Author: Tom Barrett

It’s National Acadian Day

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Bonne fête nationale de l’Acadie!

Lennie Gallant, Ouvrez les aboiteaux

From Lennie and Patricia Richard’s YouTube channel:

This is a song Lennie wrote for the third World Acadian Congress held in Nova Scotia in 2004. The aboiteaux were series of dikes and drains that the first Acadians built using the powerful tides to claim many thousands of acres of land in order to survive. The aboiteaux design would allow the moon to pull the water out of the fields on low tide but not allow it to return on the high. Ironic that Acadians themselves were later also pulled from the land with the devastating deportations and not allowed to return. The Acadian Congress gatherings were the first in 250 years to assemble over 200,000 Acadians and their Cajun cousins of Louisiana since that infamous event. The French chorus says: “Open up the Aboiteaux…Let my heart return with the waters.”

Sirène et Matelot, Acadian Girl

A third-rate burglary

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Fifty years ago, in the early hours of 17 June 1972, security guard Frank Wills noticed something was wrong at the Watergate office complex. He called the cops and changed history.

Thank you, Frank Wills. If only things had turned out better for you.

While we’re at it, we should remember legendary police reporter Alfred E. Lewis, who called in the story to the Washington Post, including the detail that the accused men dined on lobster at the Watergate Hotel restaurant before the break-in.