Baker's heartbeat

The Bakers prepare to walk on 'the most haunted beach in America' This is a popular bar, restaurant and entertainment venue on Grand Isle. The sandy beach on the Gulf of Mexico was hiding, kind of, behind a grassy hill that acts as a flood wall. We found the beach after a long drive south from the hotel in Houma, Louisiana, to Grand Isle. The vacation community at one southern tip of the state is reached after some doing, including a toll road, long bridges, and an unusual amount of traffic. The sunny Sunday for this side trip warmed up to 75 degrees Farenheit or so, and by the time we reached the beach there was some activity to be found. An energetic young woman employee was picking up beach trash and putting it on her three-wheeler, and pleasant folks took our entrance fee and patiently answered questions at Grand Isle State Park. Grand Isle is a barrier island for Louisiana, and its history as a vacation spot dates back hundreds of years. In the 19th century,...

Cocodrie, Louisiana, homes are on little bits of land; almost everyone has a boat. The hotel clerk in Texarkana, Arkansas, had some information to share: "I used to work construction in Houma, Louisiana," he said after learning of our ultimate destination. "There's a lot of alligators down there, and the bayous are on both sides of the street. Sometimes we'd see alligators along the roadway." Houma was our destination for about a week; the first thing we learned was how to pronounce this town, "HOME-ah," not "Hoo-mah," as my Yankee head thought. HOME-ah. HOME-ah. The correct pronunciation was repeated all the way through central Louisiana to this southern town, which stretched over several square miles. Houma is the jumping-off point to areas south, which include Cocodrie, or Grand Isle, Louisiana. It has a vast commercial district, much like 53rd Street in Daveport. Grand Isle includes a state park and apparently the only publ...

  Huge live oak trees at Oak Alley are planted in between the big house and Mississippi River. Since the 1970s, after I saw the movie and read "Gone With the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell, I have wanted to see a southern plantation. This was relatively easy to do during a recent tour of rural Louisiana. Plantations of all sorts are found almost everywhere; many are preserved as relics, and shown off as part of tours. At least one is both a working and historic cotton plantation. We initially visited the Kent Plantation, which included the oldest existing building in the central part of state and was located in Alexandria, La. Our tour cost $9 each, and we were part of a group of five -- the other three were Middle Eastern visitors from Lebanon. Our guides were with the local historical society and the plantation was located about a block off a busy four-lane expressway and commercial district in Alexandria. The Kent Plantation is on several acres of ground, and incl...

A small girl looks at herself in a water-filled pond, part of a famed sculpture garden. A bricklayer named Kenny Hill headed for southern Louisiana in the late 1980s. Maybe there would be work in the construction industry? Hill settled on a small plot of land on Bayou Petit Callou in Chauvin, La., located southwest of New Orleans. The land was provided by a kindly neighbor who took an interest in Hill. The bricklayer pitched a tent, and in time, built a small home. He also showed an artistic bent on adjoining property along the bayou. Over the years Hill created what is now known as one of the "25 Most Amazing Sculpture Gardens in the World." A cross-section of individual pieces shows Hill's empathy, and respect for religion. He is said to have created it as a story of salvation for Chauvin residents. Dennis Sipiorski, an art professor at Nicholls State University (a Thibodaux, La., institution which eventually saved the site) asked Hill to expand on the site...

The Bakers in Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge, hear Houma, La. The Terrebonne Water Museum, above; and also a wildflower and an Ibis in the water refuge. It was first heard on the television news one night, during the weather report: "We in Acadiana can expect highs in the 70's tomorrow," the forecaster said. "Acadiana?" What was this guy talking about? We were on vacation to explore Louisiana: Turns out, the name "Acadiana" describes both a region and the people living there, "Acadians." We'd been to Louisiana before, mainly to New Orleans. This trip was to focus on the southern and western areas of this beautiful part of America. Acadiana was founded by Acadians who had roots in France and settled in Canada but were expelled in the 1700s. Part of the population was invited to live in Louisiana by the Spanish government, in control at that time. These folks and the native population intermarried. They are called ...

Opinion: Bettendorf is right to close the oldest school in the district and open a new school with more spacious classrooms to benefit the students. It is inappropriate  to make such decisions in secrecy. Recent actions of the Bettendorf School Board to build a new elementary school and close the oldest school in the district landed on the front page of the Sunday newspaper. Bettendorf has decided to move about 200 students, for four months, to the Ross College building on Kimberly Road. This is until the new Mark Twain Elementary School is built, according to a report in the March 3 Quad-City Times. The story explains that the school board came to its decisions in some secrecy, avoiding public input. (Full disclosure: The newspaper is my former employer. That career ended a year ago so I'll offer opinions from a certain vantage point.) To start, our daughter is an elementary school teacher in Ankeny, Iowa. She's in one of the oldest buildings in that fast-growing...

Cinemark is the local theater complex in eastern Davenport, Iowa This is the second year I've seen each of the "Best Picture" Academy Award nominations, and it is also the second time I've noticed trends among the films nominated. Before my journalism career ended, I'd watch the Oscars in February after having seen a few of the films nominated. The last couple of years, however, have been different as I've made a point to both see the films and blog about my reactions.    Two of the movies nominated this year concern race relations in the United States but approach the topic in different directions. "Green Book," which I argue had the best story of all eight films nominated, won the top Oscar.    The other, "BlacKkKlansman," was a superb film directed by Spike Lee, and it was understandable that he was upset not to win the category. This film concerns race relations and the Ku Klux Klan.    Both films are about real peopl...