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Your journey on the road thorough life is not always smooth. There are potholes, obstacles, breakdowns, traffic, bad drivers, detours, wrong turns, and fender benders. Sometimes you even get lost and have to ask for directions. Just like any automobile trip, you keep going in spite of what you encounter.
You slow down when you go through a pothole. You maneuver around obstacles. Mechanical breakdowns get fixed. Traffic may delay you but you still arrive at your destination. You anticipate and watch for bad drivers. If you take a wrong turn, you get back on course. Fender benders are repaired.
As you drive, you get lots of experience with setbacks that make your trip less than perfect. When unexpected circumstances are encountered, you don’t abandon your car, sit down in the road and declare you are giving up because nothing’s working.
Yet a surprising number of people will throw in the towel at the first setback encountered in other things they are attempting. This is a shame, because in so doing, these people miss out on many of the successes they could have if they simply got back on track and kept going.
On January 1, Henry resolved to lose 30 pounds by the end of June. Henry was confident he could drop 5 pounds a month with no problem. He was right on schedule. By the end of February, Henry had lost 10 pounds. He was pleased with his progress. Henry looked forward to a slimmer body for the start of the swimming season.
In March, Henry had two weddings to attend. By the end of March, Henry had gained back the 10 pounds he had lost in the previous two months. He was back to where he had started. Needless to say, Henry was disheartened. He felt as if all his dieting was for nothing.
What were Henry’s options? He could abandon his diet and try again next year. Or he could get back on track. Henry had already proven to himself that he could lose 5 pounds a month. So if he started again in April, he could lose 15 pounds by July. Although it’s below his original goal, