Going out on a high note ...

Several people have asked me about the Tennessee Press Association awards that Amy and I attended in Nashville last month, and I promised to detail it all in a blog. But, of course, I let life get in the way.

OK, OK, I've finally got around to it.

The 2011 awards ceremony was my last with The Erwin Record -- the awards are for work completed the previous year.

Well, I'm glad to say I was able to leave The Erwin Record on a high note, as the newspaper, once again, won the General Excellence/Sweepstakes Award. This was the ninth year in a row. Eight was a state record, so it was nice to continue an unprecedented streak. That feels good.

Now I'll never know if I could have continued to lead the newspaper to the top award year after year. I have to say, though, that it's good to go out on top. I always said, "Well, it's been great even if we can't win it again." I never wanted to experience that, of course. So ... now I won't have to do so. Ahh, feels good!

Personally, I won several awards, so I'll detail those below with a few comments from the judges. ...

FIRST PLACE, BEST SINGLE EDITORIAL ... for my editorial about the many public officials or public employees who have stolen money from the taxpayers. It was titled "Higher Taxes, Fewer Services? Yes, Thank the Thieves of Unicoi County." From the judge: "Very well written and reported and does a good job of appealing to readers by addressing them, and their tax dollars, directly."

-- FIRST PLACE, BEST PERSONAL HUMOR COLUMN ... for my column titled "Christmas Shines With 'Bamberella'." From the judge: "Clever and funny, with a homey touch. Made me laugh out loud."

-- THIRD PLACE, BEST PERSONAL HUMOR COLUMN ... for my column titled "I've Been Driven to Distraction." 

-- THIRD PLACE, BEST PERSONAL COLUMN ... for my column about Judy Moss after she lost her husband, Dick. From the judge: "This category had more than its share of stories about grief and loss, and this was the most poignant and well-written. It drew the reader in while avoiding emotional cliches."

SECOND PLACE, EDITORIALS ... From the judge: "Very well-written editorials in each case. Writing is concise, uses facts well to back up main points and doesn't waste reader's time."

-- SECOND PLACE, BEST NEWS PHOTOGRAPH ... for a shot of Angie Williams as her lawyer pointed the way to exit the courtroom as she pleaded not guilty to stealing $21,000 from the Unicoi County School System. From the judge: "Great photo! The best. You have to wait for the right moment and keep eye for detail, and that's exactly what this photo shows."

-- SECOND PLACE, BEST INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING ... for a series of stories detailing ethics meetings between the sheriff and county commissioners. (I shared this award with Rebekah Harris and Brandon Kane.) From the judge: "Exhaustive work ... It's evident your news staff is plugged into the beat."

-- THIRD PLACE, BEST INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING ... for a series of stories detailing production problems at Nuclear Fuel Services. From the judge: "Thorough coverage of an important local news story."

-- FOURTH PLACE, BEST SINGLE EDITORIAL. ... for my editorial noting the Chamber of Commerce was being overshadowed by the town of Unicoi's efforts at community outreach. From the judge: "Well done and full of strong details to support your conclusions."

... I liked that my final year at the Record, I was still involved in all aspects of the newspaper's operations, as the awards show. I wrote all the editorials, in addition to my personal column, but I was, as always, involved in reporting and photography. I took my job very seriously, and, in hindsight, I'm surprised how much I was able to accomplish.

I pushed myself, because I felt I would let the community down if I didn't work as hard as I could. That might mean making sure paper boxes were always full and working, writing a story, meeting with a concerned reader or being part of community events. Erwin was a great place to be, but, man, sometimes I wonder how I didn't fall over from exhaustion. Must have been the adrenaline!

Snapshots in time

It's been a long time without a blog from me. I'm bad. I know.

I've discovered something I should have known all along. I need a deadline to make things work.

For years, I wrote a personal column for The Erwin Record every week. I had enough to fill up a book, but if I hadn't had that weekly deadline, I doubt I would have had a dozen columns completed.

I almost always wrote my columns on Sunday, even though that meant I added another day to the work week. But I couldn't write them on other days of the week. I needed that deadline.

It seems the same is true for my blogging. Nothing forces me to write, so I find that I opt not to do so.

