Riding The Rails

 Between 1963 and 1967 I lived in Bay St. Louis, Miss., but my dentist was in New Orleans. So every few months I would need to go to the dentist to have my braces checked, and I, beginning at the age of thirteen, would get on board the New Orleans Gulf Coast commuter train at the Bay St. Louis train depot and ride the rails down to New Orleans. It was an interesting trip.

The train would arrive, come to a stop, and I would climb up onto the platform between cars, enter the passenger compartment and find a seat among the many business commuters. Looking out the window was a great adventure, because of the wildly different terrain that the trip would provide.

We would roll southwestward past Waveland, Clermont Harbor and Lakeshore, onward into the marshes of Ansley and the hundreds of fishing camps perched on the bayou banks of southwest Hancock County. Then across the Pearl River bridge, through the Honey Island Swamp and across Pearl River Island. 

Another bridge carried us across the Rigolets, and it was an amazing sight to be sitting in the train car looking out over the marshes and suddenly there is nothing but water. You couldn't see the edge of the trestle beneath you, so for all intents and purposes, it just looked like the train had taken flight and was soaring over the waterway. 

Then came more marshes, the eastern shore of Lake Catherine, and eventually Chef Menteur Pass. The fishing camps became closer to each other, and the fishermen heading back from the early morning fishing expeditions would wave at the train passengers. 

Then, as the train entered New Orleans East, things really got interesting. Rolling through the train yards of Gentilly, where dozens of parallel tracks held dozens of stationary freight cars awaiting their sorting out and hitching up. It was the manufacturing and industrial area around the Industrial Canal. The train brought you through the middle of it all, with each half mile another fascinating array of cranes, fork lifts, and shipping containers.

Once over the canal, the train track right of way suddenly rose considerably higher than the surrounding landscape, and you found yourself looking down on the tops of houses, following alongside the newly-built interstate. I don't remember going through City Park, but maps showing the train tracks going to Union Passenger Station hint that part of the journey followed the interstate through the park, then taking a southward turn along the ancient New Orleans Cemeteries and on the way past where the Superdome would be built. 

Finally the train would ease into Union Passenger Station and come to a rest. But my journey wasn't over yet. I would walk from the station to Lee Circle, which is about four blocks, then catch a St. Charles Avenue street car and head over to Canal Street, where my dentist office was located in the Maison Blanche building (tenth floor to be exact). 

After a ten minute exam to see how my braces were doing, I would be released and then I'd go exploring on Canal Street. First, the electronic stores with all the latest radio gadgets, including a crystal radio set (red and white) that looked like a rocket ship.

Then to Katz and Besthoff for a hamburger and/or hot fudge sundae, and finally to Holmes Department Store where I checked out the camera section (where my sister Bonnie worked) and the television department. 

It was there in the television department of D. H. Holmes that one day in 1963 on my visit to the dentist I came across a group of people all crowded around a television set, sad-faced, and staring at the news broadcast.

It was Walter Cronkite, talking about President Kennedy getting shot in Dallas, TX. People were in a state of shock, I was in a state of shock. President Kennedy had guided us through some pretty tough times, particularly with the Cuban Bay of Pigs invasion, when everyone huddled in their homes thinking that World War III was about to erupt. Now he was dead, shot while riding in his convertible on the streets of Dallas.

 

 

Walter Cronkite, November 22, 1963

 

And I was standing with a group of strangers on the third floor of D.H.Holmes watching the drama unfold. I finally went downstairs, got on the streetcar, and rode to my grandmother's house on Carondelet st., to await my dad getting off work at the Cyanamid Chemical Plant in Luling. 

When he arrived, we would immediately get ready to go pick up two pots full of hot tamales from Manuel's Hot Tamales on Carrollton Avenue and head on out to dad's corner at Broad and St. Bernard Avenues.

College Collision

 While attending Southeastern Louisiana University back in the early 1970's, I almost made a movie. It was to be a short film, shot on a street intersection west of campus, the intersection of Ned McGehee Drive and North General Pershing St.

The plot was simple: a motorcyclist in his early 20's runs a red light at the intersection and hits a car passing by in front of him. He is injured, and the entire movie consists of the people and the "witnesses" at the scene waiting for the police and ambulance to arrive.

