Louisiana Voice

If I may impose on my readers to allow me to move away from politics for just a bit, I’d like to invoke personal privilege to write something that I should’ve written a long time ago if for no other reason than to illustrate that there are still some wonderful people who walk among us. I hope you will indulge me as I pay a long overdue tribute to a great person and a wonderful friend. Plus, it’s important to let friends know how you feel about them.

I owned and coached an adult sandlot baseball team for about ten years. Well, I didn’t really coach because the players knew a lot more about baseball than I did. Basically, I made out the lineup and just let ‘em play.

When I reluctantly decided to finally give it up, I went to our last meeting of league coaches. I brought along with me the owner and coach of Ruston’s black baseball team, the Black Sox, comprised largely of Grambling University players. The purpose of having him attend as my guest was twofold: to submit my resignation and withdrawal from the league and to sponsor the Black Sox for membership. My motion to accept them met with crickets. My motion died a quiet death for lack of a second. But I consider those ten years to be among the richest of my life because of the friendships made and kept.

There were many: Dean Dick, Renny Howard, Glen Trammell, Randall Fallin, Gene Smith, Reg Cassibry, the three Barham brothers, Curt, Cecil and Steve, Woody Cooper, Gene Colvin, Gary Crawford, Bill Duncan and Wayne Baxter, to name only a few who wore the uniform of the Ruston Ramblers. There were others but those were the ones who made up the core, those who played for me the longest.

But one person stands out in terms of being one of the finest human beings I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. Jack Thigpen, who now lives with wife Ann in Monroe, wasn’t a heavy hitter and he didn’t have the strongest arm but he was a smooth infielder, playing both second and shortstop, depending on who was available. He was one of several of the Ramblers who played for Louisiana Tech.

I remember so clearly the exhibition game we played against the Black Sox. They had a fireballer for a pitcher who threw what only sounded like strikes to us (I say “us” in the collective sense; certainly not as a player. I played only if we were shorthanded. I do still hold the league record of 17 consecutive strikeouts – as a hitter). But in that game, Jack stroked two opposite-field triples and drove all three of our runs and we somehow won, 3-2.

Jack also pulled off the most memorable play of my entire ten years “coaching” the team. I don’t even remember who we were playing but I know it was a tight game and the other team had runners on first and second with no outs. On the pitch, both runners broke on what I can only surmise was a double steal. With a left-handed hitter batting, Jack, playing short, came over to cover second in case the catcher tried to throw out the runner coming from first to second.

As he approached second, the batter, perhaps not seeing the steal sign didn’t take the pitch but instead, hit a screaming line drive right up the middle and over second base. Jack instinctively jumped up, caught the liner and landed on the bag. The startled runner from first, apparently unaware that the ball had been hit, came sliding into second and Jack reached down and tagged him and rolled the ball toward the pitcher’s mound and started running off the field.

And alert as always, I had not realized the runner going from second to third had been doubled off when Jack landed on second so I started screaming, “Jack! Jack! What’re you doing?”

Never missing a beat, he nonchalantly replied, “I don’t know what everybody else is doing, but I’m coming to bat. That’s three out.” He had pulled off an unassisted triple play, one of the rarest plays in baseball.

He would later coach his alma mater, the Ruston High School Bearcats to a state championship in basketball. In doing so, he would join the late Chick Childress as the only RHS alumni to win state titles as a player and later as a coach at the same school.

There was another memorable play that did not involve Jack but I’d like to share it. We were in the field and the other team was at bat. They had one particularly large and ill-tempered player who was at bat. They had runners on second and third with two out. This was his opportunity to tighten the game if he could get a hit or even better, take the pitcher, Cassibry, deep. Instead, he popped the ball straight up and as our second baseman camped under the ball, the batter (did I mention he was ill-tempered?) cursed and hurled the bat over his team’s dugout – and through the windshield of his own car. No one on either team dared to laugh.

