324 Derby Gisclair, part 1

324. Part 1 of our interview with Derby Gisclair. about the history of sports in New Orleans. Early Baseball in New Orleans: A History of 19th Century Play. New book. In the 19th century it was called "base ball," when the most popular game in New Orleans was written about using two words. Though first considered a game for children, baseball was indeed New Orleans' most popular leisure time pursuit, and by 1859, numerous amateur baseball clubs had been established in the city. Early Baseball in New Orleans: A History of 19th Century Play traces the development of baseball in New Orleans from those earliest recorded games through the end of the 19th century, with a particular focus on the New Orleans Pelicans.

1. This week in Louisiana history. August 4, 1901. Allen Greene school opens in town of Grambling, will later become Grambling State Univ.
2. This week in New Orleans history. August 3, 1975. Superdome Opens. The Superdome held its official dedication ceremonies on August 3, 1975. Jazz musicians Al Hirt and Pete Fountain played for the event. 
   
3. This week in Louisiana.
   August 16-20, 2019
   Shrimp Festival
   319 E. Main St.
   Delcambre, LA
   The Delcambre Shrimp Festival is home to one of the best 5-day festivals in South Louisiana. The festival has gained it's popularity by providing a variety of delicious dishes and top notch entertainment including National Recording Artists. Enjoy signature shrimp dishes like boiled shrimp, fried shrimp, shrimp sauce piquante, shrimp salad and many more. Each and every shrimp dish consumed at the festival is prepared by volunteer members of the festival association.
4. Postcards from Louisiana. Blueberry Hill

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323. Nancy Tregre Wilson

323. We talk to Nancy Tregre Wilson, author of Mémère’s Country Creole Cookbook: Recipes and Memories from Louisiana's German Coast (The Southern Table). Louisiana's Italians, Food, Recipes and Folkways. Mam Papaul's country Creole basket; Creole recipes from the Cote des Allemands up the river from New Orleans. Mémère’s Country Creole Cookbook showcases regional dishes and cooking styles associated with the “German Coast,” a part of southeastern Louisiana located along the Mississippi River north of New Orleans. This rural community, originally settled by German and French immigrants, produced a vibrant cuisine comprised of classic New Orleans Creole dishes that also feature rustic Cajun flavors and ingredients.A native and longtime resident of the German Coast, Nancy Tregre Wilson focuses on foods she learned to cook in the kitchens of her great-grandmother (Mémère), her Cajun French grandmother (Mam Papaul), and her own mother.

1. This week in Louisiana history. July 27, 2013. Former Rep. Lindy Boggs, a plantation-born Louisianian after succeeding her late husband in the House, died, she was 97.
2. This week in New Orleans history. July 27, 2012. Hubig's Pie Fire. Simon Hubig was born in Spain's Basque Country and immigrated to the United States after serving in World War I. He founded the Simon Hubig Pie Company in Fort Worth, Texas in 1922, capitalizing on baking skills he learned at his mother's bakery. In subsequent years, the company expanded to nine locations throughout the Southeastern United States and opened its New Orleans location in 1922. During the Great Depression, all of the locations were forced to close except the New Orleans bakery, which remained profitable. Little changed in the production of Hubig's pies since the pies were first produced. On July 27, 2012 a fire broke out at Hubig's Pie facility. Flames were seen coming from the front of the building about 4:30 a.m. The fire grew to five alarms, engulfing the old factory. A little more than an hour after the first firefighters arrived, the facade of the building crumbled. No one was hurt, but the facility was a total loss.
   
3. This week in Louisiana.
   August 2-4, 2019
   Satchmo Summerfest
   Jazz Museum at the Mint
   New Orleans, LA
   Satchmo SummerFest (also known as Satchmofest) is an annual music festival held in New Orleans, Louisiana, in celebration of the jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong. It is held in early August in order to coincide with August 4, Armstrong's birthday. Traditionally it is held on the grounds of the old New Orleans Mint, now part of the Louisiana State Museum. It has multiple stages, including stages for traditional and contemporary jazz, big-band jazz, and a children's stage for up-and-coming jazz musicians. In his book New Atlantis, John Swenson said that it "never fails to be one of the most joyous and characteristically New Orleans festivals of the year."
   
