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Fine Food & Ent,
with John Johnson
"God made the Idiot for praCtice,
then he made the School Board"
Mark Twain
June 18 6 p.m. - Midnight Chamber's Texas Hold 'em Poker
Tournament Ponchatoula Knights of Columbus Hall $100 Buy-In
Contact Cathy Allen (985) 370-4027 or the Chamber office (985)
386-2536 to purchase your ticket. Credit cards accepted.
June 18 Tuesday, Noon Summer Series Brown Bag Luncheon
at the Ponchatoula Rotary Hut, Memorial Park. Guest Speakers:
Derrick Hess, Lagniappe Transaction Solutions, speaking on Tech-
nology for Marketing. Please join us for this free luncheon provid-
ed to our members and the public. Contact Liz Anderson at (985)
386-2536 at the Chamber office to reserve your seat.
June 20 5:30 p.m Chamber After Hours, Rosaryville
July 19 and 20 - Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is hosting the
Swamp Pop Music Festival at Lamar Dixon Expo Center in Gon-
zales. This event will benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. If
you have any further questions feel free to contact our office at
225-769-9994.
of the Depression and the diffi-
• culties of the World War II era.
FROM PAGE 2 Mom and Dad knew that it took
and was a real struggle to get it two parents to raise a family
tied up to clean. A lot of catfish and tried their best to main-
dinners were provided for the tain a somewhat stable home
family, environment. Regardless of the
With Fathers' Day approach- difficulties there were certain
ing, my memories of my Daddy tenets that were enforced and
are vivid in my mind. With all we lived by: Discipline, Moral
the negative aspects of his ear- Character, Work Ethics, and
ly life, I am always amazed by Values of Education.
his successes. Dad's father died Discipline was strictly en-
when he was six months old and forced. The keys were those
because of financial consider- magic words of: ' /es Sir, No
ations, he and his brother were Sir, Thank You and Please."
placed in an orphanage for sev- Each child should understand
eral years. During World War I and know what is expected and
he lived with an older sister un- act accordingly. No exceptions!
til his teens and then was on his Mother would correct most is-
own. He worked from that time sues of discipline but Lord Rue
until the last few years of his the day that Daddy was called
life in the milk industry -- sev- into the situation. There was
eral years here in Ponchatoula, no such thing as "Time out." To
It was not an easy upbringing me time out is something in the
for a young man. playing of a game. If one knows
One of Dad's greatest suc- what is expected and adheres to
cesses may have been his mar- these principles then there is no
riage to my mother. They were need for discipline for wrongdo-
married in the early years of ing.
the Depression and began rais- Mom and Dad expected
ing our family. Hard years, but that all of their children be of
,the both endured the struggles PLEASE SEE PAGE 8
FROM PAGE ONE
the only real power a legislative bin reminded her too that this
body has is power of the purse is the end of the fiscal year and
strings. There was some men- there are penalties involved for
tion by Councilwoman Pierson failing to pass a budget in time
regarding the proposed grant- for the rapidly approaching new
ing of an across-the-board pay fiscal year, a position bolstered
raise, instead of meting out the by members of his staffthat had
money based on the merit of the worked so long and hard on the
individual, historically seen as document.
an administrative duty and the The Council voted to con-
privilege of the chief executive, tinue its regular Monday night
in this case Mayor Bob Zabbia. meeting on Wednesday, even as
The mayor is practiced in individual members were say-
keeping hisemotionsundercon- ing they had other plans for
trol at all times. But now there that day.
appeared to be steam shooting The Ponchatoula Times will
out of both his ears. cover the meeting, even though
He reminded the council- news reports will have to wait
woman of the several meetings until next week's publication,
and other occasions over the since even the regular time for
past few weeks when members the monthly meeting is an hour
of the council were encouraged past the news deadline, but this
to raise any of their concerns promises to be a meeting not to
regarding the budget, and Zab- be missed.
• FROM AGE ONE
stores to a developer's planned
scheme to turn downtown from
a ghost town into a factory out-
let shopping center. But no one
wanted to tell the public what
those of us in the Chamber lead-
ership already knew - the facto-
ry outlet developer had passed
on the idea and Ponchatoula
was once more adrift on the
troubled waters of a state and a
national economy on the skids.
