Although I now reside in Plaquemine, Iberville Parish,
for the first 40 years of my life I lived in Lafourche Parish, below Intracoastal
otherwise known as "Down the bayou".
This term consisted of a few small towns that run in to each other
and you are not really sure where one begins and the other ends.
Plaquemine is quite similar to this, with one exception,
there is no bayou running between the two highways of 1 and 308.
It was a great place to grow up and to raise my children.
Like all small towns, almost everyone knows each other and
gossip can run rapid. Yet let someone in the community get sick or
pass away and prayers and help come from the whole bayou.
Growing up in Golden Meadow was a great place to be a kid.
Everything a kid wanted was in walking distance of my home.
The things I could not walk to came to me in the way of
our hometown newspaper, The Lafourche Gazette.
A free newspaper that was thrown in your driveway once a week back in the 1970's.
How I waited for this newspaper! Always being a big reader,
I knew this paper would give me all the information I would need
to fill me in on the happenings of our bayou.
Yes, it also included some local gossip, making it popular as
when someone had a loose tongue it was said that they could
"work for the Lafourche Gazette"
It told of new businesses opening, where the best sales were,
who had died and what was for sale. Classified section was usually
less than a page but there you could find a job, see who was achieving
awards at their schools. There were tributes to family members who had passed
and "letters to the editor".
I loved letters to the editor and have been known to put my thoughts in
a few publications of the "throw away paper" as my family called the small
bundle of information. Even when I left the bayou at 40 to move
to the big town of Thibodaux I received the Gazette as you could have it mailed
to you if you ever "crossed the Intracoastal" and moved up North.
Then, the World Wide Web happened. Electronics became the way
of life for most of the world and our bayou followed the trend,
albeit a tad slower than the rest of the world.
Enter Casey Gisclair. A young man at this time, he grew up when
the WWW was becoming a thing. He became an editor for
our little newspaper and incorporated it to the digital world.
Once most of us had found Facebook, we realized that we could
now continue our walk with our beloved Gazette thanks to Casey.
On any given day you can, from Facebook, go to
Bayou memories, Lafourche Gazette, Casey Gisclair and find there
some of his work. Whether it be his Weekend Warriors, Player of the Week,
or my favorite online thread, Back in the Day, you will find
his work to be that of wonderful work ethics and pride in
the community so many of us call home.
Being the child of Freddie Collins who was a professional photographer
back before taking a photo was as easy as picking up your phone,
When I see a photo my Dad took my heart skips a beat.
When Casey showcases a certain date, I go back to see what was
happening down the bayou on that said day.
I am honored to be a part of not only our DTB family
but to speak highly of Casey and our little "Throw away paper"
that has survived through the decades.
It's a way of living that I like to call "cheers years"
"Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name,
and they always glad you came..."
Thank you Casey for making this possible.
Thank you Lafourche Gazette for continuing the legacy so many of us
depend upon.
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