Jack wasn’t – and isn’t – one to draw attention to himself. He’s just not one to seek the spotlight. I attended the wedding when he and Ann were married back somewhere around 1968 or 1969. I forget the precise year but one thing I’ll never forget. Sitting behind Betty and me at the wedding were Tech football players Larry Brewer and Terry Bradshaw (yes, that Terry Bradshaw). Midway through the ceremony I overheard Terry turn to Larry and ask, “Who did you say was getting married here?”

But his hits against the Black Sox and his unaided triple play and his state championships are not what Jack Thigpen was about.

How many of us can say that we know someone who has never been heard to say a negative word about anyone – ever?

That’s Jack Thigpen. In all the years I have known him – and that’s for more than 60 years, I have never once heard him utter a disparaging remark about anyone. That’s the greatest attribute anyone could ever possess. If you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all is much more than an empty slogan to Jack. He’s the consummate diplomat. And get this: he comes by it honestly. He’s like his dad that way. The two men were cast from the same mold.

The memories of having friends like Jack and his father have, in the words of Bob Seger, “made me a wealthy soul.”

HB 173 by State Rep. Bryan Fontenot (R-Thibodaux) is now Act 259 after being signed into law by Jeff Landry and will take effect on Aug. 1.

That’s the bill that makes it a MISDEMEANOR to approach with 25 feet of a law enforcement officer who is “engaged in his law enforcement duties,” subject to fines of up to $500 or 60 days in the slammer – or both. Unfortunately, it’s just another knee-jerk reaction by the law and order party that, conversely, wants to defund law enforcement over Donald Trump’s myriad legal problems.

The vote was 27-12 in favor in the SENATE and 81-20 with four absentees in the HOUSE.

So, why would anyone in either chamber oppose the bill? For one, opponents say it could hamper one’s ability to take video of abuses, a tactic that has become critical in holding police accountable.

Fontenot countered by saying that the 25-foot buffer would inhibit anyone from spitting “in my face when I’m making an arrest.” (I wasn’t aware that in addition to being CEO of a land development company, Fontenot was also a police officer. (he’s not that was just me being snarky).

Okay, I’m willing to concede that officers need elbow room to swing their clubs and to properly aim their kicks at prone, handcuffed perps, but the vagueness of the law raises a couple of overriding questions:

Who determines if the 25-foot buffer has been violated and how is the buffer accurately measured in the heat of action?

In addition to Glock firearms, pepper spray, a taser, a radio, surgical gloves, a baton, a flashlight, body camera and handcuffs, are officers now going to be required to carry a measuring tape on their person at all time so as to take measurements of how far away spectators are?

Here’s another interesting question: if someone is outside the 25-foot boundary, say 26 or 27 feet away, but is arrested for encroaching on the buffer and contests the officer’s contention, ask yourself – and answer honestly – who do you think the judge will believe?

Less government weighed against the desire for more control over educational curriculum, voting rights, minority rights, the courts and women’s bodies has to be one of the more delicate balancing acts in the 170-year history of the Republican party.

And they are certainly not very good in any display of consistency.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s look at just one issue that is becoming more popular with emboldened Republicans with each passing day.

Outlawing abortion, even in cases of rape, incest or endangerment to the mother, apparently was not enough for the party that professes to wanting less government intervention into the lives of Americans.

Earlier this month, Senate Republicans blocked legislation aimed at protecting women’s access to contraception.

It’s not like we were not given a heads-up. In April 2023, we learned that the overturning of Roe v. Wade was not enough; Republicans had already set their sights on birth control with the BANNING OF CONTRACEPTIVES. A year earlier, the House passed a bill that would prevent states from banning birth control but only eight Republicans in the entire chamber voted in favor.

In perhaps the most far-reaching decision of all, the Alabama Supreme Court in February of this year deemed that EMBRYOS created through in vitro fertilization are, in fact, children, prompting Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville to utter a totally baffling EXPLANATION of his take on the ruling.

But back to last week’s vote. The vote on the bill was 51-39 with 10 members not voting. That vote fell short of the 60 votes needed for passage.

Only two Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted in favor of the bill.

Louisiana’s two senators? BILL CASSIDY, a physician no less, fell in line with his Republican colleagues and voted no. John Neely Kennedy conveniently took a walk and did not vote.

