Smiley Anders for July 27, 2012

Dudley Lehew says C. Ward Bond’s “10 reasons for living in Baton Rouge” led him to list “my top 10 reasons to move from Baton Rouge to Denham Springs:

“10. Daily sightings of soaring eagles and happy dogs.

“9. Enjoying fireworks without breaking the law — and making money selling them to Baton Rougeans.

“8. Listening to Garth, Reba and other country and western music while shopping at Wal-Mart.

“7. Strangers stopping, helping you change a flat tire — and then inviting you to attend their church.

“6. You can hold a family reunion at Bass Pro and see fish the size of the ones you claim you caught.

“5. When trying to decide what to wear, something in camo always works!

“4. Lotsa pickup trucks in funeral processions.

“3. A leisurely float down the Amite River in a tube while sipping a root beer.

“2. No annual invasion of nutty legislators.

“And my No. 1 reason:

“No 10-12 split.”

Censor at work

Gerald says, “What’s all this talk about bacon in your column? My wife, Mimi, told me 20 years ago that they stopped making bacon.”

Which reminds me

Back in the ’80s a Catholic church in White Castle, for a benefit, invited me to cook a favorite dish to sell at a food festival to benefit the church.

I was in something of a quandary, because many of the others invited were real chefs, and I was strictly an amateur.

I was living in New Roads at the time, and decided to try my hand at fried pig tails, popular snacks sold in local stands.

I got a case of tails from a grocer, oil to start them frying, a quantity of Tony Chachere’s seasoning and a case of beer (to par-boil them in, of course).

With the help of a couple of New Roads ladies, I fried the beer-boiled tails in a cast iron pot, rolled them in Tony’s and sold them for a buck or so from my little stand at the festival.

Fried pig tails are something like cracklings on a stick, and not especially healthy.

Guys would come by with their wives and look longingly at the pig tails, sometimes remarking about how they remembered that delicacy from their earlier days.

Then the wives would take them by the arm and hustle them away from my stand.

But later, when the wives were busy elsewhere, the husbands would come back alone and purchase a pig tail.

I sold my entire stock of 50 tails, many of them this way.

Thank-you notes

Loraine Bruner says, “I want to thank the men who fixed the problem of standing water on Goodwood near Broadmoor High. It was a problem every rain we had.”

Looking for stuff

Karen Watts says, “The Livingston Activity Center, a nonprofit organization which provides jobs for adults with mental disabilities, is collecting Mardi Gras beads.

“The beads will be sorted and repackaged for sale beginning next year.

“Beads can be dropped off at the center, 10494 Florida Blvd. in Walker.”

Call [phone] or [phone].

Special People Dept.

• Ola King, of St. Clare Manor, celebrates her 99th birthday Sunday.
• Lorene Williams, of Hammond, celebrates her 98th birthday Saturday.
• Helen B. Fairchild, of Greenwell Springs, celebrates her 97th birthday Friday.
• Rena “Mama” Day, of Chipola/Greensburg, celebrated her 96th birthday July 19.
• Julia Arnold, of Harvest Manor Nursing Home in Denham Springs, celebrates her 94th birthday Saturday.
• Verlee and Joe Guilbeau, of Plaquemine, celebrate 61 years of marriage Saturday.
• Lester and Rita Strate celebrate their 61st anniversary Saturday.
• Dorothy and Lester Jay, of New Iberia, celebrate 61 years of marriage Saturday.
• Edward Farrel May and Linda Fugler May, of Denham Springs, celebrate their 50th anniversary Friday.

A damp shame

It seems Haskell Douglas can’t get any respect for his feat of swimming across False River to celebrate his 70th birthday.

Dickie Rembert says, “Reading about Haskell’s voyage across False River — I didn’t know they had floaties for seniors …”

Crash course

Lane Carroll tells of meeting “Mayhem,” the guy in those Allstate insurance commercials:

“Recently a car in the center lane decided to make a right turn in front of me.

“Unable to stop and avoid an accident, I hit it.

“I crawled over the console and exited my car from the passenger side, and asked the young man what in the world was he trying to do.

“He said, ‘My GPS told me to turn right,’ to which I replied, ‘Your GPS doesn’t know you are not in the turn lane.’

“I told him I didn’t use my GPS, I used my brain.

“And yep, he had Allstate …”

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.