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TulaneLSU
| Favorite team: | TBD |
| Location: | Member since Aug 2003 |
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| Number of Posts: | 13742 |
| Registered on: | 12/28/2007 |
| Online Status: | Not Online |
Recent Posts
Message
Hurwitz Mintz announces its closing
Posted by TulaneLSU on 10/2/26 at 10:20 am
Dear Friends,
The closing of old New Orleans businesses affects me with such disproportionate sadness. Mother tries to console me with words like, “It is only a store. No one is demolishing the Cabildo or The Napoleon House.”
Yet when Mother entered my room this morning to inform me that Hurwitz Mintz is closing, I felt the same peculiar ache I experienced when Adler's closed and when M. Goldbergs disappeared, an ache that returns whenever I am forced to buy casual menswear and remember that M. Goldbergs once existed. It does not help that we did not get one last meal this week in the Zodiac Room at the original Neiman Marcus before its closure.
Perhaps this is because I have always had difficulty distinguishing the places of New Orleans from the people who inhabited them, and the people from the memories I have attached to them. A store was never merely a store to me. It was where Grandmother took me for a Saturday outing, where my parents shopped, where my grandparents had shopped, where some long-forgotten New Orleanian had stood before me, and where, for reasons I often cannot articulate, I still feel that some portion of my family is waiting.
These old business meant something and their owners were willing to put their names behind them. The business was an extension of who they were. It was not a 9 to 5 job for them. The business was their calling and it was what I always believed was the American Dream, which has been whittled away by descendants that enjoyed the comforts of the dream without the duty and drive that created it. Now nameless stores like Pottery Barn, Rooms to Go, and Arhaus, stores that lack any connection to the past, replace the family named anchors that connect us to our ancestors.
For my family, Hurwitz Mintz is older than my own memory of it. Great Grandfather was a friend of the Hurwitz family and helped them during their early years in New Orleans. Out of gratitude, Mr. Hurwitz gave Great Grandfather a very special desk chair rumored to have been clad in a blue silk originally. Years later, Grandmother gave that chair to me. It was leather by that time, and I still have it, although it has been reupholstered twice during my ownership.
There is something wonderful about this chair I sit in right now as I type to you, my friends. I have spent a substantial portion of my life sitting, reading, and writing in this chair, a chair that carries the history of Hurwitz Mintz. I sadly did not ponder and appreciate its history until this morning. We are miserable creatures in our fallen natures, and we lack the courage and gratitude and attention to see God’s blessing in every space of life.
Hurwitz Mintz itself belongs to the great Russian-Jewish story of New Orleans. Although there is little today that would suggest a bias against Russian Jews in the city, in the first decades of the 1900s, New Orleans, and this includes the Jews from present day Germany who had arrived a generation or two earlier, was not too welcoming of the huddled masses arriving daily on the banks of the Mississippi near Jackson Square. Russian Jews received a similar welcome as the Sicilians. But Great Grandfather was no respecter of title or nationality and befriended the first Hurwitz and helped get him a job as a furniture merchant. It was not a glorious job, but it was how many Jews in that time got their feet in the door.
Joseph Hurwitz joined his brother in law, Morris Mintz, and established their first store in 1923 on Royal Street. Years later, after a visit to James Cohen’s coin shop, I was lifted on the shoulders of a unicycling busker not far from the original location, where Mother bought me a beautiful marble obelisk. When Mother refused to allow me to go on a fishing trip with Cousin in the late 90s I threw that obelisk against my wall. It was not my finest moment and is the reason it no longer is in my room with my chair.
Hurwitz Mintz may well have been the greatest Russian-Jewish retail institution New Orleans produced. And now it is going. I cannot but think this is at least partially the result of the recent death of Morris Mintz’s grandson, Mitchell, whose family history in New Orleans did include, at Galatoire’s, a rather unfortunate deviation from the customary etiquette of the ladies’ table. It was certainly popping at that lunch. Desperation and desuetude drive and deliver the dream. Comfort and complacency conspire to consume and crush it.
I cannot help thinking of Adler's, which survived for more than 125 years, and of M. Goldbergs, whose closing still creates in me a melancholy whenever I need to find something as mundane as a pair of casual trousers. I think of all the places that once made New Orleans feel comprehensible, places where you did not have to wonder whether the city still possessed the thing you remembered because the thing was simply there.
The comparison that haunts me is New York's Jewish deli. During Mother’s lifetime, there were roughly 1,500 Jewish delis in New York. Today there are only about twenty. Imagine being born into a city in which 1,500 such places existed and living long enough to see almost all of them disappear. At some point the question ceases to be where one can get a good pastrami sandwich. The question becomes what happened to the civilization that required 1,500 places to sell it?
New Orleans, no, our world, is experiencing its own diminishment.
One by one, the names become memories.
I look at my chair and think about Great Grandfather and a family of Russian Jewish immigrants who came to New Orleans and built something that lasted more than a century.
And I suppose that is why this hurts so much. I am not really mourning the disappearance of a furniture store. I am mourning another piece of the New Orleans that made my family possible, and the increasingly uncomfortable realization that the world I remember is becoming something that must be reconstructed from chairs, photographs, stories and a floor mosaic before doors that no longer open.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
The closing of old New Orleans businesses affects me with such disproportionate sadness. Mother tries to console me with words like, “It is only a store. No one is demolishing the Cabildo or The Napoleon House.”
Yet when Mother entered my room this morning to inform me that Hurwitz Mintz is closing, I felt the same peculiar ache I experienced when Adler's closed and when M. Goldbergs disappeared, an ache that returns whenever I am forced to buy casual menswear and remember that M. Goldbergs once existed. It does not help that we did not get one last meal this week in the Zodiac Room at the original Neiman Marcus before its closure.
