Last Time I Checked…

Posted on June 2, 2008 by Varg

…it wasn’t AP style to use slang in headlines:

Weed found in Covington elementary school worker’s car, police say

But since Nola.com is fond of slang, I went ahead and slanged the rest of the story for them:

The PoPo jacked up a lunch-room worker at Lyon Elementary School after reefer was found in her ride on school grounds, 5-0 said Monday.

The PoPo issued a summons to Flora Douglas, 46, 144 Douglas Road, Madisonville, for having Maryjane and a one-hitter after a K-9 unit sweeping the school’s parking lot discovered some shake and a one-hitter in her car on May 20, Covington Police Chief Richard Palmisano said.

Though the sweep occurred in May, police did not release details on the incident until questioned about it Monday.

The bust was a routine patrol of school grounds, Palmisano said. The department’s Street Crimes Team has run such sweeps in schools and their parking lots since last year at the request of the St. Tammany Parish School Board, Palmisano said.

In the May 20 sweep, the 5-0’s dog also reacted to another employee’s car, but the PoPo did not find any drugs inside and no citations were issued, Palmisano said.

St. Tammany school district spokeswoman Linda Roan acknowledged the incident Monday but said she could not provide information about Douglas because it was a personnel matter.

“As we always do, we cooperated with the PoPo,” Roan said.

There was no indication that Douglas had smoked the blunt inside the school or on school grounds, Palmisano said.

2 thoughts on “Last Time I Checked…”

liprap says:

June 2, 2008 at 8:04 pm

I have sooo got the giggles right now.

I must be inhaling your post…
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Rejoice!

I say that a lot. I sign many pieces with it. I do this because I believe our lives are a true happenstance. A brilliant occurence from nothingness. We are so rare. We are so unlikely. And simply being born isn’t enough. From there we must survive, endure. So each morning, after our Sun departs and is reborn again. Please, for the sake of your ancestors and the Universe in general, hoist that cup of joe up and say, “Rejoice.”

Ours is a soulful existence. No matter how many McMansions, polyester fabrics, auto-tunes, modified foods and social networks we surround ourselves with, we are all still native, passionate beings made of ancient matter. We are organic and we have soul.

Wood also has a warm, soulful quality. Wood has a memory. It retains smells, traumas, events. It even has a calendar. This is why I have chosen it as my medium, for its old soul. I like to think the wood in my work is in its third incarnation. First a tree, then a home and now art. If you have a room that needs a little soul, get a piece. A room can never have enough soul.

My inspiration and subject matter comes from many sources, among them: Humanism, old ballads, trickster tales, flora and fauna, science, myths and folklore, stringed instruments, brass bands, amber spirits, lady vocalists, general relativity and quantum mechanics. Some of my pieces are there just to make a short, simple statement about what’s important in life. Some are more diffuse and abstract in meaning. A personal drama, an enduring line from a poem or novel, a poignant song lyric, the legacy of an important person, a fleeting thought … these are the subjects of my art.

I use hearts often because they are a very abstract way of depicting the human soul without also employing the very subjective human form. The symbolic heart is an apt representation for a person’s experience and essence. A body can immediatly conjure happiness, sorrow, youth, age, anger, bliss. These emotions can get in the way. Sometimes it’s simply about the experience.

I am the son of a sailor and a social worker, the grandson of a gypsy, a dancer and a nurse. I spent my youth moving from port city to port city, watching a lot of road go by and reading World Book Encyclopedia. After my parents settled down on the Gulf Coast, I was a miscreant youth, destroying cars and taking the wrongs things too seriously and the right things not serious enough. Eventually I began replacing my imagination with experience.

I will use any salvaged wood but prefer swamp cypress and longleaf heartwood pine.

I despise waste. Particularly the waste of organic matter. Trees are magnificent. They were here before we arrived and they’ll be around after we are gone. I’m making an effort to save as much wood as possible. Creating art is fun too. But beyond communicating with folks, but beyond making money ad providing for myself, beyond rescuing flooded parts, beyond reveling in the ethereal aroma of heartpine that hasn’t seen the light of day in 400 years, beyond all that, I am trying to make a simple comment on waste.