To celebrate their milestone 175th anniversary, Morris and Dickson Company, Louisiana's second-oldest business, hosted a grand party July 16 in downtown Shreveport.

I was in a local liquor store the other day buying a little spirits to keep my spirits up when a man, perhaps in his late 30s, walked in looking to buy some high-end booze. He did a double take when he saw the price and immediately asked the clerk why the booze had gone up in price.

My association with Chuck drew puzzling reactions from some of my Democratic friends. After all, Chuck was a dyed-in-the-wool conservative Republican, and his sharp pen often criticized Democrats from the national to the local level. I, of course, was a Democrat, so his views and mine often clashed.