But it is a tense wait, for different people saw different circumstances. The driver of the car was an elderly man who said he had the green light, but the man in the house at the intersection said the motorcyclist had the green light. A car with two young people, also in their early twenties, was approaching the intersection from the south when the accident occurred, and they agreed with the elderly driver, that he had the green light.

The motorcyclist is lying on the side of the road injured, and he insists that he had the green light.

So it is youth against age, but with young witnesses siding with the elderly, and the elderly witness siding with the younger person. The title of the film was to be "Collision," for obvious reasons.

That was the plan, at least.

I had made numerous films on silent 8mm film in my high school days, but this one was going to be done on black and white film with sound, so that right there was a challenge.

I had a couple of meetings with potential actors and crew, spelled out what would have to be done. I contacted the Hammond Police Department and they said they would cooperate with traffic control during the filming. I spoke with the people who lived at the house at the intersection and they said it was okay to use their house. I don't remember if they agreed to be a part of the film and act as the owner of the house. The local ambulance company agreed to supply an ambulance.

This was when I learned that going from silent 8mm movies to sound 16mm movies complicated things exponentially. There was the need for lighting and reflector panels, lighting required lights, extension cords and permission to use a power outlet somewhere in the vicinity.

There were sound requirements, a boom mike perhaps, someone to hold the boom mike. Retakes to get the sound right if extraneous noise interrupts a scene. This was before digital editing so everything had to be done in camera, no post production (maybe some editing) There had to be a script and actors who could learn their lines and act at the same time while repeating those lines.

As the thousands of details and loose ends continued to pile up, I finally came to the realization that I didn't have the time, the money, or the desire to actually go on with the project, and it was dropped in favor of more productive pursuits, such as actually going to college, studying for tests, and working on weekends to pay the bills. 

"Collision" was a good experience, just the same. I appreciate everyone who encouraged me and worked with me on the initial preparations, and I came to appreciate the work and creativity that goes into the making of a major motion picture. Sure, the finished product on the big screen offers some entertainment for an hour and a half to two hours. But the millions of seemingly insignificant creative decisions, personal choices, professional skills, and most of all, a steadfastness and drive to pull it all together and make a few bucks in the process, well.... that's just the gigantic creative effort that the modern movie audience doesn't see (or care about).

Working on "Collision" did teach me one thing, when a project starts getting too big, too complicated, and too expensive in comparison with the rewards it may bring at the end, sometimes it's better for you to quit while you are ahead, learn the lessons it offered, and try something different. 

The film, much like many situations in real life, didn't really have an ending. The motorcyclist is hauled off in an ambulance, the nearby resident goes back into his house, the two car drivers go on their way.  Is a ticket issued, is the traffic light defective, will the debate among witnesses be resolved? Sounds like a perfect set up for a sequel.....

Vehicles I Have Owned

 Here is a list of the vehicles I have owned over the years, some with photographs. 

 

 

1959 Chevy Truck with flat bed

 

 

1972 American Motors Gremlin

 

 Plymouth Arrow 

 

 

Plymouth Satellite

 

 

 

Isuzu diesel pick up truck

 

 

Geo Metro

 

 

Ford 150 pick up truck

 

Nissan Frontier pick up truck

Hyundai Accent

 

 

 

 

Space Camp Out of the Question

 Nothing says that you're getting old quite like wanting to go to Space Camp and realize you're over the age limit. 

Memories of Computers Past

Just thinking about things from a computer past:

Windows 3.1

Alta Vista

Prodigy

America Online

    (Thanks for all the free 3.5 inch floppies that I reformatted for other uses)

"You've Got Mail"  (which became a major motion picture.)

Filemaker 2.0

Texas Instruments

Vic 20

Commodore 64

Radio Shack Tandy Computer Model 4

Deskmate GUI

Macintosh 512K

Adventures in Genealogy

A few years ago I was bitten by the genealogy bug, and I joined Ancestry and started putting together a family tree. My grandfather's name was Joseph A. Barthet, and he was born on October 23, 1884, in Donaldsonville, LA. He died in New Orleans in 1966. 


Apparently, there was another Joseph A. Barthet, possibly my great grandfather, who was a photographer in Labadieville in the late 1800's. The Louisiana Digital Archives has several photographs by the "Barthet Brothers Photography Studio" in its collection. The photographer credited with some of the shots was Joseph Barthet.

