Baja St. Martin

Isn’t this cool weather heavenly? I love it. My husband hates it. He’s already hunkered over a heater, but I think it’s wonderful.
It also gave me an excuse to clean out closets and fill a bunch of bags for the recycling bins. As I hauled out clothes I forced myself to keep saying, “If you haven’t worn it in a year, get rid of it,” but that’s still so hard to do. My problem is I haven’t appreciably changed in size in 20 years, so I don’t outgrow things and I usually don’t wear them out. My frugal instincts (or would you just call them penny-pinching?) make me keep things I can still wear even if I don’t.
Anyway, I took five bags of things to the ARC recycle bins and you know that in a short time I’ll start looking for something, wondering what on earth I did with that shirt/jacket/blouse! Oh well, it’s done now. At least I have an excuse to buy something new.
Belle River is quiet these days. I don’t hear much shooting, haven’t heard any stories of fantastic hunts, fortunately haven’t seen any lost deer dogs (or whatever season it is). Even Belle River is cleaner. The vegetation has been blown south and as yet hasn’t piled up by the bridge.
I did attend a terrific concert in Morgan City. “Let’s Hang On” was a tribute to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. I never was a pop music fan back in the ’60s but these guys were wonderful. One and sometimes two at times sang in that high pitched falsetto range and he/they were super. A friend told me they’d be considered counter tenors if they were classical singers and I’m pretty sure there was a name for men who sang (thanks to a bit of surgery?) in high tenor voices during the Middle Ages. The night of this concert it rained very hard but the audience was respectable in size, regardless.
I’m heading to San Diego next week for a long weekend with my youngest daughter and her husband. It’s been too long since we’ve seen one another. I was reading a book by Hampton Sides recently called “Americana” and one of the short stories was about the Birdman or Tony Hawks, the skateboard king who, it turns out was raised in the same town where my daughter lives. She wasn’t there when Hawks was a kid, but just goes to show you what a small world it is.
Speaking of small worlds, this Ebola thing is pretty scary, don’t you agree? I’ve read that Ebola has been around in Africa for 40 or more years – a case here, one there – but wonder why it’s reaching epidemic proportions only now. Maybe because so many African people are living in crowded, unsanitary cities? Now I hear that the latest victim flew to Dallas from Cleveland a day before she was diagnosed, so there are a whole bunch more pretty nervous people in Ohio.
My outbound California flight is non-stop but the return one stops in Houston. I’m not worried about Ebola but am a bit concerned about new security measures which might slow things up. One good thing! I have now reached the age when you don’t have to remove your shoes going through security. Isn’t that funny? The last time I flew, a little girl in line behind me didn’t take her shoes off and I asked why. She said if very primly and serious, “If you’re under 6 or over 75 you don’t have to.” I checked. She was right. I guess you know which one I am?

Teche News’ Lower St. Martin correspondent, Linda Cooke, can be emailed at lcooke9417@bellsouth.net.