4. Postcards from Louisiana. Plessy and Ferguson meeting.

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322. Linda Duff Niemeir, part 2

322. Part 2 of our interview with Linda Duff Niemeir, co-author with her mother of Sharecropping in North Louisiana: A Family's Struggle Through the Great Depression. A family's history lives and dies according to the dedication of its storyteller. Author Lillian Laird Duff is one such historian, and with the encouragement and help of her daughter Linda Duff Niemeir, the stories of this sharecroppers daughter will spark in readers the desire to keep their own family histories alive. Sharecropping in North Louisiana is the true story of the hardship Lillian's family faced during the Great Depression and World War II. The word-pictures Lillian paints are vivid and will bring to life for readers a time when people were forced to get by with what they had. It will also leave readers hungry for a home-cooked meal, as Lillian recalls food preparation on the farm with such richness and delight that you can almost smell the smoked pork and taste the homemade ice cream and butter. Join Linda in listening to her mothers stories once more.

1. This week in Louisiana history. July 19, 1799. Interim governor Nicholas Vidal takes command of Louisiana.
2. This week in New Orleans history. Orthopedic surgeon and cancer researcher Dr. Mary Stults Sherman was murdered in New Orleans on July 21, 1964 at her home in this apartment house at 3101 St. Charles Avenue. Sherman was found dead in her apartment on St. Charles Avenue. She had been stabbed and burned. Her murder is listed as unsolved.
   
3. This week in Louisiana.
   August 29 - September 2, 2019, 8:00 am - 11:00 pm
   84^th Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum Festival
   715 2^nd St.
   Morgan City, LA 70380
   Tap your toes & tempt your tastebuds at Louisiana's oldest state-chartered harvest festival. The four-day extravaganza of family entertainment includes continuous live music by local & national acts, a huge arts & crafts show and sale, a Childrens Village, the Cajun Culinary Classic, the traditional Blessing of the Fleet and water parade . . . all with no gate fee!
   
4. Postcards from Louisiana. The Super Band plays on Royal St.

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321. Linda Duff Niemeir, part 1.

321. Part 1 of our interview with Linda Duff Niemeir, co-author with her mother of Sharecropping in North Louisiana: A Family's Struggle Through the Great Depression. A family's history lives and dies according to the dedication of its storyteller. Author Lillian Laird Duff is one such historian, and with the encouragement and help of her daughter Linda Duff Niemeir, the stories of this sharecroppers daughter will spark in readers the desire to keep their own family histories alive. Sharecropping in North Louisiana is the true story of the hardship Lillian's family faced during the Great Depression and World War II. The word-pictures Lillian paints are vivid and will bring to life for readers a time when people were forced to get by with what they had. It will also leave readers hungry for a home-cooked meal, as Lillian recalls food preparation on the farm with such richness and delight that you can almost smell the smoked pork and taste the homemade ice cream and butter. Join Linda in listening to her mothers stories once more.

1. This week in Louisiana history. July 14, 1937. First piling driven for N.O. Charity Hospital.
2. This week in New Orleans history. The Louisiana Superdome hosted the Rolling Stones, during their 1978 World Tour, on Thursday, July 13, 1978. General Admission tickets sold for $12.50. Van Halen opened the show, followed by the Doobie Brothers, then the Stones.
   
3. This week in Louisiana.
   July 26-27, 2019
   40^th Annual Natchitoches Folk Festival
   Prather Coliseum
   Northwestern State University
   220 S. Jefferson St.
   Natchitoches, LA 71497
   318-357-4332
   
4. Postcards from Louisiana. A trio plays on Decatur St.
   

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320. Gary L. Dyson

320. Our interview with Gary L. Dyson author of A Civil War Correspondent in New Orleans. This book publishes the journals of Albert Gaius Hills of the Boston Journal. The journal explores the eyewitness account of Boston Journal War Correspondent Albert Gaius Hills from the day he left Boston Harbor in November 1861 through the New Orleans Campaign of 1862. Hills recorded his observations while with the Union fleet in the Gulf of Mexico and on Ship Island as well as his account of the bombardments of Forts Jackson and St. Philip and impression of captured New Orleans.

1. This week in Louisiana history. July 7, 1912. Grabow 'Lumber War' shootout takes place near DeRidder, 3 killed, 37 wounded.
2. This week in New Orleans history. Storyville established on July 6, 1897 in an attempt by the New Orleans City Council to control prostitution. It limited the vice to a 38-block district on the edge of the French Quarter.
   
