In working this last year on a new history of our community I’ve come to the impression that we’ve often had more than our share of eccentrics. It may be, however, that Houma is ahead of us.

Friday’s Daily News offered a wonderfully wry report on one Thomas Phillip who borrowed a shopping scooter from Houma’s Walmart, put a wheelchair in tow, and was riding about town treating a friend who was in the wheelchair to a tour of the municipality. As a cynic might have suspected, Mr. Phillip was thoroughly soused, but what he was doing was not frighteningly dangerous, except perhaps to the sightseer in the wheelchair. Nonetheless, our teamster was booked for a DWI.

A popular poet in my youth referred to the joy of watching “the race of men go by.” More power to you, Mr. Phillip, though you might slack off a little on the muscatel.

John Gallaspy

Bogalusa