Perhaps this is because I have always had difficulty distinguishing the places of New Orleans from the people who inhabited them, and the people from the memories I have attached to them. A store was never merely a store to me. It was where Grandmother took me for a Saturday outing, where my parents shopped, where my grandparents had shopped, where some long-forgotten New Orleanian had stood before me, and where, for reasons I often cannot articulate, I still feel that some portion of my family is waiting.
These old business meant something and their owners were willing to put their names behind them. The business was an extension of who they were. It was not a 9 to 5 job for them. The business was their calling and it was what I always believed was the American Dream, which has been whittled away by descendants that enjoyed the comforts of the dream without the duty and drive that created it. Now nameless stores like Pottery Barn, Rooms to Go, and Arhaus, stores that lack any connection to the past, replace the family named anchors that connect us to our ancestors.
For my family, Hurwitz Mintz is older than my own memory of it. Great Grandfather was a friend of the Hurwitz family and helped them during their early years in New Orleans. Out of gratitude, Mr. Hurwitz gave Great Grandfather a very special desk chair rumored to have been clad in a blue silk originally. Years later, Grandmother gave that chair to me. It was leather by that time, and I still have it, although it has been reupholstered twice during my ownership.
There is something wonderful about this chair I sit in right now as I type to you, my friends. I have spent a substantial portion of my life sitting, reading, and writing in this chair, a chair that carries the history of Hurwitz Mintz. I sadly did not ponder and appreciate its history until this morning. We are miserable creatures in our fallen natures, and we lack the courage and gratitude and attention to see God’s blessing in every space of life.
Hurwitz Mintz itself belongs to the great Russian-Jewish story of New Orleans. Although there is little today that would suggest a bias against Russian Jews in the city, in the first decades of the 1900s, New Orleans, and this includes the Jews from present day Germany who had arrived a generation or two earlier, was not too welcoming of the huddled masses arriving daily on the banks of the Mississippi near Jackson Square. Russian Jews received a similar welcome as the Sicilians. But Great Grandfather was no respecter of title or nationality and befriended the first Hurwitz and helped get him a job as a furniture merchant. It was not a glorious job, but it was how many Jews in that time got their feet in the door.
Joseph Hurwitz joined his brother in law, Morris Mintz, and established their first store in 1923 on Royal Street. Years later, after a visit to James Cohen’s coin shop, I was lifted on the shoulders of a unicycling busker not far from the original location, where Mother bought me a beautiful marble obelisk. When Mother refused to allow me to go on a fishing trip with Cousin in the late 90s I threw that obelisk against my wall. It was not my finest moment and is the reason it no longer is in my room with my chair.
Hurwitz Mintz may well have been the greatest Russian-Jewish retail institution New Orleans produced. And now it is going. I cannot but think this is at least partially the result of the recent death of Morris Mintz’s grandson, Mitchell, whose family history in New Orleans did include, at Galatoire’s, a rather unfortunate deviation from the customary etiquette of the ladies’ table. It was certainly popping at that lunch. Desperation and desuetude drive and deliver the dream. Comfort and complacency conspire to consume and crush it.
I cannot help thinking of Adler's, which survived for more than 125 years, and of M. Goldbergs, whose closing still creates in me a melancholy whenever I need to find something as mundane as a pair of casual trousers. I think of all the places that once made New Orleans feel comprehensible, places where you did not have to wonder whether the city still possessed the thing you remembered because the thing was simply there.
The comparison that haunts me is New York's Jewish deli. During Mother’s lifetime, there were roughly 1,500 Jewish delis in New York. Today there are only about twenty. Imagine being born into a city in which 1,500 such places existed and living long enough to see almost all of them disappear. At some point the question ceases to be where one can get a good pastrami sandwich. The question becomes what happened to the civilization that required 1,500 places to sell it?
New Orleans, no, our world, is experiencing its own diminishment.
One by one, the names become memories.
I look at my chair and think about Great Grandfather and a family of Russian Jewish immigrants who came to New Orleans and built something that lasted more than a century.
And I suppose that is why this hurts so much. I am not really mourning the disappearance of a furniture store. I am mourning another piece of the New Orleans that made my family possible, and the increasingly uncomfortable realization that the world I remember is becoming something that must be reconstructed from chairs, photographs, stories and a floor mosaic before doors that no longer open.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
41
The first Neiman Marcus is closing today
Posted by TulaneLSU on 9/30/26 at 6:42 am
Friends,
The closing of the flagship Neiman Marcus in Dallas has produced in me a sadness today more stabbing than the closure of Saks at Canal Place, and even more than that year when the flagship Saks on Fifth Avenue failed to put up its miraculous Christmas display. I remember being genuinely troubled by that omission, as though Fifth Avenue itself had neglected one of the appointed signs of Advent. But Neiman Marcus is different. Neiman Marcus was part of the private geography of most of our lives here, and when such places disappear, the map becomes less reliable.
It was in the Dallas store that I was first introduced to the chicken broth and popovers of the Zodiac Room, a combination that remains, in my mind, almost impossibly good. The broth was not pretentious. The popovers were not complicated. Yet together they possessed that mysterious quality that certain simple things acquire when encountered at the proper age and in the proper place. I have eaten more elaborate meals in more celebrated restaurants, but I doubt I will ever regard a Zodiac Room chicken broth and a popover with quite the same reverence again.
And then there were the Zodiac Room models who moved from table to table displaying the latest clothes and jewelry. I never quite knew what to make of the profession. At times it seemed the most liberating occupation imaginable, to spend one's days walking through the Zodiac Room dressed in magnificent clothes while people admired you. At other times it seemed almost humiliating, a strange form of servitude in which one's beauty became part of the merchandise.
