just as yeomen farmers were pressed back to make way for the sugar and cotton plantations, so too has oil partly crowded out the seafood industry and tourism, as Paul Templet noted. That also happened to a talkative man whom I discovered on one summer visit, a man sweating in his woolen Confederate cap and uniform as he worked as a period actor at the restored Oak Alley Plantation. This was the grandest of the majestic mansions along River Road, now a popular tourist attraction. He was stationed in a small tent behind the Big House. Displayed was a Civil War–era rifle, and on a hanger a
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