The Southside Advocate 08-27-2025

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Danny Heitman

A beach trip reminds me of life’s possibilities

In their trips to the beach each summer, my children first learned about the largeness of the world, a place big enough to hold their dreams Wide blue waves stretched to the horizon, inviting them to look toward distant places.

My daughter and son live far away these days, each one near a different shore at opposite ends of the country Parenthood no longer asks me to be a beach dad, and there have been some summers when my swim shoes and ice chest stay on the shelf But this year, I felt a need to enlarge my sense of the world, too. My daily routines, normally a comfort, were making me wonder what might lie beyond my quietly ordered life. When my sister-in-law invited us to the Gulf Coast for a few days, I quickly agreed.

I always reward myself after the long drive to Florida by dipping my bare feet in the waves before I unpack. As dusk softens the day, I inch closer to the tide, the sea’s salty fingers tickling my toes while I laugh and make friends with the ocean again.

On that first evening, I kept my ankles in the surf until the lights in all the beach condos slowly winked on, a constellation of families getting ready for dinner Nearby, a young man and his sweetheart were using the last moments of daylight to get their engagement picture taken on the beach

These seaside photo sessions have become a romantic tradition along the Gulf Coast for many couples, but I never get tired of seeing them. There’s something hopeful about watching two lovers pledging themselves to each other at the ocean’s edge, radiant with joy as they stand at the bright lip of eternity

The next morning, I slathered myself with sunscreen and went deeper into the water, up to my shoulders, as I staggered through the waves like a drunkard winding his way home I was so still for an hour that a few gulls stopped by and kept me company, maybe convinced that I was a log. They seemed suspended as they hovered over my head, like model airplanes hung by thread

With age, I’ve come to understand that I don’t have to be in the ocean to savor it. Sometimes, we enjoyed the water best from our balcony sipping coffee while the sea moved in and out, its steady heartbeat slowing our own. What I liked most, I think, was watching the open sky through the big window near my reading chair In the shifting view I could see the day work through its many moods.

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Marching through sunshine and rain, a Louisiana high school band finds its rhythm

BY ROBIN MILLER Staff writer

collective cheer rises from the yard lines to the top of the tower where Jeff Seighman and Eddie Hirst stand with their megaphones

This final run-through marks the end of outdoor band camp and what band kid wouldn’t cheer for that?

No more standing at attention in the early morning August sun. No more sweat-soaked shorts and Tshirts. No more counting the minutes between water breaks.

Then again, none of the 165 members of the Walker High Band of Legacy are complaining or moving slowly, though Seighman and Hirst know they’re tired.

“Last time,” Hirt said, signaling the drum major to clap out the count.

Seighman takes this as his signal to put down his megaphone and ready his hands for applause.

“Our first home game isn’t until the third weekend in September, so it’s going to be a long time until they hear someone clapping and cheering for them,” he said

And when the band finishes this last sequence, Seighman does just that claps and cheers with Hirt

following suit. They’re not placating their students; they really mean it.

These kids had been dedicating their mornings to the practice field and their afternoons to the school’s band hall since July 21. The daily grind has paid off after eight days, because the band is a good place going into football season. Is it perfect? No, but what is?

“The point is they’re marching and playing better that when we started out eight days ago,” Seigh-

man said “And they’ll get better when school starts.”

He dismisses the band for lunch, following the kids to Walker High’s band hall, built in 2018 with design input from Seighman.

The facility is equipped with two instrument rooms that double as separate changing rooms for boys and girls before practice and on home game days. Once school begins, after-school

ä See BAND, page 2G

What is the story of peculiar statues in Jackson Square?

BY RACHEL MIPRO Contributing writer

A reader was curious about a quartet of statues in New Orleans’ French Quarter The question: “In

BAND

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practice will be knocked down to twice a week, when Seighman and Hirst will add more sequences to their halftime show, readying it for both home football games and marching festivals.

“We have only one halftime show for the year,” Hirst explained. “It’s written in four parts. There was a time when we would write it in 60 charts, but we’ve scaled that back to 40. We started thinking about it, and we came to the conclusion that it’s better to do something well in 40 charts than to do 60 charts, where we’re having to learn the last part at the last minute.”

Charts are grids on which marching shows are mapped out according to music phrasing. They used to print them on 14-by17-inch paper and staple them together Now they’re all contained within the directors’ iPads.

Confused? So were the freshmen on the first day of band camp.

“The freshmen had never marched and played at the same time, so that’s the first thing we start teaching them,” Seighman said. “We don’t bring them in early They show up with the rest of the band, and they start learning from the experienced players.”

And on this final band camp day, separating inexperienced freshmen from seasoned upperclassmen is next to impossible. Everyone knows their place on the charts, and the transitions from one sequence to the next are smooth.

Behind the scenes

“Mr Seighman, I need to go to the softball meeting, so I don’t think I’ll have time for lunch,”

STATUES

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local newspaper.”