So a reasonable person would think my grandfather, who was an auto mechanic (he worked on Greyhound buses) was somehow related to Joseph Barthet, the photographer. My grandfather was from Labadieville, as shown on some old family documents I have in the family file folder, and the photographer worked in Labadieville.

This was way back in the early days of photography. I remember being told that my grandfather was at one time a traveling photographer who would go from town to town and take pictures of people at fairs and carnivals. 

Surely he is related to the Barthet who opened a photography studio with his brother in Labadieville. Either way, I found that interesting, given the fact that I have been a photographer all of my life. Here are some Barthet Brothers photographs in the state archives.Click on the image below to make them larger.

 

Joseph Barthet was also listed as Postmaster in Labadieville in 1928, but he died in 1933 and had to be replaced. 

Attenuating Patch Cords and other Dinosaurs

Years ago, from time to time, I needed to use an attenuating patch cord to dub the sound from an audio source to a tape recorder. It was about three feet long, black, with a mini-plug on each end. It would transfer the audio signal from the earphone jack of a tape player to the microphone jack of a tape recorder, lessening the strength of the audio along the way so as not to overpower the microphone level.

Now I have dozens of old cassette tapes with interviews, radio broadcasts and other memorable stuff, and I need to take those analog signals and transfer them into the computer. Well, after looking for my 30 year old attenuating patch cord which I bought at Radio Shack for a buck or two, I couldn't find it, so I thought I would just order one off the internet.

Man, am I getting old. Searching for an attenuating patch cord brought in lots of results, but nothing that even resembled what I used to know one as. Half of the search results were for things that I had never heard of, the other half was for professional audio processing, costing ten times more than I wanted to (or expected to) pay for one. There were even optical attenuating patch cables. I tried to imagine what that would be for, but I gave up.

But I did get a laugh out of one webpage that defined the function of an attenuating patch cord as a cable that "attenuates" a signal only in one direction, down. It does not attenuate the sound level upward. Well, duh. 

Photo Processing Technical Notes

This picture of Tugy's Bar in the Southern Hotel building in Covington was taken in the mid-1970's, some 45 years ago. 

 

Click on the image to make it larger.

 Here are some technical notes on the processing of that photo:

The picture of Tugy's Bar at the top is just a small portion of a decades old slide of the Southern Hotel. The slide was dirty, dusty, and its color was deteriorating. Here's the process I went through to get it cleaned up a little.

1. Zoomed in on Tugy's Bar, cropped out the rest of the Southern Hotel building.
2. Ran a sharpening filter to help sharpen the focus.
3. Blue splotches were everywhere, hundreds of them, the result of the color dyes breaking down. Instead of trying to color correct the hundreds of blue splotches, I switched the whole thing over to black and white, making the blue splotches gray. Then I selected out specific areas and blurred them to smooth out the splotches. 
4. In a quick three hour re-coloring session, I tinted all the picture elements ( the buildings, the cars, the street, the trees) back to a natural color.
5. I retraced the letters on the signs. 
6. Then I ran the whole thing through a watercolor painting filter to increase the artistic look and take out the last few slide imperfections.

 

Here's a procession of the different image processing stages

Getting Old

Hammond Downtown CloseUp 1984

In 1984 I drew a detailed map of downtown Hammond with all the buildings and all the businesses named. The central business district association was so delighted they bought it on sight. I have posted the entire map before on this blog, but I thought I would show some close up views of the businesses. Click on the images below to make them larger. 

Hammond History Book & The Map

Hammond Maps

 

 

Grandmother Love

Last night I had a dream. Its central focus was my grandmother. I pictured her wearing the faded yellow apron that she used to wear, the kind of apron that was square and tied around her waist at the back, with a faded floral design on the front. 

While most of the dream consisted of me driving her around New Orleans, passing through Audubon Park, taking her to visit with her friends, the end result of the dream was a reinforcement of the power of grandmother love, the genuine family-nurturing love she radiated throughout a room.

The details of the dream aren't important, but what was important was the steadfast, healing, comforting love she had towards me and towards all her grandchildren, even the children of her next door neighbors.

The faded yellow apron was a symbol of that love. It's hard to describe the peaceful, calming, and encouraging effects derived from the dream reminding me of how I looked forward to visiting with her every Saturday, experiencing that rich outpouring of grandmother love, accompanied by a cookie or two.