I do write a column for The Daily Advertiser, but it's not a weekly column. I write a column whenever the mood strikes -- or, really, when I've come across someone I think makes an interesting topic.

About a month ago, I went to visit a wonderful woman named Beryl Anderson, and she ended up being the topic of my latest column. Amy and I were even invited to her 90th birthday party Saturday.

So ... I thought I'd share that column here on my blog. ...

Beryl Anderson celebrated her 90^th birthday Thursday. And tomorrow, she’ll gather with family and friends to commemorate the happy occasion.

There’ll undoubtedly be plenty of photos taken throughout Beryl’s special day – and that’s a fitting tribute to this longtime Lafayette resident.

Preserving memories through a camera’s lens has been a lifelong passion for Beryl. She’s never been a professional photographer – just, she says, good enough to capture fleeting moments in time.

The mother of four, grandmother of eight and great-grandmother of 14 has been on a mission over the past few months – collecting those photos to divide between her children and grandchildren.

“Well,” Beryl says with a sly little grin, “I’m not getting any younger, you know.”

She has boxes and boxes of photos – a lifetime’s worth, really. Some photos are in albums that once belonged to her mother. Some were shot when she rode across the country in an RV, first with her husband, Harry Anderson, who died in December 1990, and later with her friend, Gerry Champagne.

An easygoing nature – and her camera’s focus – provided Beryl with plenty of adventure over the years. When she’d be headed out on a trip in the RV, maybe to Canada or Las Vegas or Florida, her family would ask, “When will you be back?"

They'd often get the same enigmatic answer.

“I know when I'm leaving,” Beryl would say, “but I don't know when I'll be back.”

She wasn't always so carefree.

"I was shy as a young person," she says, sitting at her kitchen table shuffling through her treasured photographs.

Unlike that shy girl staring back in a black-and-white photograph on the table, Beryl is, today, quick to offer advice.

"You're young, so I'm going to tell you," she says. "Always write on the back of pictures - always."

Otherwise, Beryl says, you might find yourself unsure about a photo's origins. For example, a photo in her collection shows a men's baseball team wearing "Purina Chicks" uniforms.

"That's one that set me off the other day," she says, her South Louisiana accent punctuating her words. "I don't know who they are. It may have been in my mother's photos. Maybe my husband's. Some of them look familiar. I just don't know.

"Finding this picture with nothing written on the back, well, that threw me."

She’s not perplexed by most of her photos -- some she’s taken, some she inherited. Reaching across her kitchen table, she picks up photo after photo and remembers.

"This is my mother before she was married in 1917. ..."

"This is the Patterson, La., baseball team. ..."

"This is the Lemmon brothers. One was a Sidney. One was a Harold. ..."

"This is my dad. This is a cousin. These are my aunts and uncles going to the beach on a Sunday afternoon. ..."

"Here look at this, that's my daddy and his friends holding up a Ouija Board. They would play charades and all kinds of things. ... "

"That's me, around age 3 or 4, sitting in a park in Franklin. The park isn't there anymore. I learned to roller-skate holding onto the hedge. I'm dressed in a Mardi Gras outfit. It's red tulle. ..."

On and on, the memories go. Beryl's photos capture the moments of her life, and she's determined to pull them all together and hand them out, so that others might find enjoyment and fulfillment from the glimpses into a life well lived.

“I used to be a very avid picture-taker,” she says. “At one point, I was doing slides. I haven't quite figured out how to reproduce my slides. I bought a little machine, but I can't quite get the hang of it. All my first pictures as an adult were slides."

Many of the photos are family heirlooms, passed down to Beryl from generations before. But because Beryl has had a lifelong love affair with pictures, her own focus has added many to the mix.

"My very first pictures were little tiny pictures. I had a little camera that took little bitty pictures," Beryl says with a schoolgirl's enthusiasm. "It took small pictures. I don't even remember the name of it. I did something in a magazine, and I won that camera. I was a teenager.

"I still had it when I met my husband in 1937, and I was still taking pictures with it. I took little tiny pictures with it. And I always wanted a picture. I had fun with it. I took pictures of all my friends. That would have in 1935 or 1936."

She doesn't know what happened to that tiny camera, but her love of photography, which she calls “magical,” has remained strong throughout her life.

