Trailer Unlimited newest venture for Blanchard’s
August 29, 2013
BOB Profile: Roddie Romero and the Hub City Allstars
August 30, 2013
French Quarter hotel hosts paranormal boot camp
Sept. 12-15
Beginning Sept. 12, the restored Bourbon Orleans Hotel hosts a boot camp for those seeking an introduction to the paranormal world.
Bourbon Orleans has “embraced its position as the nation’s pre-eminent haunted hotel,” according to a press release. Reported sightings at the hotel over the past 200 years include the ballroom dancing girl and a confederate soldier.
General Manager Mark Wilson did not promise a supernatural experience, saying only “with sufficient encouragements, guests have seen all kinds of things here in the heart of the (French Quarter)… We describe it as being between Heaven and Hell. Sometimes those coming back from a night on the town feel that way too, but are always perked up after a good night’s rest at the hotel.
Festivities include lessons from the New Orleans Ghost Hunters team, a pub crawl and a photography contests, as well as introductions to the various haunted tales guests have told of the hotel.
Full registration is $500 per person and includes meals, seminars, tours and a gala dinner. Rooms are available for $179 per night for Ghost Camp participants. Admission to selected events can be purchased individually, as well.
For more information, visit www.neworleanssteamboat.com/GhostCamp/home.html.
Clint Black’s acoustic set
Sept. 26
The famed country musician Clint Black opens the Acadiana Center for the Art’s 2013-14 AllStars Series at 7:30 p.m., Sept. 26 at the center, 101 W. Vermilion St., Lafayette.
Black performs an intimate, acoustic set with his trio. Local country musician Jaryd Lane opens for the legend. Black tie or western attire is encouraged. Tickets range from $90-$120 and are on sale now.
The music series stretches through March 2014 and will also feature The Robert Cray Band, Aaron Neville, Roseanne Cash and others. Season tickets for the general public range from $340-$485.
For more information, call (337) 233-7060 or visit www.acadianacenterforthearts.org.
Southdown dedicates authentic labor cabin
Sept. 29
Southdown Plantation hosts an official dedication ceremony Sept. 29 for the authentic labor cabin officials have been furnishing for months.
Circa 1885, the cottage was erected on Hollywood Plantation, also owned by the Minor family. Hollywood ceased cultivating sugar in 1977, the same year Southdown stopped its production. Fourteen years ago the cabin was delivered to its current location via a donation by Ken Barrilleaux and was primarily used as storage until museum director Rachel Cherry began incrementally furnishing it with donated goods.
Houma resident Dean Daigneault, a former Terrebonne school board member, city of Houma alderman and longtime pharmacist, was born in the cabin. As the son of a laborer, he slept on the cypress floor for three years before his nomadic family moved on to other plantations.
Era-appropriate furnishings accompany the cabin, down to the water well out back and an aluminum tub replicating one in which the former residents bathed.
Cherry began working the cabin into museum tours before it was complete. She juxtaposes the decadence of the pink plantation home with the living quarters of the laborers who helped build it.
“This is what it would have been,” Cherry told Gumbo early this year. “No electricity, no running water. … Everything in here is of-era, but then you’ve got to remember, it’s from like 1890 through 1935, when people were still living in these conditions. Even though we had electricity, they didn’t.
“The whole point is to show these are the people who made the money for the people who lived in the big plantation houses. … All of this amazing stuff is because these people lived like this.”
For more information, call (985) 851-0154.
The laborers’ cabin at Southdown Plantation is formally dedicated Sept. 29 during an event on the museum’s grounds.