There was one particular model, however, about whom I had reached a more favorable theological conclusion. She was a 5'10" brunette with blue eyes, and I was convinced she had some special eclat toward me. It was the Advent season of my senior year, and was late to meet Mother for lunch because I had been chatting with the sales clerk after getting three beautiful Christopher Radko ornaments, including the rare special edition Holiday Express combo piece. After apologizing I showed Mother these glorious pieces when the model walked by.
With the confidence Uncle taught me, I likewise showed this lovely lady my ornaments. She seemed impressed, so I suggested that she join us at the table for lunch. I believed this was a perfectly reasonable proposition. Mother did not, and she revoked the invitation before the young woman could answer. Thus ended a romance that never technically began, although I have always considered the absence of an answer a rather inadequate basis upon which to close the book.
Dallas was my second favorite Neiman Marcus after Chicago. But it was infinitely better than Houston, and this was not merely a matter of taste. In the old Dallas-Houston rivalry, whenever the subject arose, I regarded Dallas's Neiman Marcus as a kind of argumentum ad finem. Houston could have its skyscrapers, its oilmen, its restaurants and whatever other civic boasts it wished to produce. Dallas had the first Neiman Marcus. The case was closed. On what now will Dallasians hang their hat?
What saddens me now is that the closing feels like another small victory for the idea that everything must be newer, brighter, easier and more immediately impressive. Taste has become increasingly perfunctory. We buy furniture that looks old without being old, while genuinely magnificent furniture sits in estate sales and auctions waiting for someone to recognize what it is. I cannot understand spending thousands on the manufactured simulacra of antiquity at Arhaus or Pottery Barn when actual antique furniture, made by people who expected it to outlive them, can sometimes be purchased for a fraction of the price.
Perhaps this is what I mourn most. Not the building itself, although I loved the building, but the assumption that beauty, quality and permanence were worth preserving simply because they were beautiful, well made and permanent.
We had not planned to be in Dallas to say goodbye, which now seems like an unfortunate failure of foresight. Perhaps one of our friends here could go downtown today and say goodbye for us. I would like to imagine someone walking through those doors one final time, finding the Zodiac Room, sitting down, and promptly being served the chicken broth and popovers, and remembering that there was once a time when a department store could be part of the spiritual furniture of a person's life.
Some places are stores until they become memories. Then, without our permission, they become history.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
The closing of the flagship Neiman Marcus in Dallas has produced in me a sadness today more stabbing than the closure of Saks at Canal Place, and even more than that year when the flagship Saks on Fifth Avenue failed to put up its miraculous Christmas display. I remember being genuinely troubled by that omission, as though Fifth Avenue itself had neglected one of the appointed signs of Advent. But Neiman Marcus is different. Neiman Marcus was part of the private geography of most of our lives here, and when such places disappear, the map becomes less reliable.
It was in the Dallas store that I was first introduced to the chicken broth and popovers of the Zodiac Room, a combination that remains, in my mind, almost impossibly good. The broth was not pretentious. The popovers were not complicated. Yet together they possessed that mysterious quality that certain simple things acquire when encountered at the proper age and in the proper place. I have eaten more elaborate meals in more celebrated restaurants, but I doubt I will ever regard a Zodiac Room chicken broth and a popover with quite the same reverence again.
And then there were the Zodiac Room models who moved from table to table displaying the latest clothes and jewelry. I never quite knew what to make of the profession. At times it seemed the most liberating occupation imaginable, to spend one's days walking through the Zodiac Room dressed in magnificent clothes while people admired you. At other times it seemed almost humiliating, a strange form of servitude in which one's beauty became part of the merchandise.
There was one particular model, however, about whom I had reached a more favorable theological conclusion. She was a 5'10" brunette with blue eyes, and I was convinced she had some special eclat toward me. It was the Advent season of my senior year, and was late to meet Mother for lunch because I had been chatting with the sales clerk after getting three beautiful Christopher Radko ornaments, including the rare special edition Holiday Express combo piece. After apologizing I showed Mother these glorious pieces when the model walked by.
With the confidence Uncle taught me, I likewise showed this lovely lady my ornaments. She seemed impressed, so I suggested that she join us at the table for lunch. I believed this was a perfectly reasonable proposition. Mother did not, and she revoked the invitation before the young woman could answer. Thus ended a romance that never technically began, although I have always considered the absence of an answer a rather inadequate basis upon which to close the book.
Dallas was my second favorite Neiman Marcus after Chicago. But it was infinitely better than Houston, and this was not merely a matter of taste. In the old Dallas-Houston rivalry, whenever the subject arose, I regarded Dallas's Neiman Marcus as a kind of argumentum ad finem. Houston could have its skyscrapers, its oilmen, its restaurants and whatever other civic boasts it wished to produce. Dallas had the first Neiman Marcus. The case was closed. On what now will Dallasians hang their hat?
What saddens me now is that the closing feels like another small victory for the idea that everything must be newer, brighter, easier and more immediately impressive. Taste has become increasingly perfunctory. We buy furniture that looks old without being old, while genuinely magnificent furniture sits in estate sales and auctions waiting for someone to recognize what it is. I cannot understand spending thousands on the manufactured simulacra of antiquity at Arhaus or Pottery Barn when actual antique furniture, made by people who expected it to outlive them, can sometimes be purchased for a fraction of the price.
Perhaps this is what I mourn most. Not the building itself, although I loved the building, but the assumption that beauty, quality and permanence were worth preserving simply because they were beautiful, well made and permanent.
We had not planned to be in Dallas to say goodbye, which now seems like an unfortunate failure of foresight. Perhaps one of our friends here could go downtown today and say goodbye for us. I would like to imagine someone walking through those doors one final time, finding the Zodiac Room, sitting down, and promptly being served the chicken broth and popovers, and remembering that there was once a time when a department store could be part of the spiritual furniture of a person's life.