So, to all those who scoff at the suggestion that Republicans are taking aim on your social security and Medicaid/Medicare, I would suggest you read Sen. J.D. Vance’s DENIAL that Republicans want to limit birth control access of just last December. So, how did Vance back up his words? Like our John N. Kennedy, he went fishing and did not vote.

All of which goes to validate my credo on politics: Disregard totally what politicians say and listen for what they don’t say – because you can bet the farm the latter is what they’ll end up doing.

Well, just call me jaded, skeptical, suspicious and downright distrustful but there should be a ton of questions about the passage of an 11^th-hour amendment of House Bill 268.

The BILL, authored by Speaker Pro Tempore Mike Johnson (R-Pineville), was originally written to keep the home phone numbers and addresses of public employees confidential and was a good thing on its surface.

But Johnson, at Landry’s request, tacked on a last-second amendment, adopted in a closed-door session that even the Hayride professes to DISDAIN, that excluded travel plans for the governor and his family out of concern for the “safety of the governor, his spouse or his child.”

Okay, sure, we all want our public servants – and their families – to be safe. But it’s an 85-day legislative session so why wait until the 80^th day slip in this amendment? It’s almost enough to make a political pragmatist like me thing some other ulterior motive might have been at play here – something so furtive as to necessitate parliamentary chicanery to sneak it through.

Ultimately, the bill, as amended, was approved in the HOUSE by an 86-12 vote, with seven representatives taking a walk. The SENATE was even more obliging, passing the amended bill by a unanimous 37-0 vote with only two abstentions.

The intent of the amendment may well have been completely benign but my suspicious nature, fed by early efforts by Landry to seize complete control of state government, leaves me less than convinced of the purity of intent here.

Take HB-767 by Rep. Julie Emerson (R-Carencro), for example. The bill, like HB 268 discussed above, was amended to prohibit any non-resident of the state from requesting public records from the governor’s office.

That little gem probably stems from a 2019 ARGUMENT by then-Attorney General Landry that an Indiana resident was not entitled to records about Landry’s dealing with the oil industry. Scarlett Martin SUED Landry over his refusal to comply with her request. That lawsuit never went to trial because ultimately, Landry’s hollow bluff CRATERED and he eventually turned over more than 6,200 pages of documents to Martin. He likewise lost in efforts to protect public records from two other in-state publications, the Baton Rouge Advocate and The Lens, a New Orleans online publication.

Those little setbacks must’ve really stuck in his craw for him to come clawing back in efforts to shut down the release of public records through the legislative process.

Not that Landry himself is not above using public records to his own advantage, like when he obtained hundreds of pages of public records from the EPA which it used to TARGET  environmental activists who claimed that permitting practices allowed petro-chemical plants to disproportionately adversely affect black citizens in Cancer Alley.

Emerson’s bill, RESTRICTING the release of public records to Louisiana residents only, passed the HOUSE by a vote of 79-18, again with seven members not voting. The SENATE was again super-compliant, approving the bill by a unanimous vote of 35-0 with four not voting.

But what would a problem be without a solution? I mean, if Landry can obtain public records to thwart efforts by citizens concerned over adverse environmental impacts to their communities, there should be a way that two could play his game.

Well, there is.

Anyone who resides outside Louisiana who wishes to obtain public records from Landry’s office need only contact me at LouisianaVoice and I will be more than happy to make the necessary requests – and to file suit to get them should that become a necessity.

I am a lifelong resident of Louisiana and I’m certainly old enough to meet any age requirements.

Call me jaded, but when four prisoners escaped from the Tangipahoa Parish Jail, the remedial steps taken by the Tangi Sheriff’s Office to patch up a gap under the wall might have raised a few eyebrows.

All four escapees were recaptured but it had to be something of an embarrassment to the sheriff’s office to admit that the four weren’t even missed because of an improper head count.

So, what were the remedial steps taken?

Well, the fence was repaired….by inmates.

Isn’t there an expression about letting a fox guard the henhouse?