Month: June 2018

Hurricane Audrey Anniversary

Wednesday marks the sixty-first anniversary of Hurricane Audrey striking the Cameron coast. Warnings were given and many people did move inland, but several longtime residents believed they knew the land better. Plus, severe hurricanes had never hit in June before. They also failed to see thousands of crawfish exiting the marshes in the evening. The crawfish were reacting to rising temperatures of the water. The final reason for staying was the reports said the hurricane would hit in the evening of June 27. Back in 1957, the isolated Cameron area didn’t get good radio reception. Television sets were still a new fad and not commonplace.

When residents awoke that morning sixty-one years ago, their escape routes were already cut off by the storm surge. Audrey was now a category 4 hurricane with winds of 145-150 mph. The storm surges reached twenty-five miles inland. Although an exact number is not known, officials estimate 550 people lost their lives during this storm. You can read more about Hurricane Audrey in Nola Mae Wittler Ross’ book Hurricane Audrey.

Hurricane Audrey plays a role in my own book, Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure. Initially, my characters believed they were safe. Bayou Cove, if it had been real, is located north of Pierre Part and hundreds of miles away from Cameron. Then, the weather turned. Poor reception from WFUX-TV and Rich Bastärds didn’t provide accurate information. Bill and his girls hunkered down behind the grand staircase of the bordello. When the storm climaxes, Peggy lets slip one the girls is pregnant. The storm damage and pregnancy are resolved in the next chapter.

History doesn’t write itself, and I hope my representation of Hurricane Audrey has piqued your interest in this deadly storm. There are even comparisons between Audrey and Rita online. Enjoy your time researching Mother Nature and the Louisiana coast.

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What I’m Reading – Many readers I know like to inquire what their favorite author is reading. At the end of each blog post, I’ll let you know what book is open on my Kindle. I hope my choice of reading material inspires you to read a variety of authors and topics. I’m currently reading book nine of the Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series, Dead Man’s Ransom.

Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure is available on Amazon, as an eBook, and in physical formats. It is also available on the Barnes and Noble website.

 

The Value of Two-Lane Highways

Do you take a trip to the same place every year, or every other year? Does the travel to said place become boring and monotonous after the fourth time? Break up that drive next time by experiencing the value of the two-lane highways that parallel the interstates. Stop in the little towns that you always see the exit signs for and learn about them. It’ll be one of the best drives to, or from, said place.

I had the wonderful opportunity to do just this last week. Since 2010, every four years, my family reunion is held in Lebanon, Tennessee. My parents and I have also visited my cousins in Lebanon for Thanksgiving twice during this time. We know the route via I-40 very well. This year, we decided to take a long way home. We stayed an extra day and saw the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky. In 2014, a sinkhole swallowed eight vehicles. They repaired the room and one of the cars. The others are on display, and you can see how much damage they sustained.

On our drive home, we stopped at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. Her plantation home and museums are in a peaceful valley about ten miles north of I-40. You learn a lot about her, her father, and the movie, Coal Miner’s Daughter. Our next stop was the Louisiana Purchase State Park southeast of Blackton, Arkansas. This is a very small park, but you get a great walk through a head swamp to see where the mapping of the Louisiana Purchase began. Since my book is set in the swamps of Louisiana, it was a no-brainer to stop for a few minutes.

Alan in Swamp

In Brinkley, we visited the Central Delta Depot Museum. Dee Dee told me wonderful stories about the items at the museum. A bonus for you research buffs, they have the Brinkley Argus archived in hardback books going back to at least the 1960s from what I saw. The actual newspaper pages are well preserved and available for you to peruse.

We drove through De Valls Bluff and Lonoke on our way to the Plantation Agriculture Museum in Scott. If you want to know anything about growing, picking, and baling cotton in Arkansas, this museum is for you. Nearby is Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park. Although we didn’t visit the mounds, I plan on seeing them in October when I return to Scott for the High Cotton on the Bayou Festival at the Scott Settlement. Put that on your calendar and come see me.

Seek out the back roads on your routine trips. You will see and learn so much more than what the interstates have to offer. History doesn’t write itself and the closer you get to the people who actually lived it, the better informed you’ll be. Plus, it could be the romp in the swamp you need to turn your routine trip into an extraordinary one.

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What I’m Reading – Many readers I know like to inquire what their favorite author is reading. At the end of each blog post, I’ll let you know what book is open on my Kindle. I hope my choice of reading material inspires you to read a variety of authors and topics. I’m currently reading book eight of the Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series, The Devil’s Novice.

Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure is available on Amazon, as an eBook, and in physical formats. It is also available on the Barnes and Noble website.