Some places are stores until they become memories. Then, without our permission, they become history.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
re: Best pizza in the NOLA area
Posted by TulaneLSU on 9/29/26 at 5:01 pm to NOLA Tiger
Friend,
Getting a good pizza in New Orleans on a Tuesday is as difficult as finding a Freemason who will explain what the Freemasons actually do. St. Pizza, Zee’s, Forbidden, Il Supremo, Pizza Domenica, Margot’s, and the rest have apparently entered into a clandestine Tuesday accord, the terms of which are known only to their owners, a cadre of in the know streetcar conductors, and that one elderly man who wears the wig and lives behind the Superdome. I might have to travel out to Old Metairie tonight go get Tower.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Getting a good pizza in New Orleans on a Tuesday is as difficult as finding a Freemason who will explain what the Freemasons actually do. St. Pizza, Zee’s, Forbidden, Il Supremo, Pizza Domenica, Margot’s, and the rest have apparently entered into a clandestine Tuesday accord, the terms of which are known only to their owners, a cadre of in the know streetcar conductors, and that one elderly man who wears the wig and lives behind the Superdome. I might have to travel out to Old Metairie tonight go get Tower.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
re: One of our own is going through a heart transplant as I type this
Posted by TulaneLSU on 9/27/26 at 1:50 pm to NawlinsTiger9
Friend,
Thank you for sharing this news with us. I shall be in prayer this afternoon for our friend.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
God,
Your hand is beneath us when we cannot stand and before us when we cannot see. Please watch over im4lsu this day. Guide the hands of those who tend him, quiet every fear, and grant him a safe passage through the darkness of the operating room into the light of recovery. Keep him, O Lord, and bring him home whole. Amen.
Thank you for sharing this news with us. I shall be in prayer this afternoon for our friend.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
God,
Your hand is beneath us when we cannot stand and before us when we cannot see. Please watch over im4lsu this day. Guide the hands of those who tend him, quiet every fear, and grant him a safe passage through the darkness of the operating room into the light of recovery. Keep him, O Lord, and bring him home whole. Amen.
Friend,
The buffet or smorgasbord may be one of the last expressions of American abundance remaining in this time of inflation and rising costs.’There is something wonderfully democratic in standing before an abundance of food and being permitted to take what you want. At Golden Corral the accusation of lifeless, standing food is particularly difficult to sustain. You can watch the steaks being cooked before your eyes. The pot roast, fried chicken and fried shrimp are replenished every few minutes. In the morning, eggs and omelets are made to order while pancakes and French toast hiss upon the griddle as you enter. This is not food awaiting a funeral. It is food continually becoming.
And perhaps that is the deeper beauty of the buffet. It does not ask you to pretend that abundance is shameful and gluttonous. It simply places abundance before you. No one is judged by the table and there is room for appetite and second helpings, those human impulses that polite society has spent centuries attempting to conceal beneath linen napkins.
The buffet is America because it believes that there ought to be enough. It is excessive and democratic and miraculous. A table is continually being replenished. The waitress is non-intrusive and present to clean your table, not make small talk or bring you anything but order. And if you are hungry, you simply go back.
While I despise everything about today’s Las Vegas, I can say that the city’s one and only positive contribution to the world is the buffet, which ought to be called the smorgasbord. Had it been given that name instead I think far fewer would take issue with this style of freedom.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
The buffet or smorgasbord may be one of the last expressions of American abundance remaining in this time of inflation and rising costs.’There is something wonderfully democratic in standing before an abundance of food and being permitted to take what you want. At Golden Corral the accusation of lifeless, standing food is particularly difficult to sustain. You can watch the steaks being cooked before your eyes. The pot roast, fried chicken and fried shrimp are replenished every few minutes. In the morning, eggs and omelets are made to order while pancakes and French toast hiss upon the griddle as you enter. This is not food awaiting a funeral. It is food continually becoming.
And perhaps that is the deeper beauty of the buffet. It does not ask you to pretend that abundance is shameful and gluttonous. It simply places abundance before you. No one is judged by the table and there is room for appetite and second helpings, those human impulses that polite society has spent centuries attempting to conceal beneath linen napkins.
The buffet is America because it believes that there ought to be enough. It is excessive and democratic and miraculous. A table is continually being replenished. The waitress is non-intrusive and present to clean your table, not make small talk or bring you anything but order. And if you are hungry, you simply go back.
While I despise everything about today’s Las Vegas, I can say that the city’s one and only positive contribution to the world is the buffet, which ought to be called the smorgasbord. Had it been given that name instead I think far fewer would take issue with this style of freedom.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Friend,
It is getting awfully close to Hurricane Bank, a place close to my heart.
In 1994, Uncle persuaded Mother and the school to release me from the week before Mardi Gras, and we flew to San Diego to board the Excel, captained by the legendary Bill Poole. Hurricane Bank, our ultimate destination, lay more than a thousand miles south, and we trolled our way there, catching wahoo and stopping at Socorro and Clarion, those marvelous, almost prelapsarian islands rising from the Pacific.
Early in the second week, after several 150-to-200-pound yellowfin, I hooked into something that felt like a train and even when its first run ended, I pulled and felt no give. It was as if I were hooked to the bottom. I asked for a reprieve. Stand-up tackle has a way of exposing the insufficiency of boyhood musculature.
For four hours Uncle and I exchanged the rod while the tuna sounded beneath us. At last the great cow surfaced, and three gaffs found her back: 309 pounds, the largest fish aboard. The crew applauded, and, overcome by my own juvenal grandeur, I climbed upon a bait box and announced, “Gentlemen, I accept this tuna not for myself, but for all boys whose biceps have been unjustly underestimated.”
