re: Dear friends, happy Front Day 2022

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You are a treasure.

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Dear Friends,

Uncle, Mother, Cousin, and I had such a joyous time today. We spent most of the day at City Park. After a morning in sweaters touring the halls of The Museum of Art and its attendant sculpture gardens, we walked to Parkway for poor boys. I had a fried potato with gravy poor boy. The older cashier, who has been there for two decades now, made sure they put ample gravy to soften up those fried potatoes. By the way, Mother got rid of my F350 truck bus I had planned to use for my poor boy tours of New Orleans. A pity, but she said that it sitting unused for three years made the house look unkempt. One day the tours shall return.

Mother got a Caprese while Uncle and Cousin both got fried shrimps. I did not see Justin there this time, but am quite happy to hear that he recently was married. God’s blessing be upon that union.

We returned to City Park at my request. It had been three years since my last visit to Carousel Gardens. Did you know that a “chaperone” gets in for just $13 while an adult without child has to pay $25? Seems quite unfair to me, and I discussed it with the ticket man who refused to give me a discount. At the last, he agreed to count Mother as my chaperone, even though she isn’t, and her ticket was $13. After that fiasco it was all fun. We rode the train three times, the carousel four times, and my favorite, Ladybug, ten times! Even though AWO in Gulf Shores has bigger rides and Disney has a whole ecosystem, I definitely prefer City Park. It’s wholesome and not over the top.

What a wondrous Front Day today was! The official high for New Orleans was 78 pleasant degrees. I noticed many of you challenged Mother’s expertise, saying it would reach the 80s today, thus, preventing this day from taking its rightful place as 2022 Front Day. Give thanks to God, for God so willed today to reach the 70s, after a most pleasant and calm start at 57.

We once used Audubon as our official gauge, but after its struggles to report daily back in the late 1990s, we jettisoned it as our standard and joined with the National Weather Service in using MSY as our gauge. Outlier stations, like the one at Lakefront that is influenced severely by the warming, or cooling, water of my Lake Pontchartrain, simply are just that: outliers.

So we are back again tonight in the sitting room, once more sipping Posh Chocolat drinking chocolate as Uncle fills the air with sweet melodies from the organ. We will do hymn singing before a Bible reading. Mother is even making her famous Calliope chocolate chip cookies she usually does not make from summer until the first Sunday of Advent. She said, “It was a perfect Front Day! Let’s indulge tonight.”

It was so good to see so many responses from so many of you. WestCoastAg, Corndog, PrecedentedTimes, beef, WheninRome, highcotton, Glustening, boddaget, SunGid, Virgil, Greenrocktiger, Trimtab, toof, Rummey (you didn’t email me either), sqerty, LSUJML, Otis, Mj, sledge, Kafka, bgb, OysterPoboy, miked, fr33manator, redstick13, TigerRyno, Legion of Doom, Menace, Chitown Badger (Chicago still isn’t a pizza city), gizmo, Mauser, Pepperoni, Adam, Relham, choupique, Judge Holden, Cuyahoga, ODahouse, cards, tankyank, Catahoula, Stealth, farad, Texas Ram, IonaTiger: thank you all for your kind words. A true lift to my spirits. I treasure each and every word you write to me.

Ned, you remember all too well my love of the Harvard Classics, but I did not bring them with me. This was a devotional retreat and I kept my readings down to the Bible and our Desert Fathers and Mothers.

Philemon, I pray you were making a bad joke about gambling. As we who walk in the light know, gambling is one of Satan’s snares used to trick the hopeless and devour the poor. Gambling is a scourge that, like alcohol, drugs, pornography, and fornication, destroys the person, the family, and society. Please avoid gambling and condemn it everywhere it exists.

Tonydtiger, most here would know of my affinity for fishing. Captain Mike was perhaps not my favorite experience — LINK / — but I spent much time fishing on Uncle’s Viking. I also am accomplished trout fisherman — LINK / Nothing quite beats a late summer or early Autumn’s day fishing the Blackwater for rainbows and browns.

As Front Day winds to a close, I will take a few indulgent bites of Mother’s cookies and have one final sip of chocolate. Tomorrow begins once more my retreat, for I seek a closer walk with our Lord and God. The next time I have access to electricity and the internet I will say hello. Do not fear if that day is years away. God is with us, and we have no need to fear.

Faith, Hope, and Love,
TulaneLSU

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