Tigers Everywhere in Louisiana

  Grambling, Louisiana, United States
Wednesday, November 26, 2008

We left the Marriott Courtyard in Monroe, Louisiana at a decent hour this morning.  We were disappointed to see dark clouds on the horizon.  We didn't hit any rain, but it was a gray day.

My sweet wife changed my game plan just a few miles down I-20 West.  She didn't want to see a lot of sights that would delay our arrival at her Mom's home in Dallas.  The sometimes good husband that I am, I accepted her wishes and stayed in I-20.

I have driven this road many times over the years.  My parents lived in Orlando when I was a student at Texas Tech, so I made the drive at least twice a year for four years.  Then we lived in Orlando and drove to see Barbara's family in Dallas.  Then we lived in Dallas and drove to see my family in Orlando.  I am ashamed to say that when I was in college, I would sometimes drive the 24 hours without stopping.  There were times that I didn't remember driving the 200 miles across Louisiana.  Dangerous!

The only way to travel these days is with a GPS unit.  While our loaner car doesn't have a navigation system, Bozzie and I always travel with two.  We have a hand-held/dashboard-mountable Garmin Nuvi 760 (aka "Gertrude") and a nifty little Sony device (aka "Sven") that hangs from my camera strap and records the gps coordinate for every photo that I take.  So Ace Navigator Bozzie got Gertrude all set on the dash.  The killer application for GPS units is the ability to download into the unit all of the places we want to see.  As we drive, it shows us the nearest points-of-interest, and we can scroll through the list to see something like the next closest 50.

On September 20, 1973, signer/songwriter Jim Croce had just completed a concert in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and was flying to Sherman, Texas.  Upon takeoff, the plane did not gain enough altitude to clear a pecan tree at the end of the runway, which investigators said was the only tree for hundreds of yards. The pilot and all passengers were killed instantly.  The official report from the NTSB hints that the charter pilot, Robert Newton Elliott, who had severe coronary artery disease and had run a portion of the 3 miles to the airport from a motel, may have suffered a heart attack, causing him to crash into the trees on a clear runway with excellent visibility. 

The site where Jim Croce's plane crashed and he died was off the Interstate to the south, but I resisted the temptation to hang a lefty. 

Big Al's Feeding Show at Bayou Pierre Alligator Park is a 5-acre park, alligator training in the swamp, and conservation show on Alligator Island near Natchitoches, Louisiana.  It showed up on Gertrude, too.  But I respected Bozzie's wishes and kept the car pointed west.

The Tiger of Grambling State University

Then I saw a sign for Grambling.  I've driven this road more times than I can count, and I had never exited to see Grambling State University.  It was right along the highway, so off we went. We saw the big entrance with the Grambling tiger, saw a number of the buildings, and saw a lot of students waiting for the bus to take them home for Thanksgiving.


Copyright 2008, Round America and William M. Windsor