Stall pointed to a June 20, 1852, article in the Daily Picayune that documented the statues’ placement in one paragraph. The article gives a short description of each statue; an old bearded man with a cloak as winter, a flower-holding girl as spring, autumn as a girdled woman and summer as a young man with grapes and a book. The article doesn’t mention the sculptor, instead offering up a brief summary of the statues’ origins: “Marble statues received several months previously from the north were set up in the corners of Jackson Square.”

A time of renewal

Historian Leonard Huber offered more details in his account “Jackson Square through the Years,” placing their installment in a time of renewal for the square. The square, first known as the Place d’Armes under French rule, which then became the

a student says after intercepting the band director at the band hall door “I’ll be back after that.”

“That’s fine, you do what you have to do,” Seighman said.

But a thought hits him.

The student has been practicing in the sun since 7 a.m., and though she’s been hydrating for three hours, she really needs to replenish vitamins and minerals that she’s sweated out on the band field.

“Wait,” he said, turning back to the student. “Go and get it done, but be sure to eat your lunch when you come back.”

After 29 years of directing bands, six at Parkview Baptist School and 23 at Walker High, Seighman knows that high school life involves more than marching and music. Limiting practice time to twice a week allows students more time for other activities and work part-time jobs.

He also knows kids need to stay healthy while doing band stuff, which includes eating lunch and partaking of orange slices and Popsicles offered up by parent volunteers during marching breaks.

Hirst, meanwhile, holds the door open for lunchtime stragglers. He knows they’re tired, and truth be told, he and Seighman are, too.

What their students don’t realize is that getting back into the routine of band life during preseason is as much a challenge for the directors as it is for them.

“We make it a point not to think about band during June and July,” Hirst said, laughing. Then it starts all over again in August.”

Plaza de Armas when the Spanish government had control, was neglected by the end of the 1840s, Huber chronicled Houses around the former military grounds were in need of major repair St. Louis Cathedral needed work, and the Presbytère

Hirst has been Walker High’s assistant band director for 12 years, though Seighman doesn’t refer to his cohort as an assistant.

“I think of us as co-directors,” he said. “We work together on this.”

Hirst replaced Seighman as Parkview Baptist’s band director after Seighman accepted the Walker High job in 2003. When Walker High added an assistant band director position, Seighman immediately encouraged Hirst to apply

The duo is simpatico. Both begin working on the marching music in the spring, where the process begins with the music.

“We both agree that the music has to be something we like, because we’re going to have to be listening to it a long time,” Seighman said.

This year, sunshine dominated Seighman’s thoughts, specifically Sheryl Crowe’s “Soak Up the Sun,” then the 5th Dimension’s “Let the Sunshine In.”

and the Cabildo had leaking roofs. Daily Picayune reports described old sycamore trees with bark peeling off in blotches, the “crumbling and molding” architecture and the overall “desolation” of the square.

City officials appointed an improvement committee to examine the square. Committee members returned with an equally damaging report, calling the square an “eyesore” and a “resort for loafers and vagabonds.”

The square’s revitalization would be championed by an unexpected contender: Baroness de Pontalba. The baroness, born Micaëla Almonester, was the daughter of a wealthy Spanish colonial official. When he died, she inherited a large fortune and vast real estate holdings, including buildings that lined the square. Huber pointed to a 1846 improvement plan the baroness sent to New Orleans officials, outlining ways to revitalize the square. The baroness demolished her father’s old buildings to build the Pontalba Buildings, which still line Jackson Square today, sparking a wave of changes. “I would say the Baroness

But even Seighman had to admit that life isn’t always sunshine, so he added a rainbow with Harold Arlen’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and a little bit of rain with the title song for the movie musical “Singin’ in the Rain.”

Then Steighman and Hirst stepped back and realized they had a theme: Weather And what could be more perfect in Louisiana?

In truth, weather is the band’s rival of sorts. No matter how much planning goes into a week, the weather can throw off everything with lightning, heavy rain, hurricane threats and 104-degree days.

“We had yard lines marked in the new band room for when we can’t go outside,” Seighman said. “We just have to improvise.”

The journey

Both Seighman and Hirst planned a career in music while in college. Seighman graduated

from Southwood High school in Shreveport, where, as he remembers it, he was “always in the band room.”

He was a drummer in the University of Louisiana at Monroe’s “Sound of Today” Marching Band, then spent two years playing drums in a touring Christian band after graduation

“Then I knew I had to get a real job,” Seighman said.

“I got a job as the choir director at Parkview I didn’t tell anyone about being in the band at first, but then they brought in Wade Sutherland to put the band together, and I offered to help him.”

Meanwhile, Seighman had married, and he and his wife were living in Walker So, when the Walker High band director position came open, he applied and was hired. As for Hirst, he graduated from Sulphur High School in 1997, then LSU in 2002.

“I started out at Parkview, and I was blessed,” Hirst said. “I was married, and we started having kids. And I said, ‘Hey Jeff, if you ever need an assistant, I’d like to apply for it.’”