Someone asked whether I had anything else to say. “Yes,” I replied. “I would like a sandwich and if the chef makes a good pizza, a pizza also.” He did not, but he did bring me a fresh wahoo taco. Thus was my maritime oration concluded. It was a magnificent journey, but I am exceedingly glad we are not there now.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
It is getting awfully close to Hurricane Bank, a place close to my heart.
In 1994, Uncle persuaded Mother and the school to release me from the week before Mardi Gras, and we flew to San Diego to board the Excel, captained by the legendary Bill Poole. Hurricane Bank, our ultimate destination, lay more than a thousand miles south, and we trolled our way there, catching wahoo and stopping at Socorro and Clarion, those marvelous, almost prelapsarian islands rising from the Pacific.
Early in the second week, after several 150-to-200-pound yellowfin, I hooked into something that felt like a train and even when its first run ended, I pulled and felt no give. It was as if I were hooked to the bottom. I asked for a reprieve. Stand-up tackle has a way of exposing the insufficiency of boyhood musculature.
For four hours Uncle and I exchanged the rod while the tuna sounded beneath us. At last the great cow surfaced, and three gaffs found her back: 309 pounds, the largest fish aboard. The crew applauded, and, overcome by my own juvenal grandeur, I climbed upon a bait box and announced, “Gentlemen, I accept this tuna not for myself, but for all boys whose biceps have been unjustly underestimated.”
Someone asked whether I had anything else to say. “Yes,” I replied. “I would like a sandwich and if the chef makes a good pizza, a pizza also.” He did not, but he did bring me a fresh wahoo taco. Thus was my maritime oration concluded. It was a magnificent journey, but I am exceedingly glad we are not there now.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Friend,
I am skeptical of the accuracy of this message from a less than reputable source on forum filled with lies and half truths. And I remain genuinely dumbfounded by that anti-science branch of the anarchists, the populist and libertarian assortment who have somehow persuaded themselves that refusing a flu vaccine is an act of liberty rather than an exhibition of that oldest of sins, pride. Christianity has never taught that prudence is a failure of faith, nor that we honor Providence by refusing the ordinary means through which Providence preserves us.
The influenza vaccine is not a sacrament and offers no guarantee against illness, but the evidence from many studies and surveillance systems is remarkably consistent: vaccination reduces the risk of serious influenza, hospitalization, and death. This goes for two year olds. It is the same for 102 year olds.
And yet here come the self-appointed apostles of individual sovereignty, suspicious of epidemiologists but apparently trusting some fellow on the internet who has discovered that virology is a conspiracy. There is something almost theological in the absurdity: the creature insisting that humility requires him to know better than everyone who has spent a lifetime studying the creation.
I shall take the vaccine, thank you, and regard it not as submission to the state but as a small exercise in prudence, gratitude, and the Christian understanding that accepting the gifts of human knowledge is not a rejection of God’s providence.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
I am skeptical of the accuracy of this message from a less than reputable source on forum filled with lies and half truths. And I remain genuinely dumbfounded by that anti-science branch of the anarchists, the populist and libertarian assortment who have somehow persuaded themselves that refusing a flu vaccine is an act of liberty rather than an exhibition of that oldest of sins, pride. Christianity has never taught that prudence is a failure of faith, nor that we honor Providence by refusing the ordinary means through which Providence preserves us.
The influenza vaccine is not a sacrament and offers no guarantee against illness, but the evidence from many studies and surveillance systems is remarkably consistent: vaccination reduces the risk of serious influenza, hospitalization, and death. This goes for two year olds. It is the same for 102 year olds.
And yet here come the self-appointed apostles of individual sovereignty, suspicious of epidemiologists but apparently trusting some fellow on the internet who has discovered that virology is a conspiracy. There is something almost theological in the absurdity: the creature insisting that humility requires him to know better than everyone who has spent a lifetime studying the creation.
I shall take the vaccine, thank you, and regard it not as submission to the state but as a small exercise in prudence, gratitude, and the Christian understanding that accepting the gifts of human knowledge is not a rejection of God’s providence.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Friend,
An apology is owed. Not to me, principally, but to Grandfather, whose honesty ought never to have been impugned by a stranger speculating from a distance about the provenance of a thing he neither possessed nor witnessed being given. Wherever the gentleman who ultimately parted with his Book of Common Prayer first obtained it, whether it came to him as a gift from an American, or whether he carried it home after some holiday journey to the States before the War, none of that alters the simple fact that an Englishman gave Grandfather the 1928 Book of Common Prayer that has belonged to our family ever since.
Grandfather told me so, and I have no reason whatsoever to doubt him. Indeed, he gave it to me on Christmas Day in 1992, and I have carried that little book beside my breast ever since. To call Grandfather’s story fraudulent because the provenance does not fit your preferred reconstruction is pure presumption. I therefore ask, plainly and without ornament, for an apology to Grandfather.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
An apology is owed. Not to me, principally, but to Grandfather, whose honesty ought never to have been impugned by a stranger speculating from a distance about the provenance of a thing he neither possessed nor witnessed being given. Wherever the gentleman who ultimately parted with his Book of Common Prayer first obtained it, whether it came to him as a gift from an American, or whether he carried it home after some holiday journey to the States before the War, none of that alters the simple fact that an Englishman gave Grandfather the 1928 Book of Common Prayer that has belonged to our family ever since.
