August 2, 2008 Monroe, LA; West Monroe, LA; Ruston, LA; Arcadia, LA; Shreveport, LA; Monroe, LA; Memphis, TN

I hadn't gotten to bed until 3 AM, so I was quite late in waking up. After breakfast at the Brandy House, which is one of my favorite places for breakfast anywhere, I headed to the antique malls in West Monroe, and while I didn't find any Grambling memorabilia there, I did find a 1964 Bulldog yearbook from Monroe's Carroll High School, which I purchased, since old yearbooks from Black high schools are generally very hard to find. At Ruston, I went to the Frothy Monkey coffee bar to meet with an employe from FYE who also was running a record label and wanted to give me a demo. At Arcadia, I only found one Grambling yearbook from 1994, and then I headed on west on I-20 toward Shreveport. At Dunn's Flea Market, I found a 45 by Jessie and the Mel-O-Tones out of Akron, Ohio, and then I went on to the Greenwood Flea Market, and bought some Duke label records there. After swinging by Garland's Super Sounds, I decided to drive back to Monroe for dinner, but ran into some nasty thunderstorms between Ruston and West Monroe. In Monroe, the rain had stopped, and I ate at the Waterfront Grill, where I enjoyed a filet mignon, and then continued on toward Jackson. In Clinton, I stopped at Cups coffee house, noticing that there was lightning all around, and then, as I bypassed Jackson on I-220, the rains came down with a vengeance. The deluge continued up I-55 nearly all the way to Winona, and by the time I got home, I was exhausted.