3. This week in Louisiana.
   July 6, 2019, 10:00 am - 10:00 pm
   Lebeau Zydeco Festival
   Immaculate Conception Church
   103 Lebeau Church Road
   Lebeau, LA 71345
   It’s all zydeco music, all day long at the Lebeau Zydeco Festival. From the place that gave us zydeco hits like, “Don’t Mess With My Toot Toot” comes an annual celebration of the genre and its roots in the Creole community. Located on the grounds of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Lebeau, this festival was made for the fans, featuring the most popular zydeco music bands in South Louisiana. Bring a dancing partner, maybe a lawn chair, and an appetite. The festival is famous for its pork backbone dinners!
   Admission $12.00. Children 11 and under get in free.
   
4. Postcards from Louisiana. Poet for hire Hannah Thompson writes a poem for the Louisiana Anthology on Royal St.

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319. Bryan Wagner. The Tar Baby.

319. We interview Bryan Wagner about his recent book, The Tar Baby: A Global History. Louisianans may be familiar with Compair Lapin, the tricky rabbit of Louisiana Creole folk tales. Perhaps the best-known version of the tar baby story was published in 1880 by Joel Chandler Harris in Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, and popularized in Song of the South, the 1946 Disney movie. Other versions of the story, however, have surfaced in many other places throughout the world, including Nigeria, Brazil, Corsica, Jamaica, India, and the Philippines. The Tar Baby offers a fresh analysis of this deceptively simple story about a fox, a rabbit, and a doll made of tar and turpentine, tracing its history and its connections to slavery, colonialism, and global trade. Bryan Wagner explores how the tar baby story, thought to have originated in Africa, came to exist in hundreds of forms on five continents. Examining its variation, reception, and dispersal over time, he argues that the story is best understood not merely as a folktale but as a collective work in political philosophy. Circulating at the same time and in the same places as new ideas about property and politics developed in colonial law and political economy, the tar baby comes to embody an understanding of the interlocking processes by which custom was criminalized, slaves were captured, and labor was bought and sold.

1. This week in Louisiana history. June 30, 1870. Robert E. Lee and the Natchez began their famous riverboat race.
2. This week in New Orleans history. June 29, 1967. Jane Mansfield Dies in Auto Crash on Chef Hwy. Along the Chef Menteur Highway/Hwy 90 near the Rigolets pass, at approximately 2:25 a.m., the car plowed into the back of a tractor-trailer truck which had reduced its speed from 50 to 35 miles-per-hour upon sighting a mosquito fogging truck. Husband Harrison, Jayne, and their son Brady were killed.
   
3. This week in Louisiana.
   July 4-7, 2019
   Essence Festival 25
   Superdome and other locations
   New Orleans, LA
   The Essence Festival, known as "the party with a purpose", is an annual music festival which started in 1995 as a one-time event to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Essence, a magazine aimed primarily towards African-American women. It is the largest event celebrating African-American culture and music in the United States. Locally referred to as the Essence Fest, it has been held in New Orleans, Louisiana since 1994 except for 2006, when it was held in Houston, Texas due to Hurricane Katrina's effect on New Orleans. It was also held in Durban, South Africa in 2016. It features artists simultaneously performing on a main stage as well as four standing-room only superlounge stages.
   
4. Postcards from Louisiana. Hillary and the Boys play on Decatur St.

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318. Nick Douglas, part 2

318. Part 2 of our interview with Nick Douglas, author of Finding Octave. With a flash of recognition, the author meets the gaze of his ancestor in a sepia-toned photo. Knowing next to nothing about this man, his great-great-grandfather Octave, he follows two families that lead to his own. On a journey stretching from Haiti to India, and back to the 16th century, the author's adventures strangely echo those of his ancestors. Finding Octave finds an America where "free people of color"-unfettered blacks, Indians and Creoles-had power and wealth that whites struggled to claim as their own. In this pre-Civil War America, blacks negotiated their own freedom from slavery. Some chose to be slaveholders themselves. Confronting the terrible truth about slavery within his family, the author uncovers an American secret.

1. This week in Louisiana history. June 22, 1983. Louisiana repeals last racial classification laws.
2. This week in New Orleans history. June 22, 1947. Pistol Pete Maravich is Born.
   
3. This week in Louisiana.
   June 28-29, 2019
   Beauregard Watermelon Festival
   Louisiana Fun, Sugartown Sweet
   313 W. 1st St.
   DeRidder, LA 70634
   (337) 463-5534
   Friday 4 pm - 12 am
   Saturday 10 am - 12 am
   Watermelon carving, seed spitting and eating contest, biggest watermelon contest, frozen t-shirt contest, watermelon pageant.
   
4. Postcards from Louisiana. Bruce interviews Anonymous for the Voiceless in Jackson Square. They're an animal rights group.

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