It was just a dream, of course. Or was it?

Construction News Reporting

For a couple of years back in the late 1970's and early 1980's I was a field editor with Construction News magazine. The publication was based in Little Rock, Arkansas, and covered several states. My territory for news coverage was all of Louisiana and southernmost Mississippi.

There were several interesting experiences while I worked for Construction News, and I thought I would share some of them with you here.

Digging The Swamp Trench

The most memorable, I suppose, is the time I was taken out into the middle of the Louisiana marshlands on an airboat to take pictures of a backhoe that was digging a pipeline trench through the swamps. I wrote a blog item about that three years ago, so to read more about that, CLICK ON THIS LINK.   

But I also wrote numerous other articles about less environmentally impactful projects.

There was the time my car got stuck in the deep sand of a construction driveway. I was visiting the project manager for an interview about the construction project, but the whole site was dirt and sand. To get my car out of the sand, I had to get a nearby bulldozer operator to give me a push/shove that literally lifted me up enough to get my tires back on the driveable surface so I could get out of there. If you ever need a push out of the mud or sand, I recommend that you get a bulldozer behind you to make quick work out of it.
 
 The Two Foot High Wall

Then there was the time I was visiting a construction site near the Mississippi River in Jefferson Parish. It was located on the other side of the levee next to the Mississippi River near Oschner Foundation Hospital. The construction project was a gigantic deep hole in the batture alongside the edge of the river. We are talking about a concrete lined square hole, about 60 feet by 60 feet wide, and some 40 feet deep. It was part of a water intake chamber for some kind of water purification plant.

So I parked my car on the dry land side of the levee, walked over the top of the levee to where the construction site was, and saw the top rim of the concrete structure. But the top of the retaining wall was only about two feet above ground level from my point of view. I had no idea that the on other side of the short concrete wall, it went 40 feet down into the mud.

So, when I saw the project manager standing on the top of the wall, I went over and jumped up on the two foot concrete ridge and almost fell over onto the other side, which would have been a heck of a fall. Fortunately I caught myself at just the last second, and managed to balance myself on the foot wide concrete ledge. Although I think I managed to keep my calm,it was a shock to find out that the wall was two feet tall on one side and forty feet deep on the other side. 

I managed to talk to the project manager calmly for a few seconds and casually stepped down off the ledge (back down on the two foot tall side). It was great to get on solid ground again, and look back over the two foot wall into the giant 60 foot by 60 foot wide and 40 foot deep hole. Took a few pictures and got the heck out of there. I couldn't imagine the water pressure being held back by a 40 foot deep wall dug just yards from the edge of the Mississippi River but that's what design engineers do. 

A Lock and Dam Project

Another story assignment brought me to the construction of a lock and dam on a huge irrigation canal off the Atchafalaya River near Krotz Springs. It was a similar project to the one alongside the Mississippi River, so I was ready for it. After I drove to the middle of the Atchafalaya swamp, turned onto a levee top gravel road, and drove another several miles. Sure enough, there was the giant concrete box being built alongside the irrigation canal. I parked my car, walked up to the two foot high concrete ledge, and, when I looked over the ledge, there was the 40 foot deep concrete-lined box.

There was also a story that involved a new construction technique in Lafayette where a six story office building was being built around an extremely strong central concrete core. The core was to give the building much better survivability in a hurricane situation. That was very interesting, a merging of conventional building techniques with prestressed concrete boxes.

Cranes, Bulldozers, and Backhoes

Other stories would involve hydraulic elevators in short-rise office buildings, the driving of sheet piling to re-inforce the levee on the Atchafalaya River somewhere down in Cajun country, and numerous visits to construction equipment sales outlets for information about Caterpillar, Case, Manitowoc Cranes, Ditch Witch, Bobcat, Grove and John Deere equipment. Part of my job was to write articles about new kinds of construction equipment that may be of use in Louisiana and Mississippi construction projects. 

Inside the Chemical Plants

The two least favorite story assignments dealt with articles telling about how construction equipment was used inside chemical plants. I spent a day inside a chemical plant on the river near Baton Rouge, talking to the project manager about the use of hydraulic cranes within extremely complex piping environments. I also spent a day inside a chemical plant way over in Lake Charles gathering information on new techniques being used in fitting new processing units within existing complexes.

