Duck Decoys

A photograph of duck decoys that have been processed with a watercolor painting filter. 

St. Bernard Parish - A Historian's Delight

The pictorial cartoon map currently in production shows St. Bernard Parish, comprising Arabi, Chalmette, Delacroix, Hopedale and all those places in-between. Why am I drawing a map of St. Bernard Parish? Well, not only is it a parish rich in history, resources, and interesting cultural backgrounds, but I am a native of Chalmette. When I was born, my family was living on Urquhart St. just a couple of blocks northwest of Paris Road. 

Here is the rough draft layout of the map, which is still a work in progress. The final map will be bigger with more details. 

I think I remember living in Chalmette, even though I was pretty young at the time. 

We moved to Gentilly when I was five and I attended kindergarten and first grade at McDonogh No. 9. My grandfather lived on Reynes St. in the lower Ninth Ward, and my father and I would visit him every so often. He had a great tool bench in his garage, lots of power tools, hand tools, jars full of screws, washers, and bolts. I'm sure it had something to do with him being a Greyhound Bus mechanic at one time.

Hammond History Book & The Map

One of the first pictorial maps I produced was one of downtown Hammond in 1984. I was walking around town showing it to people and when one of the Chamber board members saw it, he asked to use it in a forthcoming history book about Hammond called "Citizens Square."

Here are photographs of that book, the front cover and the inside front and back covers, with the map printed across the end papers. 

 

 

The Alabama Years

In 1986 I went on the road to Alabama, near Birmingham, to ply my trade as a cartoon cartographer. I did several city maps, Bessemer, Homewood, Wylam, and Columbiana. In Columbiana, the newspaper there found out I could set type on the new-fangled Apple Macintosh and so I got a job as a typesetter.

That led to a job with the Western-Star newspaper in Bessemer, in which I worked free-lance as a court reporter on a two-week grisly murder trial that was the talk of the town. Not my favorite career move, but it paid the bills. 

I put in for a job at the Cullman Times up in Cullman, AL, and became a reporter once again, this time on a daily newspaper. I enjoyed the daily deadlines and the out and about taking pictures. 

For a couple of months, I lived at the Hurricane Creek Park, a nature trail featuring rocky ledges and a swinging bridge over a rushing creek. 

But after several months, the publisher offered me the editor's job for a weekly newspaper he owned in Pell City, AL.  It was called the St. Clair (County) News-Aegis.

So I made the move to Pell City,  a nice place on the interstate just east of Birmingham. The work was back to a weekly schedule and that was fine. There I wrote many interesting stores of wrecks, fires, a couple of tornadoes, and feature articles about a variety of fascinating folks. 

After two years, I became homesick for Covington, LA, so I moved back to southeast Louisiana and started re-drawing updated maps  that I had already done of local cities. Then the editor's position at the St. Tammany Farmer opened up and I once again joined the staff there.

City Park Train Layout

Among many other attractions, City Park in New Orleans offers a large toy train layout, located within the botanical gardens. It is staffed and run by train set hobbyists and features several endless train track loops, complete with miniature New Orleans style buildings and landmarks. 

It is fun to walk around the huge landscaped layout and watch the several kinds of trains make the rounds, over the bridges, through the tunnels, and across the varied terrain. There is even a St. Charles Ave streetcar and moves back and forth on a special route. Here are some photographs. Click on them to make them larger. 

Old Bank Building in Pass Christian

The Hancock Bank branch building in Pass Christian, Miss., was built in 1928. While there recently, I took some photographs of the building. Here are the pictures:

 

 Click on the images to make them larger. 

 

The Covington Water Pump House

The Covington Waterworks Building, built around 1930, is located in the downtown area and features a Stucco Mission Style with baroque-accent shaped gable parapets and a Spanish style roof. According to the "Walk Through Covington History" narrative, it is the only building of this architectural style in Covington.

Lakefront Recreational Map

In 2016 I drew a map showing the recreational facilities available on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, namely the New Orleans Lakefront. Here are a few elements of that map.

 

Here is a video of the map production process:

City Park Story Land

A City Park Adventure

Perennial Hibiscus

Photos of flowers growing just outside my side door:

Big Iron Thing

In the middle of the Asheville, North Carolina, downtown business district there is a big iron thing. Here is a picture of it. 

Mountain Meadow

A late afternoon view of a mountain meadow near Asheville, North Carolina. Click on the image to make it larger. 

Friday Night at the Drive In

Blue Upon Blue

Sleepy Cat

Floating Flower

Beach Wave

Nothing like sitting on the beach in the early morning and watching the waves roll in. 

Birds on Wing

Microwave Tower

I once asked the phone company if I could climb to the top of their microwave tower in Covington to take an aerial photograph of the downtown area. They said no. 

Cave Explorer

Some photographs during one of my cave adventures...