Some friends once chided her for taking so many photographs. "You know I got a nick-name," Beryl says. "You remember 'Candid Camera'? The host was Allen Funt. People started saying, 'Oh here comes Mrs. Funt and her camera.’ ”

But that's OK. Because of her efforts, she's got hundreds of photos - and, more importantly, the memories conjured up by those well-preserved moments in time.

"I took all those pictures so I could remember the occasions and everybody else,” Beryl says, letting special moments of fishing trips to Grand Isle, football games in New Orleans and more than 56,000 miles traveling the country in her RV filter through her life’s lens. “I took a lot of these pictures, so they’re all memories for me.

“I didn't have to be in the pictures. I captured the moment.”

All those good times – the graduations, the weddings and, yes, the birthdays – live on in film thanks to Beryl’s clear focus and her boundless love.

Over the years, Beryl has had a simple request for the subjects on the other side of her camera lens. And today, that one-word request is her lasting reward.

Smile.

I haven't disappeared ... really

I've been a very bad blogger, haven't I?

It's easy to let time get the best of you. But I have been busy. I'm completing my first month on a new and exciting career tomorrow.

Well, it's not really a new career. I'm still in the newspaper business, after all, but it's got a little bit of a twist to it.

I'm the online editor of three newspapers here in Louisiana. Mainly, I work as online editor for The Daily Advertiser, the major newspaper here in Lafayette. The Advertiser also oversees a sister daily newspaper in nearby Opelousas and a weekly entertainment tab called The Times of Acadiana, so I also serve as the online editor for those publications. Each newspaper has its own unique website, and two have their own Facebook pages.

It's my job to create a unique experience for readers who visit our websites. We constantly update and report stories throughout the day on our websites. Breaking news immediately goes up on our websites, while another story -- hopefully a unique piece -- is created for our next print edition. At least, that's the goal, so we're working toward that. While I'm part of the technical team that brings all this together each day, one of the main goals for me is to work closely with the reporters to create the best newspaper we can each and every day – both online and in print.

We receive several millions of page views for our site each month and log hundreds of thousands each day. We just started a joint venture with the major television station in the market, so each day the city's major news outlets are working together to bring the best news to our citizens. It's an exciting task.

There was an oil rig blowout in the Lafayette area yesterday, causing an evacuation in a one-mile radius of the rig. We immediately had a breaking news story online and details on our Facebook page. Our reporters and photographers were quickly on the scene, sending back facts, photos and video for our website. It's a very exciting way to cover news.

We have a columnist in London for the Royal Wedding, and she is blogging for our website and sending daily photographs.

I haven't completely left writing behind either. I write for the website, of course, and I wrote a couple of stories for print edition of The Advertiser the first week I was in Lafayette and before I even officially joined the staff. This Sunday, I have a major feature coming out, both in print and online, about "Cleve" Landry, who 20 years ago received a kidney transplant thanks to the generosity and love of his younger brother, Billy. The newspaper chronicled the story two decades ago, and, on May 1, the 20th anniversary of the transplant, I will be telling the story again and how these past 20 years have shaped the two brothers. There's a wonderful twist to the story that will really make readers think about how nothing is by happenstance. I'm very excited about it.

I've been busy learning the many different computer programs needed for my new job. Technology has never been my strong suit, so I'm on quite the learning curve. But I'm catching on to that part of my job more and more every day. I have a staff that works specifically with me. In fact, we just added a multi-media reporter to my department yesterday. He's been capturing some great video at this week's gigantic festival here – Festival International de Louisiane, a music festival celebrating its 25th anniversary that draws people here from around the globe.

I'm so grateful for my job.

Quite truthfully, I didn't really expect to work at a newspaper again.

I had thought I would probably work on some books I had been putting off for a long time, but sometimes things come together and you know it's the right thing to do. (I'm still working on some books. I'm determined to not let those ideas go.)

