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.