Smiley Anders for June 30, 2012

Dear Smiley: I’m a 67-year-old Mandeville resident, originally from St. Bernard Parish.

I delivered the New Orleans Item back in the ’50s, and have been reading the Time-Picayune since I was old enough to care what was in the newspaper — probably around the age of 16 or so.

Now, as an adult, I do the same thing my father did before me — pick up the paper around daybreak and read it from cover to cover over a few cups of coffee.

All of a sudden we learn that in September the T-P will drop its delivery schedule down to three days a week.

When I was at LSU in the mid ’60s, I read the Morning Advocate, and liked it much better than the T-P.

I wished then it would be published in the New Orleans area, but would include our local news, sports and obits.

I may be whistling in the wind, but I think it would be great if The Advocate became the new New Orleans daily.

A day without a daily newspaper is a bad start to a day for me and many like me.

The New Orleans Morning Advocate. The response to that idea around here might surprise you.

ROLAND RUSICH

Mandeville

Dear Roland: It may surprise you — I know it surprises ME — but I’m not consulted by the newspaper management on such matters. However, I’ll pass along your suggestion, and your kind words about us.

Tweety meets Sylvester

Dear Smiley: Our canary spends his days on the porch and his nights covered with a blanket in the dining room.

One morning when I approached his cage to uncover him, he meowed.

I called my sister and said, “The canary meowed!”

I was ready to call David Letterman to get him on ‘stupid pet tricks.’

When I uncovered the cage my sister’s cat, Sweet Pea, was under the blanket also.

I guess the cat thought the canary needed company.

Can you give canaries Valium? He was a little agitated. …

FAYE HOFFMAN TALBOT

Jackson

Just like Grandpa

Dear Smiley: Ernie Wall, the Kentwood Flash (so named by Bud Montet), ran track for LSU in the late ’50s.

He won the half-mile in the state meet all four of his high school years.

He came to LSU as a half-miler and quarter-miler and ran on the relay teams.

Ernie, the team captain, won the SEC meet in the half-mile.

This past month he saw his grandson Jeremy Wall win the 800 meters (what we called the half-mile) in the regional and parish meet for Sherwood Middle Magnet School — with that same long, smooth stride his grandfather had.

That gave us a really warm feeling in our hearts.

JAN WALL

(Grandmother)

Baton Rouge

Riding the rails

Dear Smiley: In the fall of 1968, all of the Catholic High fans were abuzz when the Bears made it into the second round of the football playoffs.

Someone arranged for train travel from Baton Rouge to Shreveport, as the Orange and Black would face Joe Ferguson and Woodlawn of Shreveport.

If my memory serves me correctly, CHS played Ferguson and the Knights close, losing 14-13.

Extra cars were added on to the KCS Flying Crow from Baton Rouge to Shreveport, and the Southern Belle for the sad return trip home.

On another note, my wife and I took Amtrak from Kansas City to Los Angeles for Christmas 2010, and while much of the charm of passenger train travel I remember from the 1950s is gone, it’s still a great way to see America.

CARL ENNA

Little Rock, Ark.

False alarm wedding

Dear Smiley: As I mentioned to you, I was a member of The Little Church Around the Corner in New York City, so when I got married that is where we had our ceremony.

My future father-in-law was a big shot with the New York Daily News, so he said, “Don’t hire a photographer, I’ll send one of the boys over.”

So we are standing outside this famous church where many Important People have married, and up rolls a car with Daily News printed on the side.

Out jumps a photographer holding one of those big Graflex cameras and a card on his hat that says “News.”

Passersby are asking, “Who is getting married?”

My husband and I are saying, “Nobody. Go away!”

So naturally they followed us into the church.

We had quite a few strangers at our wedding, until they figured out we were not “anybody.”

SARAH STRAVINSKA

Chestnut

Eggs-citing story

Dear Smiley: I saw the woman’s request for a darning egg in a recent column.

I had a darning egg, but the darned thing hatched.

Now I have a darned darning running around, and I don’t have any darned idea what the darned darning might eat.

Darn it.

DALE ULKINS

Baton Rouge

Dear Dale: I think it’s darned past time you had a nice long darned rest. …

Write Smiley at [e-mail]. He can also be reached by fax at [phone] or mail at P.O. Box 588, Baton Rouge, LA 70821.