Even with my new job, I find that my outlook is different than when I was publisher of The Erwin Record. I'm one person out of dozens at The Daily Advertiser. In Erwin, I was ALWAYS publisher. When I was on the job, I was publisher. When I was at Food Lion first thing in the morning in a ball cap and torn jeans, I was publisher. When I was at a funeral, I was publisher. I lived and breathed my job as publisher, and I'm immensely proud of what we accomplished at The Erwin Record. We made history many, many times – not to mention winning the Tennessee Press Association General Excellence/Sweepstakes Award for eight consecutive years. No other newspaper has ever done that in Tennessee history. We will know if the Record wins it again in July. The awards are for work done in 2010, so if we do, it will be my last time with The Erwin Record to win the award. That will be a bittersweet day, but I do hope we can manage to do it one more time. Keep you fingers crossed. (Hey, if we do, my my old staff will invite me to the awards ceremony and the party, too!)

But as much as I loved my job in Erwin – and I did – I am sort of enjoying my time out of the spotlight. It's good to go to work in the morning and come home in the evening and turn it off, for the most part. I've found myself getting a little nervous on Sundays until I realize I don't have to write a column that day. I always wrote my "From the Publisher's Desk" column on Sunday, and it's been odd not to write
a column every week. Sometimes I was worried about WHAT I was going to write about, but, in the end, it was my favorite part of the job, especially when my column sort of, unexpectedly, turned into a humor column. I enjoyed being silly and making people laugh – and sometimes think and shed a tear, too. Finding that emotional niche was cathartic for me. My natural melancholy and my love of a good giggle, too, found a place in print, and I'm so happy about that.

I haven't completely left that behind either. In fact, I'll be doing some writing for a Tennessee newspaper soon, but I can't really talk about that just yet. All I can say is that I'm looking forward to returning to my Tennessee roots and telling the stories of my life once again. I'll keep you posted on that, too.

Sorry for my lapse in regular blogging. I'll try to be better now that things have really gotten a little more normal here.

Hopefully, I'll be back in Tennessee soon, too, to see all my wonderful friends there. In the meantime, thanks for keeping up with me here in Louisiana.

Love you all.

Sadie Pooch

Lots of folks have asked how Sadie has done with the move, and I'm happy to report she's doing really well.

When Amy and I moved to Erwin from my grandparent's home on Simerly Creek Road, our sweet little dog Mamie just couldn't handle the change. She clawed to get out and was basically miserable. Part of the problem was she hadn't, in the past, been left alone very much. When Amy and I left for work, we'd just take her next door to my parent's house.

When we moved to Erwin, though, she had to be left at home alone while we were at work. I don't think my new neighbors would have taken too kindly to dogsitting Mamie. When it became clear that Mamie was miserable, Mom and Dad agreed to take her in. She was happy there, and she became a wonderful companion to my parents as they faced illnesses over the last few years.

So in March of 2000, Amy and I found ourselves in our new Erwin home but without the daily comfort of a good dog – something we had grown to love. Sadie won our hearts at the Johnson City Animal Shelter, and she's been part of our lives ever since.

I always thought Sadie would do all right in the move. She's a fairly laid-back pooch. When I would go home for lunch each day in Erwin, she'd stretch and welcome me home with a mighty ... yawn. Sadie knew that Daddy (that would be me) was responsible for bathroom breaks and filling water bowls and food bowls. He was pretty good at rubbing tummies, too. He was also a strict disciplinarian. Overall, though, Daddy was as much of her routine as barking at the FedEx man.

Momma (that would be Amy), on the other hand, somehow always garnered much more glee. Amy deserved a bounce from the bed and an anxious tail-wagging arrival each and every time she returned. Momma didn't fill water bowls or food bowls. She didn't take Sadie out for bathroom breaks. (Could be moths out there, she'd say.)

Mamie adored us, but she loved her sanity more. Sadie wants to be near us always, but she's independent, too. Her fluffy bed sometimes works as well as being curled up with Mom and Dad on the couch.

Here at our new house, she has a lovely little courtyard to run around in. She loves sticking her cute little head through the iron fence to see what's happening. Passer-bys – joggers, cyclists, kids with basketballs – get quick wags of the tail from behind the fence. Each morning, I open the French doors to the courtyard and Sadie bounds out to check out Lafayette.

She lets me know when she's bored with the scene and is ready to come on. On a few occasions, I have forgotten to check on Sadie, and she has moaned pitifully and made a few scratches on my new doors as she demanded to be let inside again. I can't really discipline her for scuffing my newly stained wooden doors when I've forgotten the poor little baby outside, can I?