Grandfather told me so, and I have no reason whatsoever to doubt him. Indeed, he gave it to me on Christmas Day in 1992, and I have carried that little book beside my breast ever since. To call Grandfather’s story fraudulent because the provenance does not fit your preferred reconstruction is pure presumption. I therefore ask, plainly and without ornament, for an apology to Grandfather.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Friend,
I like the cut of your jib, too. To clarify, the only Book of Common Prayer I own, and the only one I use, is the true standard: the 1928. Mine is not merely a prayer book but a small family relic. During the war, when Grandfather was in Europe, he helped save the lives of a crew of RAF men. Out of gratitude, one of the chaps gave Grandfather his pocket Book of Common Prayer.
Grandfather kept it for half a century and on Christmas morning in 1992 he gave it to me. I have carried that gift ever since, and scarcely leave the house without it in my pocket. Its pages have become soft with use, its corners worn by years of being carried from one place to another. There is something wonderfully Anglican about it all and if you ever come across a tall sport who says he is I yet is not toting in his pocket an English man’s 1928 BOCP, the truth is not in him.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
I like the cut of your jib, too. To clarify, the only Book of Common Prayer I own, and the only one I use, is the true standard: the 1928. Mine is not merely a prayer book but a small family relic. During the war, when Grandfather was in Europe, he helped save the lives of a crew of RAF men. Out of gratitude, one of the chaps gave Grandfather his pocket Book of Common Prayer.
Grandfather kept it for half a century and on Christmas morning in 1992 he gave it to me. I have carried that gift ever since, and scarcely leave the house without it in my pocket. Its pages have become soft with use, its corners worn by years of being carried from one place to another. There is something wonderfully Anglican about it all and if you ever come across a tall sport who says he is I yet is not toting in his pocket an English man’s 1928 BOCP, the truth is not in him.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Friend,
I quit following football about a decade ago, having reached the melancholy conclusion that I had only so many Sabbaths allotted to me and ought not squander them upon a spectacle increasingly indistinguishable from Mammon in shoulder pads. I remember sitting in our sitting room one autumn Sunday, Bible and BOCP beside me, while the television blared its usual liturgy of touchdowns, beer, liquor, and men behaving with the moral development of fraternity pledges. College football had already become rather grotesque when coaches began earning seven figures some 25 years ago, while the universities continued to mouth their old cant about character and education. Big Alcohol had long since consecrated the stadium; Big Gambling has now become its undertaker. And after decades of parading women as decoration, the same institutions discovered a sudden solicitude for women. Even the flag was enlisted in the pageant. Eventually I found the whole enterprise spiritually enervating: too much money, too little virtue, and an astonishing quantity of sanctimony. So I turned off the television. The kingdom did not fall. Weekends are better than ever without football in my life.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
I quit following football about a decade ago, having reached the melancholy conclusion that I had only so many Sabbaths allotted to me and ought not squander them upon a spectacle increasingly indistinguishable from Mammon in shoulder pads. I remember sitting in our sitting room one autumn Sunday, Bible and BOCP beside me, while the television blared its usual liturgy of touchdowns, beer, liquor, and men behaving with the moral development of fraternity pledges. College football had already become rather grotesque when coaches began earning seven figures some 25 years ago, while the universities continued to mouth their old cant about character and education. Big Alcohol had long since consecrated the stadium; Big Gambling has now become its undertaker. And after decades of parading women as decoration, the same institutions discovered a sudden solicitude for women. Even the flag was enlisted in the pageant. Eventually I found the whole enterprise spiritually enervating: too much money, too little virtue, and an astonishing quantity of sanctimony. So I turned off the television. The kingdom did not fall. Weekends are better than ever without football in my life.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
re: Venezia ramifying to Rivertown, Kenner
Posted by TulaneLSU on 9/22/26 at 7:10 pm to fightin tigers
Friend,
I probably should have used the verb ramify rather than move. I shall edit if you would prefer.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
I probably should have used the verb ramify rather than move. I shall edit if you would prefer.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Venezia ramifying to Rivertown, Kenner
Posted by TulaneLSU on 9/22/26 at 6:55 pm
Friends,
It has been 13 years since Venezia was the main subject of discussion on the Food Board. Even when Venezia opened its second location on the West Bank it was not mentioned. Uncle, though, just texted me and informed me that Venezia’s third location will be in the old Gendusa’s in Rivertown by the airport. Gendusa’s is still open in the old Messina’s farther north on Williams.
It is good to see Kenner get some decent restaurants. For a time, besides Harbor and Kenner Seafood it was very slim pickings. I know that our fried Powerman enjoyed the Asian and Latin options, but they did not appeal that much to me. The acquisition of an old favorite like Venezia is a major food story for Kenner. Perhaps we could arrange a Food Board gathering there in December.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
It has been 13 years since Venezia was the main subject of discussion on the Food Board. Even when Venezia opened its second location on the West Bank it was not mentioned. Uncle, though, just texted me and informed me that Venezia’s third location will be in the old Gendusa’s in Rivertown by the airport. Gendusa’s is still open in the old Messina’s farther north on Williams.
It is good to see Kenner get some decent restaurants. For a time, besides Harbor and Kenner Seafood it was very slim pickings. I know that our fried Powerman enjoyed the Asian and Latin options, but they did not appeal that much to me. The acquisition of an old favorite like Venezia is a major food story for Kenner. Perhaps we could arrange a Food Board gathering there in December.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Friend,
Once you go induction you never go back to gas or regular electric.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Once you go induction you never go back to gas or regular electric.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Friend,
The NK is open throughout the year, but facilities are limited (although it is really and truly closed now due the Katrina anniversary flood this year). When the NPS says NK opens May 15 they really are announcing when facilities at the trailhead will be open. In other words, there is no where to camp or lodge and there is no vehicle access at the North Rim until May 15. If the NPS didn’t announce the closure, they would have likely hundreds or thousands of day tourists driving hours to the North Rim assuming, before May 15, that they can do some hiking at the North Rim. And that is not the case until, as you said, May 15.
