While the level of support we can each provide certainly varies, it is very important at this time that we all do what we can to help our neighbors - not only our immediate neighbors here in Alabama, but those further away in Mississippi and Louisiana.
My favorite day was Monday, September the 25th, 2006. New Orleans, Louisiana, site of the Superdome. I watched our people who had suffered so grievously through Hurricane Katrina fill a stadium hours before a game and stay hours after the game.
Robert Duvall saw me playing at a restaurant in Louisiana and invited me to be an extra in his movie 'The Apostle.' He gave me a guitar for my sixth birthday, and I thought that was the coolest thing in the world.
Louisiana loses 30 miles a year off our coast. We lost 100 miles last year off our coast thanks to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We have lost a size of land equivalent to the entire state of Rhode Island.
The first job I had with the Smithsonian was as a field researcher among African American communities in Southwest Louisiana and Arkansas for the festival.
I guess I feel that I was following my instincts, and at the same time being guided by the best. I became totally intrigued with Louisiana - the people, the food. It is a part of my life. Everything that has happened for me since moving here has just been icing on the cake.
The rise of the presidency began with the Louisiana Purchase, which in 1803 doubled the land mass of the United States. History taught the framers that, just as Rome changed from republic to empire with conquest of new lands, territorial acquisition would lead to the centralization of political power.
On the acquisition of Louisiana, in the year 1803, the attention of the government of the United States, was early directed towards exploring and improving the new territory.
I love Louisiana, and I love being from there.
I pointed out on the floor last year, after Hurricane Katrina, we were very proud that one of our National Guard engineering battalions was called to Louisiana. And they did a magnificent job.