Ms. Jeanne was asked to lead
another new group organized
under the Chamber umbrella,
the Antique City Merchants
Association, the group whose
members would be renting or
leasing downtown buildings.
Why create those two new
Chamber committees, one for
commercial property owners
and one for the merchants? I
reasoned that in life one some-
times has to divide in order to
unite. Renters would be uncom-
fortable working on the same
task as their landlords, and the
opposite was also true.
I charged the merchants with
filling the calendar with attrac-
tions aimed at bringing shop-
pers to town. This spoke to their
greatest need as shop owners.
The property owners were
tasked with promoting Antique
city in the wider region, bring-
ing in the kind of businesses
that would be a natural fit for
Antique City, businesses and
shoppers from Baton Rouge to
New Orleans. We wanted busi-
nesses coming here that would
serve as anchors for the devel-
opment, and we needed a group
that would market the Antique
City as a tourist attraction, mu-
sic to the ears of the property
owners.
Two new Chamber commit-
tees, a wheel inside a wheel.
Charlene Branch Daniels
had her hands full keeping up
with the businesses who were
responding to our invitation to
come to Ponchatoula and set up
shop.
Tom Waterman was working
out the legal details of a Cham-
ber of Commerce commercial
development, offering vacant
downtown buildings for lease
or for sale, with the Chamber
taking a month's payment as
its seed money for the new de-
velopment.
In the Thursday, February
23, 1989 edition of The Pon-
chatoula Times there was a page
one story inviting everyone,
especially the owners of those
vacant downtown buildings, to
what was promised to be a very
important Chamber meeting on
Friday, February 24, 1989 in
the Ponchatoula Rotary Club's
building in Memorial Park.
It was at that meeting that
I broke the bad news that the
factory outlet mall we had been
hoping for was not coming to
Ponchatoula. And it was at that
same meeting that I first intro-
duced to the public my plan for
America's Antique City.
That was the Friday noon
lunch meeting of the Pon-
chatoula Chamber of Com-
merce. Early in the dark hours,
very early Saturday morning, I
was awakened by a phone call
Art Gallery & Custom Framing
Special Pricing on
Festival Posters
Framed Art 40 % Off Retail
Monday - Saturday 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. or by Appointment
1108 CM FAGAN DR-HAMMOND LA
985.345.4246
from Hell.
My youngest brother Ter-
rance, the head of advertising
at The Ponchatoula Times, was
in his car in front of his house,
and the car was burning.
That was the start of three
and a half weeks the like of
which I hope none of you ever
experience, and my life was cen-
tered on the University of South
Alabama Burn Unit where my
kid brother was fighting for
his life in a doomed struggle so
fraught with pain and horror
that I must spare you the de-
tails that I can never forget.
After the closed coffin fu-
neral, I plunged full-time into
the Antique City project, deter-
mined not to let death have the
final say. Thanks to the above-
named local leaders, and others
not named, the Antique City
project was well underway.
Page One of the March 2,
1989 edition of The Ponchatou-
la Times contained the intro-
duction of America's Antique
City that I had presented to the
Chamber, and in its own space,
news of Terrance McMahon's
struggle to live.
I often reminded the Cham-
ber membership that those of
us then in our thirties and for-
ties represented, "The most ed-
ucated generation in the history
of the world."
Most of us had college de-
grees. We did not need to go
outside our member organiza-
tion, let alone drift away from
Ponchatoula, to make this An-
tique City dream a reality. We
had the talent in-house. We
didn't need outside help.
For instance, Sally Craig
was, and I am sure, still is a
highly gifted graphic artist who
lived here, so we put the task of
creating a logo for the Antique
City in her hands, and she did
not disappoint. Look on page
one of this newspaper and you
will see her work.
I remember an early Satur-
day Chamber meeting held in
Paul's Caf when there was talk
of hiring a landscape architect
to tell us where to place the new
flag poles we wanted, where to
break the concrete on main
street to create spaces for the
crepe "myrtles we wanted, and
where to break the concrete so
the shopping district would fea-
ture colorful flower gardens.