Right now, I'm looking down the hallway, and she's being "Flat Pooch," that is, sprawled out on all fours and giving me that stare as only she can.

She's 11 years old, and she's been through two surgeries in the past few months – one only a few weeks ago. She's adapted well, though. She seems happy in her new home. In fact, we all are. Amy and I are amazed how much it feels like home. Could it be true that home really is where the heart is?

Got a little more unpacking to do this weekend. A few more pictures and paintings and such to put on the walls, too. Everything is coming together, though. We're getting it all together.

I'm just happy my little dog has been OK with the move. She keeps me grounded. It's time for her nightly feeding. Gotta go!

Making a Memory -- Who Am I To Disagree?

Amy and I dreaded telling my parents that we were moving to Louisiana. I was sick the entire way to my childhood home on Simerly Creek Road. It was unusual for us to show up at my parent's unannounced, so Mom came to the front porch and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I said. "We just need to talk to you and Daddy."

To my surprise, they both took the news of our move really well, telling Amy and me how proud they were of both of us. It certainly has made the entire move easier. I know my mother's heart aches that I'm so far away, but we talk a lot and she marvels at all the things that have gone right for us. (Knock on wood here, for any of you who are superstitious.)

We put our house up for sale in December, and only a little more than a week later, we had a contract. In this economy, we expected it might take months to sell the house. Kudos to Scott Metcalf, our wonderful realtor from Erwin. He's the best!

Being surprised how quickly the house "sold," we really had to pick up the timeline of things in Lafayette. Amy and I looked at homes, but it was mostly up to me and our realtor here, the marvelous Arla Slaughter.

We looked at home after home. New homes. Lived-in homes. An older home with a beautiful backyard and pool. Nothing seemed right. I loved Amy's two-bedroom condo her company had placed her in for the first three months, and I began to think that it might turn into our permanent home.

We found a great house in a popular location here called Sugar Mill Pond. We were prepared to make an offer, but the next morning someone paid cash for the house. Darn. What would we do?

Arla and I set off the next day, and I had only two days left before I was going back to Erwin for three weeks. Amy and I would be visiting me on the weekends, but I wouldn't be back in Louisiana for a while.

We hadn't visited a new neighborhood called Grand Pointe, so we headed there first. It was only a mile outside of the business district – exactly where we wanted. Arla and I looked at every house we could. I found two homes that I thought fit what we were looking for in our new home. When Amy walked into the one at 100 Shadow Springs Drive, she knew instantly this was the one.

The house overlooks a beautiful pond (they call it a lake, but, folks, it's not Watauga), and it has a wonderful courtyard surrounded by a brick and iron fence. Sadie loves her freedom in this outdoor space!

The home is just beautiful, and we've slowly made it our own.

But the seller had lots of interest in the home, which is a replica of his own home. It was even featured as the cover story of a local magazine. So if we didn't come through, someone was bound to snap it up quickly.

The timeline was so tight.

The closing on our house in Tennessee was Friday, March 8, and the closing here in Lafayette was Monday, March 11. Amy had her condo only until Thursday, March 14.

Buying a house is complicated today with all the added attention on banks following the disastrous previous two years, so any little thing could put a terrible delay in place. We were a nervous wreck. Everything had to go smoothly for everything to go as planned in Lafayette.

And, thankfully, everything went like clockwork. As my mother says, it's like it was meant to be.

After signing the paperwork for the sale of our Erwin home, Amy and I drove back to 105 Old Farm Road and met Amy's family and my family for a last look and a photo at what had been our home since February 2000. And then it was time for us to go.

With Sadie in the back seat, Amy and I sat out for the two-day drive to Louisiana. We stopped at the Vesuvius tower at Second Street and sat for just a moment and held hands. I had always thought if I ever left Erwin, I'd put on the song "Casey" by Darren Hayes, so we sat there, tears rolling down both our faces, looking at downtown Erwin and playing that song on my iPhone.

From the speakers, Darren sang, "When you go, can you come and find me?/ I wanna be beside you when you leave this town/ I'll be waving goodbye pretending not to cry."

As the song ended, I said, "Let's go." Amy squeezed my hand and said, "OK."

We switched on the radio and things really came together. The next two songs told us we were on the right path. Amy's favorite pop group is Bon Jovi, and my favorite group is Eurythmics.

