[Eugene Church]

Dark Horse, Sundance and jg2977,

Thanks for your prayers.

All is well for EC... no damage to house... just no power... it's still out, but we can live in 87 degrees inside during the day... we open the windows in the evening and it cools down to a very pleasant 82.

We spend a lot of time outside on the porch, sitting for a spell in the shade and hoping for a faint breeze... we sit on front porch in the morning and the back porch in the evening to avoid the hot sun... I am reading baseball books... Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn, who covered the Brooklyn Dodgers for two seasons in the early 50s... Kahn is some kind of good writer... he brings that day of time vividly to life for the reader... also finished a baseball compilation, but forgot the compiler... am now reading 5 Seasons by Roger Angell, I think... he covers 5 pennant races in the early 70s.

For the last two afternoons my wife and I have gone to the East Baton Rouge Public Library... that's how I got to post this... I am reading magazines to pass the time... the library is blessed with that wonderful thing called air conditioning.

Some supermarkets are open, thank goodness... a few restaurants are serving minimal menus... but it's plenty to get by... many folks in the state have it far worse... I have it easy... there is no telling when New Orleans and South Louisiana will get its power restored...it might be months... Jefferson Parish (County), a suburb of New Orleans has advised its residents to leave town until the power is restored.

Lines are real long for gasoline... most gas stations are out of gas... ice is a precious commodity and very hard to find... the best part of my day is sipping on an ice cold glass of ice cold water taken from the freezing cold ice chest... I got three bags of ice yesterday... it takes it about 2 days to melt... wish me luck... hope I can find some more ice.

We are fortunate indeed... the west wall of Hurricane Ida passed over us... really wasn't bad in my neighborhood... 100 mile an hour sustained winds... we are a new neighborhood with few trees... falling trees can be a huge problem... we just lost power and some modern-day conveniences.

If the East Wall (that is where the damaging winds are in a hurricane) had hit us like it did in Hammond, Louisiana, where Southeastern Louisiana University is located, it would have done devastating damage... that area may go a month without power.

Back in the old days of my youth, Funeral Homes used to give paper fans to churches so the congregation could fan themselves and fight off the hellfire and brimstone of a Sunday sermon... this was the days of no air conditioning in the 40s and 50s.

My wife had two of those Funeral Home paper fans, cherished relics of a time gone by... Boy, they sure do come in handy right now!

Will talk to you later.

If I don't get power in the next day or so, I'm heading to Florence and Sheffield in Northwest Alabama, where all of my cousins live... they now have all kinds of modern conveniences like in-door toilets and air conditioning... twarn't that way back when I used to spend all my summers there in the 40s and 50s.

Or I may just take another baseball trip for a week or so and go see some minor league games in Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina.

EC's still having fun in 2021... my life could certainly be a whole lot worse... the Good Lord really looks out for me and my lovely little lady.

EC is not a holy roller and I don't jump pews, but, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!... Praise the Lord!"