You must understand that
downtown Ponchatoula in the
1980s was a forbidding place
featuring wall-to-wall concrete.
We were definitely going to be
smashing some concrete. But
now some folks were chatting
up the need to bring in "out-
THE PONCHATOULA TIMES, JUNE 13 , 2013, PAGE 3,
side experts" to tell us where to open up the sidewalk where we
break up the concrete. Pshaw! had spray painted. They went
I got the members up and we to work.
all walked down the street to When asked, the Ponchatou
the Ponchatoula Feed & Seed la Gardenettes were only tob"
where the Chamber purchased happy to help by planting the
a small box of white spray paint new trees and flowerbeds. As
cans. I recall, the American Legion
We all walked out the door, to was pleased to help us procure
the end of the block, where we a lot of flags and poles to sup-
began painting: small white cir- port them, and then place the
cles for flagpoles, then squares flagpoles in the new holes jack
for trees, and large rectangles hammered into the sidewalk.
for gardens, using a tape men- That artist's drawing of
sure one of us had thought to America's Antique City that
bring. The Ponchatoula Times had
In this fashion we marked off published before any of this
the center two blocks of main happened, was starting to come
street, to life.
Then, inoneoftheveryfewin- And the entire project was
stances the Chamber asked the the perfect reply to the death of
city for anything, we requested a brother I deeply loved.
the city use its jackhammer to
Gardenettes celebrate National
Garden Week
The Gardenettes of Ponchatoula met at the Ponchatoula Li-
brary on June 3 to donate a book on container gardening to the
library. This donation was part of the club's participation in "Na-
tional Garden Week" which is observed each year during the first
week of June.
According to the National Garden Clubs, Inc., one of the purpos-
es of National Garden Week is to promote gardening in our com-
munities for the many benefits that are derived, such as adding
"...beauty, splendor, fragrance and nutrition to our lives through
the growing of herbs, vegetables, foliage and flowers .... "
As part of the club's efforts to promote a love of gardening, the
Gardenettes have been working throughout the spring to upgrade
and beautify the Butterfly Garden in Kiwanis Park. The Butterfly
Garden, along with the gardens at Collinswood Museum, are ongo-
ing projects of the club to promote an appreciation of gardening.
The Gardenettes also participate in several other projects
throughout the year to promote gardening. Each month the club
recognizes a Garden of the Month to encourage beautiful garden-
ing in the community.
The Genesis Award is also given bi-monthly to businesses in
the Ponchatoula area for outstanding landscaping and beautifica-
tion. Each year the Gardenettes participate in the Arbor Day Tree
Planting in Ponchatoula by working with the mayor to determine
where trees need to planted and participating in these efforts. The
Arbor Day tree planting for 2013 was dedicated to the memory of
Ponchatoula's own John Vaughan.
At the regular monthly meeting of the Gardenettes, members
are asked to bring horticulture specimens from their gardens for
display and education. Floral exhibits are also created by members
each month to exhibit the beauty of flower arranging. Throughout
the year, the club also arranges for expert speakers to address the
club to educate the membership on all phases of horticulture.
THE MA6/G Q[ SPANO
or SROOOEE THE OLOWN
.. ,," ~\
:
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194-5938
\
21 or Older to Participate
Limited to 200 Players
No Smoking Facility
Drink Provided 4 Players
Sponsored
of Commerce
Tuesday, June 18
6:00 PM---Midnight
Ponchatoula Knights of Columbus Hall
$100 Buy-In
50% Purse with
No Additional Buy-in
Breakdown Tournament
No Shoot-Out
Family-SWle Deal
Louisiana Office of Charitable Gambling License #G0003326
information or
purchase contact
Liz at the Chamber Office
(985) 386-2536
or
Cathy Allen at
(985) 370-4027
EMAIL LETTERS TO THE EDITOR -- editor@ )onchatoula.com SUBSCRIBE ONLINE www. )onchatoula.com/ptimes