The first song that came on the radio was Bon Jovi's "(You Want To) Make a Memory," with Jon Bon Jovi singing, "If you go now, I'll understand/ If you stay, hey, I got a  plan/ You wanna make a memory/ You could sing a melody to me/ And I could write a couple lines/ You wanna make a memory."

It was immediately followed by Eurythmics' iconic "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)," with Annie Lennox singing, "Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree?"

Amy and I looked at each other and laughed.

There have been all sorts of signs since we arrived – people we've met, experiences we've had – that has reaffirmed that we've made the right decision.

Why, only this morning, there was another affirmation that everything is playing out just right, but that's a story for another time. I'll give you a little hint, though. All that newspaper ink that's stained my fingertips for 20 some years now, well you know what? It just won't come off.

Picture perfect

As we continue to make our new home our own, the final touches are the pieces of art all around the house.

I love that our home is full of prints and original artwork from artists from Erwin, Tenn., to Beaufort, S.C., to Florida. Artwork in our home in Lafayette reflects our love of the mountains of Northeast Tennessee and the marshes and beaches of South Carolina.

Our love of egrets and herons also are featured prominently

Featured artists from Beaufort, S.C., include Barbara Shipman and Nancy Rhett. Florida's Art LaMay is a major addition to our walls, too.

From Erwin, Martha Shull Erwin and Mary K. Brown's original artwork brings me back home to the mountains. Mary K.'s beautiful mountain picture was a gift when I left Erwin. It's so beautiful. I have two of Martha's originals -- a stunning photo of mourning doves and a portrait of me and my dog, Sadie.

We also have a beautiful painting by Jim Gray from Gatlinburg, too.

While it's not a painting, David Ramsey's extraordinary photography of Rocky Fork also brings me home to Unicoi County.

The art we love tells a lot about us. I also consider myself very lucky to have met many of the artists who are featured in my home. I am especially lucky to call some of them my very good friends, too. I am in awe of their talents.

Flutter to the skies

Before Amy and I flew home together Sunday, March 6, to spend our final days in Tennessee before making the final move to Lafayette March 11, I had a moment of clarity.

I spent most days at our apartment while Amy was at work. My car was in Tennessee, so I had no real way to go about town other than when our realtor, Arla, would so graciously take me out to lunch.

There was, however, a large movie theater up the street, so on Thursday, March 3, I decided to go see a movie, "The King's Speech," which was fantastic and certainly worthy of the Best Picture Oscar it received.

For the walk, I popped my headphones in and took off in the afternoon for a solo outing at the theater. I listened to a song called "Butterfly Butterfly (The Last Hurrah)" by a-ha, one of my favorite bands of all time. "Butterfly" had only recently been released, and the song is the only new track on a-ha's latest greatest hits compilation, created to mark a-ha's 25th anniversary and the band's retirement.

It was a bright, sunny day, but there was a great breeze. After the movie as I walked back to the apartment, I once again set off listening to "Butterfly" with Morten Harket singing, "Butterfly, butterfly, flying into the wind, you can be sure of it, that's no place to begin, overthinking every little thing, acknowledge the bell you can't unring."

Morten Harket's melancholy voice always draws me into some other dimension. I found some new connection, though, between a-ha's "last hurrah" and my final days in Tennessee, where I would say goodbye to Unicoi County and The Erwin Record.

I could see a group of birds on the power lines up ahead – the sporadic remains of winter's massive flocks of starlings, no doubt, but closer to me were two birds separated from the flock. They fluttered and danced about, and I got this wonderful feeling that it was a sign about me and Amy and our move to a city where we knew not a single soul and where we would begin our life anew. I paused and watched those little birds for a moment. Was their song for me?

"You don't have to turn something in, stay with it through thick and thin," Morten continued to sing in my ears. "Butterfly, begin. Butterfly, butterfly. Tomorrow there will come a time in the morning, you will find a way to begin."

It had been hard for me to make the move. I was the one who said, "Let's do it!" -- even though I didn't know if I could. Could I leave everyone I know and love behind? Could I leave behind the newspaper that I loved so much?

Listening to Morten sing and watching those birds dance on that wire, I suddenly had a calm and wonderful feeling. I could spread my wings and find a new home in Lafayette. Here Amy and I would start a new life, one that could be more exciting and adventurous and beautiful than we ever imagined.

