“Let him who wishes continue.”
Louisiana abounds with tales of antebellum sugar kings and their baronial estates. For extravagance and tragedy, few eclipse Valcour Aimé, the “Louis XIV of Louisiana” and his home, Petit Versailles. Wondering what remained, I drove up the Great River Road some years back and found lush cane fields crowding the bones of what had been the grandest private garden in the Americas. The big house had been lost to a fire in 1920, but old photos and journals gave a glimpse of the grandeur that was. François-Gabriel “Valcour” Aimé was born into wealth in St. Charles Parish in 1798 but never rested on his lofty laurels. After buying a string of sugar plantations, he experimented with refining methods and developed a vacuum pan system revolutionizing the...
Read MoreWhistling “Dixie” in Brazil
When I was traveling across Brazil some years ago, a Rio lady noticed my Southern accent and asked if I’d heard about an old Confederate colony somewhere below Sao Paolo. I thought she was kidding until a little homework confirmed that, sure enough, thousands of former confederates, or confederados as they’re called in the local Portuguese, immigrated to Brazil in 1866, following the South’s defeat in the Civil War, and founded a town called Americano. The colonists came at the invitation of Emperor Dom Pedro II, a far-thinking monarch interested in promoting agriculture throughout his empire. He appealed to the bruised dignity of Southern cotton planters who had lost everything in the war and were chafing under Union domination. The emperor’s trump card, albeit...
Read MoreTroubled Waters
Insatiable film lover that I am, I’ve been catching up on hidden gems missed in my decades-long career of movie watching. I recently caught Macon County Line, the brainchild of Max Baer and one of the most successful indies ever made. Baer became a household name playing Jethro Bodine in the ‘60s hit sitcom, The Beverly Hillbillies, and when the show ran its course, he was so typecast he couldn’t find work. Baer fought back by writing a screenplay, casting himself in a supporting role, putting on his producer’s hat and beating Hollywood at its own game. Made for a little over $100,000, Macon County Line was a cult smash that eventually earned over $35 million in movie houses and rentals. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Admittedly, the...
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