UPDATED (5/17 12:30 pm) More on poor customer service (Tractor Supply)

Monday, May 17
Just met with Bill, manager of the Bogalusa Tractor Supply and appreciated his attitude. He had already gotten with George, but wasn't sure who the cashier was until I provided him with my register receipt and ID'd her.

Bill wanted to know what he could do to "make things right" and I told him he already had, by responding to my criticisms and reminding his staff of the need to interact with customers in a non-contact manner.

Those of us in business need to remember that for the customer or caller we just had, we may be the only contact they ever have with our company. A good experience results in a good recommendation and a poor one doesn't!


Saturday, May 14
Sorry, but poor customer service keeps raising its ugly head.

And despite being run into not once, but twice, before getting to the register, I still spent $16.36 at Tractor Supply (R) in Bogalusa, La! Is that stupid, or what?

I went into the store, newly opened this year, to look for an Ortho product that kills weeds, but leaves landscape plants alone. Despite seeing several red-vested employees visiting with one another, I never managed to catch anyone's attention to see if they might have the product hidden away elsewhere.

While looking around the store, I saw a six-pack of Westinghouse solar landscape lights for less than $2.50 a light. That was my impulse purchase.

After wandering through the store and passing several employees — at least they all had on red Tractor Supply (R) vests with neat little strips of tape on the front with their names scrawled on it — my presence in the store was never acknowledged.

At the checkout, I waited behind two customers, taking time to marvel at the cost ($1.79) of the 20-ounce Dr Pepper in the cooler and thinking that it was at least 30 cents too high.

About that time, an employee named George came around an aisle carrying what looked to be an upright barrel-type barbecue grill. Now, why he had to come between the check-outs is a puzzle, because it was clear that he didn't take the most direct route ... but despite the fact I was now rubbing up against the soft drink cooler, big George got in a pretty good lick as he passed and bumped into me.

No "excuse me" before or after, but I thought he might not have realized he hit me. I let it pass — until he came back through on his way outside and hit me again. Again, he was oblivious.

I started to say something to the checker, but decided against it ... realizing she probably didn't care and, if she said something to him, it would more than likely be of the "you're not gonna believe what that old guy said" genre.

The checker — I couldn't make out the name scrawled on her piece of tape — never said a word, other than, "sign there and hit okay" as she pointed to the transaction terminal. No "good morning," "did you find everything" or "thank you for shopping at Tractor Supply (R)."

Damn those neat looking little Westinghouse lights! If it hadn't been for them, I could have just taken my licks from George and gone elsewhere on my search for my Ortho.

But Tractor Supply (R) needs to stretch out that $14.99 (the other $1.37 was taxes), because the next time I spend money with them, there will just have been a cataclysmic event, as hell will have frozen over!


(Note: I need to point out that Tractor Supply is a registered trade mark and trade name. Any resemblance between the Bogalusa, La. store and one where employees acknowledge, welcome and appreciate customers as the reason for their employment is purely coincidental.)

For Morganza residents, flood's a certainty

Unlike places in the Mississippi Delta where residents are waiting to see how high the flood waters rise, those in the area of Louisiana's Morganza Spillway face a certainty.

IF the spillway is opened for only the second time in its 56-year history, there WILL be a flood of monumental proportions. The only real question is how deep the water will be, as projections range from depths of between 10-feet and 25-feet.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers considers opening the spillway when the flow of the Mississippi at Red River Landing, La., is greater than 1,500,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) and rising.

As the mammoth structure, located at mile 280 upriver from Morganza, is opened, water from the Mississippi will flow into the Atchafalaya River, Atchafalaya Basin, and Atchafalaya Swamp at the rate of 600,000 cubic feet per second.

Water that passes the Morganza Spillway first enters the Morganza floodway, which extends from the spillway at the Mississippi south to the East Atchafalaya River levee. It is 20 miles long and five miles wide, including a stilling basin, an approach channel, an outlet channel, and two guide levees. From there, diverted water enters the Atchafalaya River Basin Floodway near Krotz Springs.

Officials estimate a drop of from one to two feet in the Mississippi's level south of the spillway and, by dropping the river's level and easing the flow, the decision to open can also help keep the river from further changing its course and protecting people and property from Baton Rouge south.

But that doesn't make the decision any easier ... just ensuring a more cautious process ... because of the impact on those who live in the path of what will be a man-made flood.

