Bob Newman got a Jeep with canvas sides. It was cold in the back of that Jeep on the highway. Driving back and forth to the site wasn't bad, but driving from Baton Rouge to Tallulah was extreme.

We went by the archeology lab at LSU and met Bill Haag. Possibly Jim Ford. Old Southeast Hands.

No, Ford died in 1968. But his presence was still felt at LSU.

Haag knew Chief. Chief was an Old Southeast Hand.

Haag and Ford were dirt archeologists. As compared to monumental archeologists, in Mesoamerica, who studied Incas, Mayans, and Aztec temples and pyramids.

The Collapse of the Classic Maya. What happened to them?

Dirt archeologists were more The Origins of Agriculture. When did it happen and what did it mean? Burial mounds and middens. Settlement patterns.

Chief was a historical archeologist. He studied Indians after European contact. Mission Indians. Written records talked about them.

Besides providing a Jeep, we got some equipment, on loan, from LSU. A footlocker full of hand tools, a tripod and transit, some shovels.

The shovels were old WPA shovels, and had been sharpened so often the flat-nosed blades were about the width of your hand.

Brenda and I each had our own field pack, with trowel, ear syringe, grapefruit knife, and root clippers. I had a pair of cable-splicer scissors. Wiss snips.

Brenda and I had a 35mm single-lens reflex camera we bought secondhand from Dr. Dailey, a Minolta.

Our Marshalltown trowels were filed down to smaller than new-issue size.

Do I know anyone who teaches at LSU now?

I dug with Becky Saunders (no relation) at the Old Capitol. She's at LSU.

And I met Andrei Codrescu, Exquisite Corpse, at a book fair. He knew my work.

I asked him how he liked Baton Rouge and he said he didn't live in Baton Rouge, he lived in New Orleans and drove to Baton Rouge.

In his preface to The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, Henry Miller writes that, not having the money to make an actual journey, he imagined the trip around America in his head.

I could probably make a side-trip to Baton Rouge when I go to New Orleans, or drive through it, to make a side trip to New Iberia, but my plans are indefinite, now. Subject to change.

I think it will be me and Brenda, going to New Orleans, to see Larry and Hazel, for a long weekend.

Anything more is lagniappe, as they say.

When Dread Clampitt go to Louisiana they usually play the Rock 'n' Bowl, in New Orleans, a cajun joint in Lafayette, and a college bar in Baton Rouge.

I could conceivably go with them on such a trip.

What would I be? Stage father? Band historian? Dread Clampitt groupie?

I think of Dennis Wilson's father. Dennis didn't see 40. I'm 67.

You could have surprised me. I'm a grandfather.