"Tomorrow, there will be a sign from within ... Butterfly, butterfly."

Raising Cane here in Louisiana

Some folks thought I was all about "raising Cain" in Tennessee, but let me assure you I've been doing a little bit of that here in Louisiana, too.

Actually, I've been checking out Raising Cane's a lot here in Lafayette. Let me explain ...

Lafayette has so many wonderful place to eat, and I've been trying as many as possible. I have not, unfortunately, made it to the gym as much as I've gone through the drive-thru at the wonderful Raising Cane's. There's a gym located right beside our new neighborhood, but I haven't had time to work out. Too many boxes to unpack.

But I have made it Raising Cane's several times. Raising Cane's specializes in one thing – chicken fingers, and they are delicious. I love the story behind the restaurant, too. The owners raised the money to open their first eatery in Baton Rouge by making their way to Alaska and fishing for salmon. The original idea was to name the restaurant Sockeyes (as in the salmon), but friends convinced owners to name the restaurant something else. So it ended up being named after the one of the owner's yellow lab, Raising Cane. The current mascot is Raising Cane II, and photos of both dogs are featured prominently in all the restaurants.

A good restaurant and a good dog. Who can beat that combination?

In just a few short years, the restaurant has expanded to more than 80 locations in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Colorado, Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma, Nevada, Alabama, Virginia, Kentucky, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Nebraska. Sorry, Tennesseans, ther are no Raising Cane's in Tennessee yet -- I suggest you start a petition!!!

It's just that good. Trust me.

They call me Mr. Mark

The folks in Lafayette have a very interesting thing they do. Yes, they eat crawfish. That's not interesting. That's crazy.

No I'm talking about how they talk. Or, better put, how they address one another. Maybe they do this elsewhere in Louisiana. I don't know. I haven't been anywhere else in Louisiana, so I can't really say.

But in Lafayette, folks are addressed in a strange formal/non-formal way.

For example, when someone speaks to me who knows my name, I am referred to as Mr. Mark. Not Mark. Not Mr. Stevens. But Mr. Mark.

Likewise, Amy is called Miss Amy.

It's Mr. Mark and Miss Amy.

I didn't really notice it at first. I just thought it was something our local realtor, the wonderful Arla Slaughter, did.

"Mr. Mark," Arla would say, "how are you and Miss Amy today?"

It's different than in Tennessee, where people, including me, were more apt to say, "Hey you!"

Amy and I left for Louisiana one week ago, on a very long drive with our dog, Sadie. During the trip, I turned to the back seat and said, "How ya doing, Miss Sadie?"

"We haven't even arrived in Lafayette," Amy said, "and you've already started to talk like them."

"Well," I said, "we need to embrace a little of the culture. Maybe if we call folks Mr. and Miss, we can avoid eating crawfish or speaking French. Besides, I like how it sounds. Miss Sadie, it is."

Oh, Pooh! Oh, dear!

I know I promised to write a blog about my new life in Louisiana, but I haven't found a new life. Only boxes. Lots and lots of boxes. 224 boxes, to be exact. It would be a stretch to say I've even made it through half of them.

Here's a tip for anyone who's moving, throw things away before you move. Hired movers pack everything, and I mean everything. You know when you go through a fast-food drive-through and you end up with extra salt packets, plastic forks and such. Well, like a lot of people, we'd toss them in one of the many "junk" drawers in the kitchen, cause, well, you know, you might someday need a small amount of salt and a Spork. You. Never. Know. Well, hired movers are diligent. You paid them a lot of money to move the contents of your house – and, in my case, my car, too – from one city to another. So ... they pack everything. I opened a box and the top was full of all those items from the junk drawers, all neatly packed in mounds and mounds of paper. For every handful the mover took out of a drawer, he wrapped it in paper and stuffed it in a box. A handful of thumb tacks. A handful of coupons that expired in 2006. A handful of coins from Canada. A handful of pens taken from every hotel I've ever stayed in. (Note to self: Stop taking all those pens. You have enough pens.) Handfuls of Sporks. Handfuls of salt and pepper packs.

