DAY TRIP APRIL 5, 2008

made a day trip to Shreveport with my friend doyle jeter; en route we stopped to check out the tartan days festival around minden. below are some shots from the day

TARTAN DAYS [SCOTS FESTIVAL] BY MINDEN, LOUISIANA:

a scene of the grounds and stage

a bag-piper piping

some guy in a leather jacket that had "Christian biker association" & "riding for the Son" on it! [and wearing chaps!] oh, those crazy Christians!

SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA:

outside municipal auditorium; statues of "homeboy" james burton and elvis, who along with many more, got his start on it's stage, when the "louisiana hayride" was in full swing.

below: some shots from "the bottoms"- [st. paul's bottoms- renamed "ledbetter heights" in honor of huddie ledbetter aka leadbelly] - a historic black area which will unfortunately all be gone soon to make way for progress. what were once culturally rich neighborhoods have fallen to poverty, neglect, abandonment, crime, etc. and are now too far gone to save... plus nobody cares about preserving the history [this was a major blues area] or the remaining buidlings [many of which could be salvaged]

this church sign was out on w.70th street

while driving around downtown shreveport [where i lived in the mid to late 1980s] i noticed many of the remaining great old red brick buildings had been boarded up, or worse, broken into, windows smashed. obviously the homeless or derelicts are squatting in them, or using them to crash or get loaded in, etc. trash was all around them, and in some places where the doors had been kicked in, i could see it inside, which was trashed as well. this is a real shame.
those are beautiful old historical buildings. supposedly a lot of them [and the downtown area] are on the national historical register, but it doesn't look like anyone is planning to save them- or do anything but tear them all down to build more casinos and soul-less glass and steel structures.
[consider they tore down the old railroad station area to build that massive eye sore of a convention center!] these old buildings should all be green-ovated and salvaged.
[c] 2008 doug duffey