recall the days when people still recognized cars by their brand names, and when most manufacturers began to tease potential buyers with ads about the new ones that would soon show up at their dealerships.
In 1950, for example, Ford and Chevrolet were the top sellers for families on modest budgets, but dealers promised more than a nice price. Smooth new automatic transmissions were featured in lots of the ads.

If you read enough stuff that was written a good while ago, you will eventually run across the claim that Bayou Teche was named for Edward Teach, the infamous pirate better known as Blackbeard. I most recently came across it in an 1868 piece in the New Orleans Crescent describing the discovery of salt at Avery Island, which was then called Petite Anse Island, for its little wooded coves.

From the earliest days I can remember, the beginning of July has been the beginning of fig season, the time when grandkids were dispatched to the back yard to pick fruit from eight big trees and my grandmother cooked fig preserves by the dish-pan-full.
Until I went away to college it never occurred to me that it was possible to have a meal — morning, noon, or night — without a jar of fig preserves on the table.