Our two-car garage is full of boxes. Most of one side has been left clear for opened boxes. It's getting very crowded, and I've made little pathways through the other side. The stacks of boxes are taller than I am, so I feel very much like a rat in a maze. Thank goodness I don't feel like it's one of those Halloween corn mazes. So far the scariest thing to jump out from the maze has been one of the million mayflies that have hatched in the Louisiana spring.

All day yesterday I opened boxes, carried boxes and wheeled boxes on my shiny new hand truck, purchased for only $39 from the local U-Haul store. I found most of the kitchen items. I found the box where the mover packed my unopened bag of potato chips from Which Wich in Johnson City. I ate them. I don't know where we had all these kitchen items in Tennessee. I never knew we had a fondue. But we due. I mean, do.

At the same time, we had a guy here setting up the TVs and entertainment system. We had a guy here setting up the land phone. We had a guy here setting up the Internet. We had a guy here setting up the home security system. And I opened one box after another.

By the end of the day I was exhausted and overwhelmed. I was either surrounded by boxes. Or paper. Or small kitchen appliances. When the security guy arrived, I opened the door and said, "Welcome to chaos!" He spoke in a very heavy cajun accent. I spoke in my Northeast Tennessee accent. He either didn't get my sense of humor or didn't understand a word I was saying. Or both. Either way, chaos ensued.

Despite the chaotic day, it had all gone fairly well until I had what one would describe as a mini melt down. And not in the good way that you have a melt down when you have a party featuring your newly found fondue pot.

It was fairly late in the day, and I had seen enough kitchen items and Sporks to last me a lifetime. I found a box marked Small Lamp, Lamp Shade. So I said to myself, "Oh, here, is the lamp for the nightstand for the master bedroom. I'll open it." (Note: I have found that talking to yourself, out loud, is a precursor to a melt down.)

The box did not contain the much-needed lamp for our bedroom. It was a Winnie-the-Pooh lamp from our old guest room in Tennessee. We don't have a room here decorated in all things from the Hundred Acre Wood. So I just looked at it. And Christopher Robin. And that silly ol' Pooh bear. And I started to cry.

"Why," I said out loud to myself, "did we even bring this lamp? I'm going to have to pack it up again. It's another box in the garage. I don't have any packing tape. What do I do with this lamp, this Pooh lamp?"

Right about then, Amy called on her way home from work.

"How's it going, baby?" she asked.

"Not well," I sniffled like a baby.

With concern, Amy said, "What's wrong? Are you hurt? Did you fall?"

"No," I said as tears ran down my face as I sat on the front steps of our new house.

"Baby," my wife said, "what's wrong?"

"It's a ... it's a ... it's a ... Pooh lamp."

"I don't understand," Amy said, stuck in traffic and not sure what had brought me to this sad state.

"It's a Pooh lamp," I said. "Don't you understand? It's a Pooh lamp. A stinking Winnie-the-Pooh lamp."

Eeyore, Pooh's sad little donkey friend, had never been as depressed as I was at that very moment, but Amy understood the cause of my mini breakdown. It wasn't about Pooh. Or that lamp. It was about trying to find normalcy in a new space.

"I'll be there in a minute," she said, calming me in the best way she could.

"OK," I said, wiping tears from my face.

Amy arrived, and there inside the house was that open box and that Pooh lamp. But she paid it no attention. She just marveled at all the other open and empty boxes I had discarded on the front porch. She was amazed at all the kitchen shelves I had stocked. And all the work that had been completed. The working television. The working Internet. The installed security system.

"You've done such a great job managing all this," Amy said, and she pulled me close and kissed me. Pooh lamp? What stinking Pooh lamp?

Welcome to my blog

I've been a writer for more than 20 years. I've been a newspaper reporter, editor and publisher. I'm the editor of a cookbook. I'm the author of two books. I've written a weekly newspaper column for many years. But I've never had a blog. I do now, which you know if you're reading this. This is good. We're all on the same page – or blog, I guess.

On March 11, my wife, Amy, and I – along with our dog, Sadie – are moving from Northeast Tennessee to Lafayette, La., where people believe crawfish is a diet staple. I think it's something that lives in a creek and should stay there, but to each his own, you know?

For those of you who have followed my weekly column in The Erwin Record, I invite you to follow me here now, where I'll detail how life shapes up for his in Lafayette.