By Kevin Chiri

Don’t you love the new move being made by the parish administration to turn the St. John Community Center into a facility for making Hollywood movies?

I’m sure there are some folks who are still unhappy that the center never became the local recreation site for St. John residents, as it had generally been touted.

And for that, I think they have a reason to complain.

But with that being water under the bridge, the parish has been faced with a way to make the best of this beautiful facility in a way that will prove useful to St. John Parish.

The idea of having movie companies use the center has been working since it was first constructed and opened in the summer of 2006. But the previous use was sporadic, and mostly from one company, until they left months ago.

That left St. John Parish with a big building that was costing at least $10,000 a month for maintenance fees, just to keep standing.

The parish administration seized upon the idea of bringing more movie companies into this area and has now formed an aggressive team, headed by Jesse Lambert and the River Parish Tourism Commission.

Jesse told me that she is extremely confident that the new effort will pay off with a lot of Hollywood companies coming to little old LaPlace, and some of that already was coming to fruition last Friday when St. John Public Information Officer Buddy Boe told me the parish had just finished securing a deal which will bring a $20 million movie here for at least three months.

Jesse is in Los Angeles as we speak, at a convention of companies which are seeking locations to do portions of their movies, and she told me last week that she expects to start the groundwork for a number of new companies beginning to come here.

It all seems very exciting to me, since it means we could have any number of Hollywood movies being filmed here, and perhaps some occasional Hollywood stars walking our streets from time to time.

Just imagine…there you are at Frostop on Airline Highway, getting ready to chow down on one of those mouth-watering roast beef po-boys, when you look to the table next to you and Tom Cruise just smiles.

He nods and then turns to his wife Katie Holmes, who hugs their little baby Suri.

Or how about spending an afternoon of golf at Belle Terre Country Club, and you head into their nice restaurant afterwards for some drinks and food. Sitting across the room is Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, who come by to ask if you mind if Keith does a couple of songs for the crowd since he is waiting on Nicole to finish filming her next few scenes tomorrow.

Unrealistic?

Don’t think it for a minute! (Well, maybe the part about Keith doing some songs is.)

The movies thing is exciting to consider for LaPlace, but even more than that, remember that these companies are bringing millions of dollars to our parish. And that is the bottom line of what will be so good for the economy and people here.

Hey, by the way, do you think they need to buy some advertising space in a great local paper?

 Do you think things have changed much?

I saw a little sign of the way the acceptable wardrobe has changed lately.

I was at a local bank recently and a young man, probably about 18 to 20, came walking from the counter and heading out through the front door.

He was wearing a sports coat, a T-shirt and….get this….a pair of pajama bottoms.

Now I know the pajama bottoms thing has gotten popular to the point of supposedly being acceptable to wear out to everyday places now, but the combination with the sports coat was the real kicker for me.

I try not to see things like this and think about aging, since I’m trying to have a whole new outlook on the additional years thing. But it’s pretty hard not to look at what I saw without knowing I’m a couple of generations ahead of some folks.

Kevin Chiri is Publisher of L’Observateur and can be reached at (985) 652-9545 or at kchiri@bellsouth.net