Just as in the Mississippi Delta and around Cairo, Ill. and other locales where the water's on the rise, there are families impacted by the decision. And the decision, as hard as it is on those impacted, is really a no-brainer. Option 1 positions Baton Rouge and New Orleans in the eye of the flood ... and the world already knows what happens when levees are breached in below-sea level NOLA. Option 2 jeopardizes many thousands fewer people ... much more wildlife and smaller, more rural communities.

It shouldn't be an economic decision, but that's what it comes down to — and, as is usually the case, urban rules over rural.

In Krotz Springs, La., ALON USA has shuttered its refinery and the National Guard is helping raise a levee to try and protect 240 homes nearest the spillway ... in Morgan City, officials have called for an evacuation once the Morganza is opened ... and everywhere, people are wondering what to do — now and afterwards.

Corps of Engineers Morganza
flood projections

Prayers for Wolf Lake (Miss.) Community, please

Okay. It is Miss. Hwy. 149 now, but for all of us who grew up around Louise and Wolf Lake, we know it as Highway 49. Thursday evening at 6:43 p.m. MDOT (Mississippi Department of Transportation) posted on its website that the highway had been closed from near Whittington Flood Control Channel and Erickson Road, which runs alongside Wolf Lake.

Think about that. That road was already elevated ... the bridges well above the water ... east and west flood control levees to contain the water in the canal ... and the road is closed because of flooding.

We were through that area last Saturday and, although we went the backroads out by the Yazoo airport and not Hwy. 149, I remember enough trips over that road going to Granny Walker's in South Mississippi every weekend to remember how much the water would have to rise to cross over that road.

The positive, I suppose, is that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said Thursday that he had been told by the flood predictors to expect a lood elevation of 107 feet around Wolf Lake. While that's not good for everyone, it is good news for folks like Harold Horton and his sister, Hilma Horton Nibben. At 107 feet, the home they grew up in safe ... and higher, though, and it is not.

I wrote in an earlier blog that I simply couldn't wrap my mind around this flood. Now that MDOT has closed what we knew as U.S. Highway 49 West because of rising water, what little I had begun to grasp has slipped away in the flood.

Unimaginable.

Small towns like Louise hold their own

There's not much to Louise these days. Truth be told, there wasn't much to Louise back in its heydey. The 1950 Census counted 479 people and the 2009 estimate was exactly 200 less.

But back in the 1950s and 1960s, when we lived at Louise, we called it home.

You see, you don't need to live in some great metropolitan area to have access to what you need ... most especially warmth and friendship.

Last week, my sister and I returned to Louise to "see the flooding" in the Delta. We didn't expect to see water lapping at the town's edge, but we did expect to see people trying to secure their belongings out around Wolf Lake.

Sadly, we were not disappointed.

Even as they worked to protect Good Hope Baptist Church, Roy Lee Cleveland and Randy Hill took the time to stop and visit — hugging my sister and shaking my hand. A little ways up the road, Harold Horton and his sister, Hilma Horton Nibben, were busy trying to load their families' life history into a trailer so that it could be hauled to Harold's garage and stored safely. Harold took the time to visit and show us some of the preparations while Hilma invited Sarah inside to see the progress.

Even as they looked down the breech of what's projected to be the greatest flood in Mississippi River history, the graciousness of the people of the small town Delta rose to the surface.

In Louise, we drove street-by-street and spotted a lady walking along with her dog. We stopped, and my sister greeted her. It was Joanne Schoonover and we visited for a brief moment, then wished her well. She did likewise, and we drove off.

Out on the main drag, now not even a highway, we headed south and stopped in front of Hoover Lee's grocery so I could get my Dr Pepper fix. Hoover was stocking shelves and spoke to me, which prompted a, "I used to buy Blue Horse notebook paper here" from me.

After telling him who I was, he asked, "Where's Sarah?," followed by a, "Do you think she'd mind if I went out and spoke?"

Yankees don't do that. They don't do that because it requires personal interaction and connection. Those raised in the South, even the generations when there was so much violence, have a genteelness about them. Hoover, for example, asking before being friendly and welcoming.

After all, there are no strangers in the South, and perhaps that helps play into the warmth one feels even as they sit and look down a row of decaying buildings that were once thriving little businesses facing US Highway 49.

There's nothing left of Red Gum, out on Highway 14 where we lived, and there's little left of the school where so many of us spent time and build friendships that, as it has turned out, have lasted a lifetime.

Those friendships have lasted, as has the connection to that little town ... our classmates, our teachers and mentors, our churches and the values that were instilled in us by our parents as well as the parents of our friends. After all, we knew about being raised by a village long before the term was made popular.

No, there's not much left of the physical Louise, but the memories sure do fill one's mind.