While both articles were interesting, the atmosphere environment inside the chemical plants did a number on my lungs (and also on my car's finish, even though it was parked out in the parking lot.) I feel for the people who work inside chemical plants every day, hopefully they are wearing breathing masks by this time.

There were other chemical plant based articles, one in the Shell refinery in Norco, and another in the same general area, but I had, by that time, learned to drive in, get the interview, take a few pictures, and get out as quickly as possible. 

Computers in Construction

I especially enjoyed helping to write one article which was telling about the introduction of computers into the construction project offices. Remember, this was back in 1980, and computers were just entering the work world. Previous to that they had been gigantic boxes with flashing lights in university research centers. The new construction computers were beginning to help contractors keep track of all kinds of things, from materials, to project scheduling, equipment allocations and, of course, work crew payrolls. Helping explain the possibilities of using computers to contractors in the construction field was quite a challenge. 

Working for Construction News was an experience I wouldn't trade for anything, because in addition in doing information gathering and taking pictures at construction sites all over the state, I also got to go to group meetings and annual parties for the two major construction contractor associations. While doing that was fun, it was not as much fun as taking pictures of bulldozers, cranes, pile-drivers, front end loaders and backhoes in action.

The contractors were great people doing important work, and I was proud to write articles and take pictures showcasing their skills and expertise in meeting the challenge of building stuff in Louisiana soils. The next time you drive on a highway, visit a high rise office building, or see a flood wall made of sheet piling with a re-inforced concrete cap, think of the folks who made all that happen.

 

I even wrote an article about a sewerline construction project in Covington, not far from my house.

Los Islenos Museum

Recently I drew a pictorial map of the Los Islenos Museum and Cultural Heritage Center on Bayou Road in St. Bernard Parish. 

Click on the image below to make it larger. 

 

See also:

St. Bernard Parish Bird's Eye View Map 

St. Bernard Parish - A Historian's Delight

Dan Ellis Writes History Books

History book publisher Dan Ellis writes extensive histories of area communities, using the power of social media and community pride to bring it all together. In 1999 he wrote a history of the City Of Slidell.  He was glad to be able to provide a thoroughly documented history book for the community, as he has done for numerous other communities across the area that also needed their histories to be researched, verified, and published. 

He's self-published 39 books in total, preserving in print the community histories of dozens of towns across the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Louisiana and even Eureka Springs, Ark., where he lived for nine years after evacuating for Hurricane Katrina. 

While in Eureka Springs, he started an annual Mardi Gras parade and a couple of other festive events that he had been involved with on the Gulf Coast. "They are crazy about their Mardi Gras now," he said. Just a few weeks ago he went back to Eureka Springs to enjoy their Mardi Gras parade. 

 

The Pass Christian Historical Society honors Dan Ellis (with sunglasses)

But he recently returned home to Pass Christian to attend a special reception paying tribute to his history gathering and book writing expertise. A group of his friends at the Pass Christian Historical Society showed their appreciation for his work and accomplishments. 

Three years ago, he returned from Eureka Springs and moved to Gulfport, but all his friends were glad he came back to the Pass to be honored and thanked for his efforts to preserve history and keep it available via print. "He has done so much work to help Pass Christian and the Coast," said one society officer. 

Dan recalled how he got started in public writing back in the 1980's. He began writing a column in a business journal called City Business News. He was in the computer industry at the time, so he wrote about computers.  "People at that time didn't know what computers were or what they could do," he said. "The first computer I had was a big, big thing and cost $20,000 a month just to rent. You couldn't even buy it. And talk about memory? I had a big box that held the memory, 4K of memory."

 "Nowadays computers are everywhere. We don't even know them anymore. They are in our refrigerators, in our phones, in our automobiles. When I retired here in Pass Christian, I decided to write books," he explained. He wrote his first history book in 1995 about Diamondhead, a community on the north side of Bay of Saint Louis. It was the first in a series of what he called 'Discovery Books.'

"Not too long after that, I started work on a history of St. Paul Parish - Jubilee 3," telling the story of St. Paul Church in Pass Christian.  That's when he started getting involved in printing his own books by taking the manuscripts down to Kinko's copying service. It was a challenge to print, collate, and attach the covers to the books, so he didn't print many copies at first. He referred to the process of printing his books at Kinko's as "getting kinky."

