You might remember the name Herbert Gettridge. He is the determined 82-year-old man who was rebuilding his house in the Lower Ninth Ward. Every news team in the country made the pilgrimage down to the Lower 9 to present Gettridge as the posterchild for determination — alone in the wasteland, building, with his own knowledgeable hands, his home for his wife, Lydia, who was evacuated to Wisconsin. Gettridge was a tough-to-impossible interview, most reporters settled for a photo and moved on.
Not Frontline filmmaker June Cross. Initially rebuffed, she persevered because she wanted to know who Gettridge was before Katrina made him a painful celebrity. Her real interest finally got through Gettridge’s armor and he opened up to Cross. Her documentary, The Old Man and The Storm tells the story of life in post-Katrina New Orleans, from the first jubilant post-storm Mardi Gras through the grinding delays of The Road Home to the reunion of Herbert and Lydia Gettridge, finally together at home. The Frontline episode airs tonight on PBS at 8 p.m, cable channel 12 in Lafayette. Check out the preview below.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
Subscribe to this comment's feed