If you are really in shape you can do the Rim to Rim to Rim starting from the South Rim in one day and will not need road access or lodging on the North Rim. People who are in excellent shape do this trek in the winter months even.
Alternatively, and what we do, is reserve a room for two nights at Phantom Ranch so that we can split the hike. South Rim to Phantom, maybe explore Ribbon Falls, and sleep. Next morning start at Phantom early and go up NK to the North Rim and come back and hopefully make it for dinner at Phantom before going back up to the South Rim the next day. The second day is arduous and unless you want to be incredibly sore for a few days, be sure to do elevation training ahead of time.
We have done RtR in April twice and May once. I cannot more highly recommend you do it April. Yes, you may have a little snow on both rims in early April, but it is anything but treacherous on the trails. If you are really concerned bring microspikes with you. We found the weather in April ideal, but I suppose there is a small chance of heavy snow, but it has not been a problem for us.
We have done both Bright Angel to North Kaibab and South Kaibab and North Kaibab in April. We did BA to NK to SK the second week of May about ten years ago and it was miserably hot for much of the hike and more crowded. October is a great month for hiking the canyon, but RtRtR becomes a little tougher due to shorter days and the fact that everyone in retirement wants to try it in October. October Phantom Ranch reservations are the rarest of the rare and we have never been blessed with them.
They canceled all Phantom reservations through October 31, but there is hope from the locals we know that November could be open. I believe one of the bridges survived, so hopefully NK will open soon. I heard though that there was significantly more damage to NK this year compared to previous flood years like ‘95 due to the fires scorching the shrubbery, allowing far more rain induced erosion. We are planning an April trip this year, and we believe it will be open. If it is not we will still make our way to Phantom Ranch and hope we can snag a room.
We have hardly been everywhere, but where we do go we go without hesitation and make the most of our trips. Perhaps we could have a Travel Board RtRtR hike one day.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
The NK is open throughout the year, but facilities are limited (although it is really and truly closed now due the Katrina anniversary flood this year). When the NPS says NK opens May 15 they really are announcing when facilities at the trailhead will be open. In other words, there is no where to camp or lodge and there is no vehicle access at the North Rim until May 15. If the NPS didn’t announce the closure, they would have likely hundreds or thousands of day tourists driving hours to the North Rim assuming, before May 15, that they can do some hiking at the North Rim. And that is not the case until, as you said, May 15.
If you are really in shape you can do the Rim to Rim to Rim starting from the South Rim in one day and will not need road access or lodging on the North Rim. People who are in excellent shape do this trek in the winter months even.
Alternatively, and what we do, is reserve a room for two nights at Phantom Ranch so that we can split the hike. South Rim to Phantom, maybe explore Ribbon Falls, and sleep. Next morning start at Phantom early and go up NK to the North Rim and come back and hopefully make it for dinner at Phantom before going back up to the South Rim the next day. The second day is arduous and unless you want to be incredibly sore for a few days, be sure to do elevation training ahead of time.
We have done RtR in April twice and May once. I cannot more highly recommend you do it April. Yes, you may have a little snow on both rims in early April, but it is anything but treacherous on the trails. If you are really concerned bring microspikes with you. We found the weather in April ideal, but I suppose there is a small chance of heavy snow, but it has not been a problem for us.
We have done both Bright Angel to North Kaibab and South Kaibab and North Kaibab in April. We did BA to NK to SK the second week of May about ten years ago and it was miserably hot for much of the hike and more crowded. October is a great month for hiking the canyon, but RtRtR becomes a little tougher due to shorter days and the fact that everyone in retirement wants to try it in October. October Phantom Ranch reservations are the rarest of the rare and we have never been blessed with them.
They canceled all Phantom reservations through October 31, but there is hope from the locals we know that November could be open. I believe one of the bridges survived, so hopefully NK will open soon. I heard though that there was significantly more damage to NK this year compared to previous flood years like ‘95 due to the fires scorching the shrubbery, allowing far more rain induced erosion. We are planning an April trip this year, and we believe it will be open. If it is not we will still make our way to Phantom Ranch and hope we can snag a room.
We have hardly been everywhere, but where we do go we go without hesitation and make the most of our trips. Perhaps we could have a Travel Board RtRtR hike one day.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Friend,
Leaving Las Vegas is the answer. Red Rocks is nice, but isn’t that interesting for hikes. Instead, head northeast out of town and go to Zion. It is only 2.5 hours away. Bryce Canyon isn’t far from Zion either.
The Grand Canyon is about a four hour drive east. Keep in mind, the lodge on the North Rim burned down last year so I’d recommend going to the South Rim which is a smidge farther from Las Vegas. Unfortunately, Phantom Ranch at the base is closed through at least October 31 due to the floods in August.
The pizza in Las Vegas, like the buffets, which are inferior to Golden Corral, is overrated. What a horrible place to visit, but at least you aren’t far from some of the best national parks in America.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Leaving Las Vegas is the answer. Red Rocks is nice, but isn’t that interesting for hikes. Instead, head northeast out of town and go to Zion. It is only 2.5 hours away. Bryce Canyon isn’t far from Zion either.
The Grand Canyon is about a four hour drive east. Keep in mind, the lodge on the North Rim burned down last year so I’d recommend going to the South Rim which is a smidge farther from Las Vegas. Unfortunately, Phantom Ranch at the base is closed through at least October 31 due to the floods in August.
The pizza in Las Vegas, like the buffets, which are inferior to Golden Corral, is overrated. What a horrible place to visit, but at least you aren’t far from some of the best national parks in America.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
re: Breakfast and lunch spots off interstate from Lafayette to Disney World.
