Even before the fateful Apollo 13 mission, Houston already had a problem. Astronaut Ken Mattingly was exposed to highly contagious rubella. The disease’s time frame might have him incapacitated with illness when his crewmates…
When I need a cavity filled and get that lidocaine shot in the mouth, I break out in a sweat and get faint, nauseated and pale. It's purely in my head, not a medication reaction, ever since anatomy class in medical school. It's…
For Screaming Down The Road Part III, the pandemic lockdown was on. People still vacationed that summer of 2020, mainly driving to remote spots. I highlighted one cousin's solution to avoiding crowds at rest stops: installing a…
I grew up in a small town in New Jersey where friends hunted with fathers, but I don’t remember seeing any pistols around. The county licensed only two people to carry handguns. One had testified against a dangerous criminal, so…
In 2017, in this column, I recounted almost drowning in Grand Isle. I had messed up by drinking a beer before going in and swimming against a strong current but got this important thing right: I had a lifeguard. My friend Dayle…
This week's guest columnists are Drs. Chris Johnson and Traci Bourgeois, Family Practice residents at the University Hospital and Clinics here in Lafayette. When I was three, a fun trip to my grandma's became a trip to the…
When my wife was in college, years before we met, Saturday mornings boys would knock on her door: "Make us a gumbo!" This was in Wyoming where gumbo was rare, and she and her roommate, also from Lafayette, were popular for their…
On December 8, 1990, I got married. It was my first trip to Louisiana, and my staid protestant family met my new loud, fun catholic in-laws. Like the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, my stiff northeasterners got swallowed up in…
In 2014 I reported on a 22 pound cat named Lux who attacked his family. The family's seven-month old baby pulled Lux's tail, so he clawed baby's forehead. Dad kicked the cat, who went ballistic and trapped the parents in a bedroom…