Publishing 10 at a Time

 He'd sell the ten or twenty books that he had produced, then go back to Kinko's to get another 20 printed up. For the printing of the St. Paul's book, he came up with the idea of having people donate an amount to have a "memorial" printed up in the ads section of the book, and that's how they paid to have it printed and published. 

After the Diamondhead Discovery book, he wrote several other discovery books: Pass Christian in 1996, Bay St. Louis in 1997, and the Gulfport Centennial in 1998. Each of his early books was revised and reprinted after he returned from living in Eureka Springs in 2013. 

During the revision, he combined some books together. The original Pass Christian book was a thin volume, but the revised Pass Christian book was fattened up a bit when he included large passages of local history that he had researched for other area books. He calls the new edition "Pass Christian Omnibus."

 

The Pass Christian Omnibus

  The early editions still have their integrity, he said, but the expanded revised books are much more comprehensive. "You know what I tell people about my books? You don't pick one up and read it from page one til the end. You open it anywhere in between and start reading whatever you find of interest," he said. "That's how easy it is to become informed about your community."

It was fun to write the book about Pass Christian, he said, but he is also proud of his books on the entire Gulf Coast. "These books have more information about the Gulf Coast than any other book anywhere," he stated. He mentioned that several of his books had cover art done by one of the members of the historical society. 

 

One of his books tell all about the old hotels along the Gulf Coast, another tells about the impact of Hurricane Katrina. There are books about all the lighthouses, and stories about individual lighthouses are included in all the communities that have a lighthouse.

He is now writing his 40th book. Of the 39 books for sale on Amazon, 13 of them are also available as Kindle e-books, he said. 

Historian or Historiographer?

Ellis denied that he was a historian, but instead he considers himself a "historiographer," someone who writes history. "That's what I do," he said. Historians research, learn it, share it, preserve it, keep history close to their hearts. "In my case, I did a lot of reading, weeks and weeks of it,  months and months of it, and this was before the internet where you can now pick up your phone and ask it any question in the world," he explained. 

Much of the information in the books he published is now available on the internet due to the way Google has penetrated so much in the world, he commented. "Almost any source out there is now available on the internet," he said. 

In the beginning, he became a self-publisher because  "the big publishers aren't interested in books that are only going to sell 100 copies. I had to become a self-publisher. Lo and behold, 15 years after I started doing it with Kinko's, Amazon comes along and offers do-it-yourself self-publishing through instant printing on demand." Through Amazon, anybody can become a publisher, with good quality books being the result, he feels.

The Process of Doing a Book

 "So before the internet, I did a lot of the research on my own.  I talked to people, I read old typewritten reports from years ago, went to library research rooms," he said. He named several well-known Gulf Coast historians who laid the groundwork for today's history gathering and collection. 

"Personal interviews and community contacts were wonderful," he recalled, citing the many people who invited him into their homes to view their collections of old books, scrapbooks, postcard collections, and the telling of the "real stories" of the people involved in history.

He encourages people to get together, hold meetings, talk to each other about the old family histories, share memories, share pictures.  It is this kind of gathering first-hand knowledge from the people whose families had lived the history that makes the difference. They need to share anecdotes, take notes, and start making the inter-connections of local history, he feels.

 "And the local historical society should give them a certificate or something to show its appreciation of them for sharing their information," he added. He belongs to about six different historical societies,  and he encourages all members to step up and work with the societies to preserve area history.

Social Media

Over the years, as the internet became more available and as the social media phenomena Facebook was joined by older members of the community, Dan would create a Facebook page or a webpage that invited visitors to share their stories and their pictures of their special community. Having people come to him via Facebook was helpful. "It ended the drudgery of research work," he said. He has since closed down some of the community websites he created since people aren't using them any longer.

The most used Facebook pages he created are the ones for DeLisle and Henderson Point. "They love it," he stated.

It was a template he would follow down through the past decade to acquire a wealth of information that, with some effort, resulted in books that will be passed on from one generation to the next. 

Old Spanish Trail

One by one, historical society members gave their testimony of how important Dan's work was, in encouraging memories to be shared, in writing down those memories, and digging out the old photographs and postcards to be scanned and printed in his books. He worked with fellow society members on the 'lighthouse committee' and the Bicentennial Committee, as well as his premier effort to resuscitate interest in the Old Spanish Trail, a coast-to-coast highway program that pioneered family motoring 100 years ago.

