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Friday, August 29, 2008

SMILEY ANDERS

Smiley Anders has been writing a column six days a week for The Advocate since 1979.

Smiley, who received B.A. and M.A. degrees in journalism from LSU, joined The Advocate in 1973 as business reporter after a 13-year career as a business journalist (he was oil and gas editor of The Shreveport Times and edited business publications for the Louisiana Farm Bureau and Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce).

His column has won first place in the items category of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists' annual competition (the Herb Caen Award) on four occasions (in 1985, 1997, 2004 and 2005). He was named the first "Communicator of the Year" in 1975 by the Public Relations Association of Louisiana. He served as president of the Press Club of Baton Rouge in 1976 and 1996.

He is married to the former Katherine Scales. He has two children and six grandchildren.

Send your e-mail items for Smiley’s column to smiley@theadvocate.com or call him at (225) 388-0639.

Gene Worley says, “Recently we drove from Baton Rouge to Bloomington, Ind., to see our grandson Ben perform with his ballet class at the University of Indiana.
… go out in the midday sun to watch football games. OK, so 4 p.m. isn’t exactly midday. Still, it’s so warm at that time here in August that LSU officials are advising fans at the Appalachian State game how to keep from dying in the heat.
Now we blabbermouths at The Advocate have gone and done it! Mary Grace Simpson says Terry Robinson “did a wonderful story about my Sunday School teacher Walt Joiner, celebrating 50 years of teaching at Broadmoor United Methodist Church.”
“Uncle Raoul” says, “Life has been very good to this old codger, but there are some little annoyances that sometimes keep my existence less than perfect.”
Dear Smiley: The conversation about kids and technology reminds me of something that happened while I was in California last month. Just as I was getting ready to go out and take in some sights, my wife called from Baton Rouge and reported that the hot water heater had gone out.
Leo Honeycutt says he was fact-checking items for his biography of former Gov. Edwin Edwards when “I ran across an unrelated fact that raises questions.
It seems that not everyone loves crawfish the way the folks in Louisiana do. Wayne Cambre says, “While watching TV over here in sunny Saudi Arabia, I saw a CNN story about an Egyptian who came to the U.S. to buy baby freshwater prawns to start a business.
This is a great time of year — all the college football teams are undefeated, a condition that leads crazed fans to make weird bets with equally crazed fans of rival teams.
Janice Harvey says, “We live right next door to Becky Bellue, who happens to be the mayor of Norwood. “I called her recently to borrow a cup of milk, as neighbors often do in Norwood."
It’s more than just a football game to the folks in Ville Platte.
Dear Smiley: Relative to the comments about food and patients: I was sitting in the waiting area at a local cardio clinic for a stress test and some blood work. Like everyone else in the room, I’d fasted that morning.
Jackie Upton asks, “Is it just me, or does anybody else see it? “Every time television shows a view of the Chinese Birds’ Nest stadium built for the Olympics I don’t see a nest. To me it is a perfect representation of a bureaucracy!
Dudley Lehew has this addition to our “That’s What I Like About the South” series: “I knew I was home when I returned to Mississippi after 25 years away, including 10 in the Frozen Nawth.
Here’s one for our “That’s What I Like About the South” collection:
Who says we don’t provide useful information in this space? Doug Treadway waxes poetic about a home remedy for summertime discomfort...
Of the riverboats who stop at Baton Rouge, my favorite has always been the venerable Delta Queen.
Dear Smiley: After raising three daughters, my husband and I are often tickled at the way our first-born grandson makes his way in his world. I took Colin, 4, to a movie last week — his first experience in a theater.
When iPods came on the scene, it seemed to older folks that the iPods and other gadgets were primarily used to transmit music that no one over, say, 21 could stand.
I have to admit that my Fearless Football Forecast for the New Orleans Saints has been a bit off lately. For years I could be fairly certain that an 8-8 prediction would be accurate, since the team seemed to be mired in mediocrity for all time.
I fear this might be a less than stellar year for both the LSU football team and my Fearless Football Forecast. After correctly predicting LSU’s BCS championship run back in August of 2007, I can hardly hope to have the same luck this season.
Kristie Carline, of Cancer Services of Greater Baton Rouge, says this happened at Camp Care, a weeklong summer day camp for children with cancer and their siblings.

Burgers: threat or menace?

Dear Smiley: In June I traveled to China with a group of students. We were in Xian at a massive Buddhist temple and were told to be very quiet. The day was blistering hot, and I was wearing my new LSU T-shirt.
Linda H. Whitman, of Denham Springs, says that after her husband’s surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., she was so impressed by the skill of the young surgeon that she sent him a special “Louisiana care package” when they got home...
Those University of Alabama people never miss an opportunity to promote the Crimson Tide. This fact was brought home to me last week by a story my brother Louis told me.
No matter how many years you’ve known some people, when you hear their names you always think of them at a certain time in their lives — the high school football star, the girl you took to the Fats Domino concert, the guy who told bad jokes at the Cotton Club bar.
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