When Lyman was a teenager, he dated Carol Ann of Whitehall Plantation. Her grandfather was once president of the New York cotton exchange. He bought the house when he retired.

The house burned to the ground tonight as the result of an explosion when workers were replacing valves on a pipeline. There are some injuries. The Natchez Democrat will tell tomorrow.

We will be without natural gas for a few days.

Our ovens are electric, so the ribs came through, but I cooked eggs and potatoes for the potato salad on a butane burner outside.

Lyman thinks that Carol Ann will be devastated. It was an antebellum home.