Now the two directors join forces leading the 165 kids in this band. They’ll perform on the field and in the stands at five home games then divide into two pep bands for away games. Come spring, they’ll break up into the concert band, symphonic band and wind ensemble.

But that’s months away For now, Seighman and Hirst focus on the marching band — and cheering for their kids from the heart.

Email Robin Miller at romiller@theadvocate.com.

Pontalba did more to beautify the French Quarter than any one individual before or since,” said Tulane geographer Richard Campanella. “The results are evident all around Jackson Square today.”

By 1851, the newly renamed Jackson Square was a hub of activity with new plants put in, new pathways being created and wide scale renovation. Huber mentioned one other change: four statues put in the square, offered up by a member of the improvement committee, D. Lanata. Stone dealer Newton Richards supplied the marble bases and erected the statues; Huber placed the total cost of the statues and bases at $1,030. Today, the four unassuming statues still stand in the square, more or less in the same condition as when they were placed there. Contact Rachel Mipro at rachelmipro1234@gmail.com. Do you have a question about something in Louisiana that’s got you curious? Email your question to curiouslouisiana@ theadvocate.com. Include your name, phone number and the city where you live.

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Clouds often shimmered white, transfigured by high sun, but as afternoon rains came, the scene bruised blue and gray like a canvas by Winslow Homer To be at the beach again was a gift. In keeping its magic close to heart, our children might know more than we do. Email Danny Heitman at danny@dannyheitman.com.

LOUISIANA BAKES

Two cool desserts when it’s too hot to bake

Olivia Regard

August is peak summer in south Louisiana, which means some days are just too hot to think, too hot to move and certainly too hot to bake. While the slower pace of summertime may be coming to an end and students are returning to school, the unrelenting heat of summer in the south persists.

For those sweltering, sweaty days, there is nothing better than a cool, delicious dessert. These no-bake treats will keep both you and your kitchen cool.

The ice cream cake a riff on the Italian tartufo — is a crowd favorite. The recipe below pairs vanilla and mint chocolate chip ice cream with chocolate cookie layers and a chocolate shell, but other flavor combinations are worth exploring.

Classic variations include chocolate and peanut butter or strawberry and vanilla, but for something more adventurous, try coffee and salted caramel or raspberry and white chocolate with Biscoff cookies.

The opportunities to experiment are endless.

The second recipe, for lemon freeze bars, requires just a few ingredients and is another make-ahead dessert The simple, no-churn ice cream has a bright, citrusy flavor that melts in your mouth Prefer key lime? Simply substitute the lemons for key limes and incorporate the same amount of zest and juice.

My hope for you is that these cold treats provide the perfect respite from the heat after a fun-filled day at the pool, lake or a backyard barbecue.

ice cream to soften Once soft remove the bowl from the freezer and add the sec-

ond flavor of ice cream to the bowl. Spread until smooth and top with the remaining cookie crumbs, pressing the crumbs into the ice cream layer Cover and freeze for at least two hours, preferably overnight.

6. At least two hours prior to serving, make a chocolate topping by placing semisweet chocolate chips and the remaining four tablespoons of coconut oil in a double boiler or heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water (Note: Make sure the bowl does not touch the water in the pot). Melt chocolate until it is smooth and glassy Set aside to cool slightly

7. Remove the bowl from the freezer and invert the ice cream onto a wire baking rack placed on a cookie sheet or sheet pan. Remove plastic wrap.

8. Starting from the center, slowly pour the melted chocolate over the cake, allowing it to harden. Place the cake in the freezer uncovered to refreeze for at least two hours. Slice and serve.

*Note: This dessert is ripe for experimentation. The ice cream and cookie flavors are easily interchangeable with your favorite flavor combinations.

Lemon Freeze Bars

Recipe is adapted from The Kitchn; Makes 12 servings

For the crust: 8 tablespoons unsalted butter melted and cooled 12 full-size sheets of graham crackers (or 1 1/2 cups store-bought graham cracker crumbs) 2

1. For the crust, line an 8-inch square baking pan with two sheets of parchment paper allowing for excess to overhang on all four sides of the pan.

2. Place graham cracker sheets, granulated sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt in

3. Add the melted and cooled butter to the food processor and pulse to combine. Transfer the mixture into the baking pan and press the crumbs into an even layer

4. To make the lemon filling, whisk the sweetened condensed milk, two tablespoons of finely grated lemon zest, lemon juice and 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt together in a large bowl.

5. Beat the heavy cream on medium speed until soft peaks form. Gently fold into the lemon mixture until no streaks remain. Transfer onto the crust and smooth into an even layer

6. Add the remaining lemon zest to the reserved graham cracker crumbs, and sprinkle the mixture over the top. Cover and freeze until firm, at least three hours or up to overnight.

7. Using the sides of the parchment paper, lift the slab out of the pan and place on a cutting board. Cut into 12 bars.