Monthly Archives: February 2014

Misrule Reigns in New Orleans

The Mardi Gras season is in full swing in New Orleans this week. With each passing day, the crowds grow larger, the parade routes longer and the floats more elaborate until the festivities  culminate on Mardi Gras, Tuesday, March 4. On that day, from dawn until midnight, natives take to the streets dressed in costumes […]

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Ursula LeCoeur

Mardi Gras Field Trip: All That Glitters Is Gold Foil

Helen Reporting. Mardi Gras season and the air is filled with the sounds of high school brass bands practicing their numbers, chatter about out-of-town guests, parties, and costumes. Mardi Gras is money-making time for many people in the city. As the largest party in the world, it’s boon times for bartenders, waiters, hotel staff, and […]

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Lace Valentines Win Victorian Hearts

No one knows what swain or maiden fair wrote the first Valentine. Letters filled with sweet verse circulated in England as early as the 1700s. But we owe the huge popularity of these love notes to a new law passed purely for the good of commerce—the penny post. In 1840, England standardized postal rates. Anyone […]

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