Weekday Rambler

I was a teacher and been "in the classroom" for ten years.  With the birth of our first child, I took the maternity leave, found day care and went back to work.  Then the second child arrived and we followed the same routine.  Then it all went foul.  The children were seemingly always sick.  We tried to make it work until one day my husband said:  "You need to stay at home with these kids.  This is not working."  I had never occurred to me to give up my career for which I had carefully planned and studied for.  I even completed a master's degree to earn top pay at my position.   He was correct, though, so stay at home I did.  For five years I was a stay at home mom.  I took pride at homemaking and rearing the kids.  I had an immaculate home, brilliant children, supper on the table every night and a skinny body (probably from the pace I kept!).  But something was lacking.   Considering myself an expert seamstress I decided that I could augment our one salar

Mr. Weekday Rambler planted tomatoes this spring.  He planted about a dozen plants in his carefully tended raised beds in the backyard.  The early year activity consisted of enriching the soil and turning it over and over in preparation of the summer fruits it would yield.  Each morning he lovingly watched the progress of his farming attempt.  He tied the plants and "suckered" the shoots.  He used gallons (it seemed) of fertilizer. Finally the tomatoes appeared.  It so happened that the birds and worms liked them too.  In an effort to win a battle with those creatures, he picked the tomatoes when they were large but green.  They were set on our kitchen counter to ripen.  Finally we were able to try them and share them.  We have enough for a small army.  The first ripe tomatoes had to be used in a really special recipe, so I consulted a favorite  source of inspiration:   Louisiana Cookin'  magazine.  It's published bi-monthly and a subscription for one year i

 Istrouma High School is a public school in Baton Rouge, LA  built on pride and quest for excellence in the classroom and on the athletic field.  According to Wikipedia the school was built to educate the children of the blue collar plant workers.  Some might find that offensive, but we students were oblivious to that characterization as we all came from similar backgrounds.  Our parents were hard workers and we inherited that work ethic to reach our own goals.  The school was founded in 1917 and moved to its present location in the late 50's.  The building is still there, but the composition of the student body evolved such that the State of Louisiana has taken over its management. Legend has it that Istrouma was a native American word meaning: Red Stick.  The term was later translated to "Baton Rouge" by the French who took over the land.  Nawaganti was the leader of the Istrouma tribe and he led with dignity, bravery, pride and grace.  He fell to the white intr

It was serendipity.  My friend, Marilea, invited me to accompany her to a lunchtime lecture at the West Baton Rouge Museum in quaint Port Allen, La.  The topic was a newly published book, Louisiana Highway 1 .  The author and photographer would be there discussing their collaboration which is a lovely depiction of the longest highway in the State of Louisiana. Our afternoon began with an early lunch  at the Court Street Cafe .  The cafe is on the main "drag" in town and serves up breakfast and lunch to locals and a few tourists searching for food off the beaten path.  The hamburger I ordered did not disappoint.  We were early so had no trouble finding a parking spot, but noticed that when we left the parking spots were few. Upon arriving at the museum we observed that we could have brought a brown bag lunch as many of the lecture attendees had done.  The thirty or so people had gathered around to have the opportunity to learn about the book, see some slides of the boo