Our overseas football correspondent, Bill Huey, of Baton Rouge, says Advocate sports writer Scott Rabalais "reports that Coach Brian Kelly is working on LSU playing a football game in Ireland, its first game outside the country in more than a century.
"Can you image a bunch of Tiger fans in Dublin? It would make last year's shot-downing contest at the College World Series in Omaha look like a children's tea party."
Interesting observation, Bill — but is the world ready for Guinness Jell-O shots?
Fear the Irish
Speculation about LSU playing a football game in Ireland brought this thought from Earl Newman, of Baton Rouge:
"Sounds great for the fans and recruiting, although I don’t think there are many player prospects in Ireland (I could be wrong).
"If recruitment was the goal, I would think scheduling a game in Samoa would be more beneficial (that’s a breeding ground for BIG linemen).
"My first thought when reading the article was Notre Dame is the perfect choice, since they are the 'Irish,' and Brian Kelly left them to come to the Tigers.
"However the article also states that the Irish (when Kelly was the head coach) played there two times previously.
"Both games were against Navy, a 50-10 victory in 2012 and a 42-3 victory in 2023. So I think Navy would be the way to go.
"Or perhaps the team Advocate sports writers of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s promoted — Slippery Rock."
Vital tool
Lucy Perry's Saturday mention of different countries' names for "thingamajig" resulted in some other examples:
Nancy Van Den Akker, of New Orleans, says, "My dad's term for thingamajig was 'kurkentrekker,' Dutch for 'corkscrew' (his family was Dutch). He used it for any small instrument or tool."
Her own language
After Gwen Briggs, on Friday, told of her problems with Greek words, she got some sympathy from another foreign-word mangler, Marsha R., of Baton Rouge:
"I have reached the age where my brain tricks my mouth into saying the first ridiculous thing that comes to mind. If it has the same beginning initial or sound as the correct word, it blurts out this nonsense.
"It’s embarrassing in English, and now I see it is happening in foreign languages as well.
"I just got back from an Atlantic cruise that visited a lot of island countries.
"When confronted with people speaking other languages, I now have the awful habit of answering in whatever language comes to mind: Spanish, French, anything to fit in.
"In the Azores, where Portuguese is spoken, I learned to say 'Obrigada,' meaning 'Thank you.'
"I suddenly realized I was occasionally saying 'arigato,' which is Japanese for thank you, instead.
"As Gwen noted, the locals just courteously go with it."
Special People Dept.
Bettie Thibodeaux, of Denham Springs, celebrates her 90th birthday Monday, May 20. She is a retired nurse, and was a longtime resident of Central.
Minor Poets Dept.
Some of the limerick-like poems I've been getting aren't true limericks, defined as "a humorous, frequently bawdy, verse of three long and two short lines rhyming aabba…" ."
So this verse from Jo Ann Vanney Paulin, of Metairie, qualifies as doggerel but not a limerick:
"There was a columnist named Smiley,
whose work ethic was a little wily.
His submissions were clever, he contributed never.
We hope his column goes on forever."