Belle Perdue
"Miss Lettie, you remember those old owls?" "Lord, Zora. You could be talking about 100 upside down things. Care to whittle that number down?" "You know Miss Lettie, those ones you'd hang." "Zora, all you did was eliminate the barn owls.
Belle Perdue
Miss Lettie was halfway across Main Street, scooter humming like a church fan in August, when she spotted Jaymes on the sidewalk waving at her. Not a normal wave. One of those big, whole-arm, side-to-side greetings that makes you wonder if he's flagging down a rescue helicopter. She
Honey, the world your parents knew, the one I knew, that's a ghost. But that does not mean everything is lost. It just means the soil is ripe for replanting. And right now, it is your turn to decide what grows. I see so many of you stepping
-The Archivist It was biting fly season. Not the worst of it, but enough that Miss Lettie had covered everything from ankle to wrist before stepping out. That’s how a cuff button popped off as she rolled into Fanny and Fran’s Florist on a Tuesday morning when the
Belle Perdue
The Archivist Got in a Zone The back room of the Belle Perdue Public Library smells like old paper and mild regret. Banker's boxes, shoe boxes, a hatbox from 1937 my mother would have called a perfectly good box, so I am saving it. Wedged behind it, sideways,
Belle Perdue
On Easter in Belle Perdue, where the live oaks lean low, and the Dog River moves with a warm, muddy flow, the big pots come out and the propane flames sing, and the smell of cayenne touches everything. The crawfish go in by the bagful and pound, and the boil
Belle Perdue
Report from the Lebeau House, Filed with the Dog River Café at Approximately 7:15 a.m. the Following Morning By Earl Tinsley, Civic Poet Laureate (Self-Declared), Former Municipal Court Stenographer, Belle Perdue Parish I write in the tradition of one Doesticks P.B., Mortimer Thomson, a New York humorist
Belle Perdue
Zora was pedaling her bike lazily up and down Main Street dodging puddles from the afternoon rain shower…looking deep in thought but light as a feather. Martha had been watching her from the grocer window. Zora was usually hard at work on a project or two, so seeing her
Ever been driving down a long country road with houses splattered here and there? Almost all them old houses planted trees around the place as a windbreak. But if you look a little closer, you’ll notice something. Just about every one of those houses has a tree that looks
Belle Perdue
A Belle Perdue account Betty Anne didn’t mean to start anything. A few years back she threw a honeydew at the back fence. It had gone soft in the middle, and she figured the ants would take care of it quicker than the garbage man would. So she stepped
Belle Perdue
As overheard between Fran and Fanny Fern while preparing the Easter gazebo Fran was standing on a step stool tying a ribbon of wisteria around the corner beam of the gazebo when she said it. “You know our archivist, Denise, is building arches now.” Fanny Fern paused with a basket
Belle Perdue
(as overheard at the gazebo one Friday evening, just before the micro play started) Zora Babtiste had been setting up her CB radio do-dads for the evening's broadcast when she spotted Joe Fontenot on the gazebo steps, stroking his beard and mumbling lines to himself. The sun was