All posts by Brad Goins »

PAT’S OF HENDERSON: 20x BEST OF SWLA WINNER

Brad Goins December 22, 2013 Comments Off on PAT’S OF HENDERSON: 20x BEST OF SWLA WINNER

One Of The Four Businesses That Have Appeared In Lagniappe’s Best Of Awards For 20 Consecutive Years It’s now been 20 years since Lagniappe published the results of its first Best Of Southwest Louisiana

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DARRELL’S: 20x BEST OF SWLA WINNER

Brad Goins December 22, 2013 Comments Off on DARRELL’S: 20x BEST OF SWLA WINNER

One Of The Four Businesses That Have Appeared In Lagniappe’s Best Of Awards For 20 Consecutive Years It’s now been 20 years since Lagniappe published the results of its first Best Of Southwest Louisiana

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ON STUPID SONGS

Brad Goins December 22, 2013 Comments Off on ON STUPID SONGS

The morning I wrote this essay, I was in my still-dark house preparing to give the dog his first walk of the day. As I did so, I sang an especially stupid song —

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WORK N PROGRESS

Brad Goins December 21, 2013 Comments Off on WORK N PROGRESS

My grandmother Goins used to tell me, “You know what you like.” Area musicians tell me that what Lake Charles likes is cover bands. A new one, Work N Progress, is trying to take

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MAXIMUM SECURITY GOLF

Brad Goins December 4, 2013 Comments Off on MAXIMUM SECURITY GOLF

Louisiana’s ‘Prison View’ Golf Course Promises Arresting Views And Captivating Play   If you’ve dismissed the story that there’s a public golf course on the grounds of Angola as an urban myth, you have

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ON LOU REED

Brad Goins December 4, 2013 Comments Off on ON LOU REED

Among the musicians of my time, there were always three that — for me — were predominant in popular music: Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and David Bowie. Now one of those three has died,

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‘LOUISIANA PURCHASED’

Brad Goins December 4, 2013 Comments Off on ‘LOUISIANA PURCHASED’

I guess I shouldn’t be publicizing another Louisiana periodical in this column. But, as we all know, the Times-Picayune has had a run of bad luck recently. It’s finally gotten some good news with

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BRODY MEAUX

Brad Goins November 20, 2013 Comments Off on BRODY MEAUX

Brody Meaux is the 14-year-old son of Lake Charles residents Jimmy and JoAnn Meaux. Brody has the rare genetic disease MeCP2 duplication syndrome. MeCP2 is a neurological condition that occurs almost entirely in males.

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EARLY DAYS IN WESTLAKE AND BAGDAD

Brad Goins November 20, 2013 Comments Off on EARLY DAYS IN WESTLAKE AND BAGDAD

Westlake began to come into being 200 years ago, when Calcasieu River was called Rio Hondo, and both Texas and the Spanish administrators of the Louisiana territory were laying claim to the lands between

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THE HIPPIE MENACE

Brad Goins November 20, 2013 Comments Off on THE HIPPIE MENACE

The great catastrophe began on Sept. 28, 1968, when the television show The Mod Squad debuted on the ABC network. Before The Mod Squad, hippies were marginal creatures, who poured lighter fluid on electric guitars

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