Hammond

I left the house yesterday at 5 am and didn't get back until about 8 p.m. long day and not suitable to writing insults toward you at the end of it. Instead of driving they had me walking in some scenes. No excitement in this production but it was shot in Hammond, Louisiana. Hammond is one of those small cities in Louisiana with nice charm and old buildings.

We shot the scenes in which I participated in the old historic district of Hammond, a curious thing given the film is supposed to be set in Oklahoma, which looks nothing like Hammond. But that is the way Hollywood works sometimes. It reconstructs the city of the film to fit the locale when entertainment value is upped or the economy of the shoot makes it advantageous to do so.Hammond has about 20,000 residents an increase since the great Hurricane of 2005 chased so many of the citizens of the New Orleans area northward to Hammond and other places that are safe from future flooding.

It's biggest industry is Southeastern University (with a famed research department on mosquitoes and other insects). During the Civil War the southern army got many of its shoes from Hammond, which was the leading manufacturer of shoes for the Confederate army. That was also the time when Hammond became famous for producing sweet strawberries. it no bills itself as the strawberry capital of the U.S.That is essentially the a story of Hammond, a similar one to many other cites across the country.

I like to drink in the ambiance of a place I do not know and when there I did that, noticing the atavistic nature of the city. I saw signs of businesses that once were once bade in and New Orleans staples but no long gone. Whether they are related to those today or new ones who kept only the name I do not know, but seeing the signs made me flash back to when I remembered those same ones here in New Orleans. Small cities like this one hold a historical treasure for us, keeping alive and even idealizing things we have forgotten but are reminded again when visiting those places.

But you may ask, "What is there to do in a small city like Hammond?" The same thing there is in a large city. There are the same books, the same movies, the same sports, and for the most part the same social activities.

Hammond is really just a microcosm of New Orleans and a reminder that little or big most cities are more alike than dissimilar