re: The Good Old Days in Baton Rouge

Not BR area, but Mom and Dad built a house and moved us out in the country when I was 10 and my brother was 8. Didn't go out to eat much so when we did it was a special treat. Went to the Mall in Alex to watch movies. Got in trouble with Mom for "wasting" $5 in the video arcade.

Helped Dad in the garden and work cattle during the summer. Got Honda 80s so we could ride the dirt roads and go squirrel or deer hunting after school. Dad would honk his truck horn when it was time for us to ride home. Travel baseball didn't exist, so we just played Dixie Baseball in the summer against teams in our Parish and then onto the All-Star tournaments in Alex or Pineville.

Showed steers, breeding cattle and hogs for 4-H so we had to tend to them throughout the year. Spent a week at 4-H Camp each summer. Was able to wander freely at the State Fair & Livestock show in Shreveport each fall and the LSU Livestock Show & Rodeo each Spring. Wandered throughout Parker Coliseum during the livestock shows and went to each night of the rodeo. We'd always end up getting pizza from Past Time and might go to Mike Anderson's if we could get a reservation.

Would spend a week in the Summer with my grandparents (around Pitkin or in Kinder). We were either picking Sugartown watermelons with my dad's parents or swimming in the irrigation ditches with the neighborhood kids in Kinder. My grandmother hated when we did that.