Posted by TulaneLSU on 9/21/26 at 9:53 am to Crescent Connection
Friend,
Tasty Pastry, which is unrelated to Tastee Donuts, in Tallahassee is a good bakery and is just a short drive north of I-10, although when we stopped there once, it was only baked goods, which included quiche. As our friend above suggested, Waffle House is a good suggestion. I am not certain if any breakfast restaurant surpasses Waffle House in terms of taste. Consistency may not be as reliable as in 2020, but it is still usually excellent.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Tasty Pastry, which is unrelated to Tastee Donuts, in Tallahassee is a good bakery and is just a short drive north of I-10, although when we stopped there once, it was only baked goods, which included quiche. As our friend above suggested, Waffle House is a good suggestion. I am not certain if any breakfast restaurant surpasses Waffle House in terms of taste. Consistency may not be as reliable as in 2020, but it is still usually excellent.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
re: Wedding Rehearsal dinner advice from other dads
Posted by TulaneLSU on 9/20/26 at 10:07 pm to muttenstein
Friend,
I am not a father, but I did speak on marriage vows at Cousin’s wedding many years ago. To me it was the opportunity of a lifetime to be able to formulate and express my thoughts on marriage and love and faithfulness in front of our family.
I would suggest making the speech both personal but also an inquiry in which you prepare a true work of love and toil, because all things worth doing do not come easily. They require significant investments of passion and time.
For my speech, I spent about half of it laying out Kierkegaard’s view of marriage. Kierkegaard had little patience for the romantic who marries in pursuit of happiness, for romance is enamored of possibility while marriage is the blessed surrender to actuality. I thought of this when I remembered Couisn and his then girlfriend on the beach at Destin, where, with the impertinence of youth, I told him he ought to marry her. He did. What I could not have known that night was that his answer would become a lifetime of answers: choosing her through the unremarkable, forgotten days that are ordinary, the laughter, the inconveniences, the illnesses, and finally the terrible absence left by her death during the pandemic. Kierkegaard understood that marriage is less a single choice than the solemn repetition of one. Courtship asks whom we might love; marriage asks whom we will continue to love when possibility has given way to memory, habit, duty, and grace.
This is your opportunity to learn, grown, and share. Work tirelessly on this task and enjoy it.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
I am not a father, but I did speak on marriage vows at Cousin’s wedding many years ago. To me it was the opportunity of a lifetime to be able to formulate and express my thoughts on marriage and love and faithfulness in front of our family.
I would suggest making the speech both personal but also an inquiry in which you prepare a true work of love and toil, because all things worth doing do not come easily. They require significant investments of passion and time.
For my speech, I spent about half of it laying out Kierkegaard’s view of marriage. Kierkegaard had little patience for the romantic who marries in pursuit of happiness, for romance is enamored of possibility while marriage is the blessed surrender to actuality. I thought of this when I remembered Couisn and his then girlfriend on the beach at Destin, where, with the impertinence of youth, I told him he ought to marry her. He did. What I could not have known that night was that his answer would become a lifetime of answers: choosing her through the unremarkable, forgotten days that are ordinary, the laughter, the inconveniences, the illnesses, and finally the terrible absence left by her death during the pandemic. Kierkegaard understood that marriage is less a single choice than the solemn repetition of one. Courtship asks whom we might love; marriage asks whom we will continue to love when possibility has given way to memory, habit, duty, and grace.
This is your opportunity to learn, grown, and share. Work tirelessly on this task and enjoy it.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
A new book
Posted by TulaneLSU on 9/20/26 at 9:40 pm
Friends,
I am delighted to inform you that after years on the back burner with my focus on other literary projects, I am quite far along in a book inspired by Tigerdroppings. My editor and I have struggled to compress the corpus to 500 pages, as we are around 1200 now. Our hope is to have it ready by Advent.
One thing I am struggling with is who will write the preface. Mother? Uncle? Or perhaps one of you talented writers, if you would like?
Details are forthcoming.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
I am delighted to inform you that after years on the back burner with my focus on other literary projects, I am quite far along in a book inspired by Tigerdroppings. My editor and I have struggled to compress the corpus to 500 pages, as we are around 1200 now. Our hope is to have it ready by Advent.
One thing I am struggling with is who will write the preface. Mother? Uncle? Or perhaps one of you talented writers, if you would like?
Details are forthcoming.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Friend,
It is now six years later and I have just read your correspondence. While delayed, I pray your mother is doing well, whether in this world or in glory. And you as well. Thank you for sharing your story and I am honored that you found memories in that picture. I too broke an ankle in my youth.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
It is now six years later and I have just read your correspondence. While delayed, I pray your mother is doing well, whether in this world or in glory. And you as well. Thank you for sharing your story and I am honored that you found memories in that picture. I too broke an ankle in my youth.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
re: Whole family in Alabama arrested for running a narcotics empire.
Posted by TulaneLSU on 9/18/26 at 10:34 pm to BoomerandSooner
Friend,
On TulaneLSU’s vacation to Goodwater in April of 2020 when most were afraid to venture away from home I did not run into theee people. And for that I am grateful. Let us pray they see God’s light, repent, and traffic in acts of love and mercy from now until their end.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
On TulaneLSU’s vacation to Goodwater in April of 2020 when most were afraid to venture away from home I did not run into theee people. And for that I am grateful. Let us pray they see God’s light, repent, and traffic in acts of love and mercy from now until their end.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
re: Pizza delivery the biggest scam?
Posted by TulaneLSU on 9/18/26 at 10:23 pm to Tyga Woods
Friend,
Your generosity of spirit and labor shall not be forgotten.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Your generosity of spirit and labor shall not be forgotten.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
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