"Putting information together about the Old Spanish Trail was my most interesting project," he commented, "and it's still ongoing." 

Ellis attended several Old Spanish Trail  rejuvenation conferences and then put on a couple of conferences himself, one in Pass Christian in 2017 and another in Bay St. Louis in 2018. I was a speaker at the Pass Christian conference, and it brought several speakers from across the region together to remember the great new key to adventure: the family automobile. 

Through Dan's efforts, signs designating the Old Spanish Trail's route along the Mississippi Gulf Coast scenic beach highway have been produced and installed, and more are on the way.

One of his published works is a reprint of a book that was originally written and printed in 1889. "It is a beautiful book, and I didn't want to put in it anything of mine, so I just reprinted it, and put in a few pictures," he explained. It was difficult for him not to put any of his words into it, but it is a beautiful book as it is so he left it alone, he said. 

"He's a promoter," one society member said, "and he makes things happen." That together with his computer knowledge and working with printers to get the books produced, it has meant a lot to the communities that his talents have touched. He was a motivating force as well, inspiring others to get involved in researching history. The society has benefited greatly from his encouragement, guidance and perseverance. 

"Dan stimulated our curiosity and our imaginations to find out more about our little community," another member stated, thanking him for his diligence in pestering people, annoying people, and doing whatever he had to do to get the key historical information and photographs that now mean so much to the community. 

He admitted that he has written an autobiography, a "kiss and tell" book about his life and times. "But I don't recommend anyone buy it and read it," he laughed.

He is planning to write a book about his early life in New Orleans, but it's about a New Orleans that isn't there any longer. When asked if he ever wrote poetry under a different name, he answered no. "If I'm going to write anything, it's going to be under my own name. I'm too proud of myself to do anything else."

 

He gave a flash drive with all of his files and information on Pass Christian history to the president of the historical group. 

 

There was even a cake!

 

A display of some of his books

 

A quilt that was given to him in honor of the occasion

 "It's good to be here, back with all you folks," Ellis told the crowd at the meeting. "It's overwhelming, and makes me feel good. I loved it here, and I always tell people that if they want to make friends, they just need to go to Pass Christian." 

Among his book titles on Amazon are  "All About Camille: The Great Storm of 69," Images of Pass Christian, Slidell - Camellia City, Bay St Louis Discovered: Hancock County, Pass Christian Discovered, Japanese Gardens of Pass Christian, Henderson's Point,  Trinity and Live Oak: Pass Christian, MS, Jazz in the Pass, Lady in Red: As it Came to Pass, and Histoire Noir "Black Heritage of Pass Christian."

American Flags Made Outside America

So I was looking at a brand new Harbor Freight Tools catalogue that conveniently came in the mail, and I see that they are selling 3 foot by 5 foot American Flags with embroidered stars for $8.99. But a note in small print says that these flags are not available in Minnesota.

Then the next ad offers a 3 x 5 foot American flag with embroidered stars for $19.99. But it doesn't say anything about this flag not being available for sale in Minnesota. It does point out that the second flag is "Made in USA."

Hmm, I thought. Does the state of Minnesota have a law against selling American flags that aren't made in the U.S.? Well, in fact, it does. According to a website at

https://www.cga.ct.gov/2007/rpt/2007-R-0601.htm

The Connecticut Office of Legislative Research reports that Minnesota has enacted a law requiring all American flags sold in the state to be manufactured in the United States. 

BAN ON SALES OF FOREIGN-MADE AMERICAN FLAGS
Minnesota law bars anyone in the business of selling goods at retail from selling or offering to sell an American flag in Minnesota that was manufactured outside the U.S. The law passed in the 2007 session as part of the omnibus state budget act."


The Minnesota law took effect January 1, 2008. The law is silent on enforcement but another Minnesota law appears to make violating the flag law a misdemeanor. Minnesota is the only state that bans the sale of foreign-made American flags, but other states have other flag-oriented laws that apply in special cases.

"Three states have laws that require certain American flags to be manufactured in the U.S. These laws cover flags purchased under state contracts (Tennessee) or for display in public schools (Arizona and Massachusetts) and public colleges and universities (Arizona). These laws apply only to public agencies."

So don't try to buy one of those foreign-made American flags in Minnesota.

https://www.united-states-flag.com/made-in-the-usa.html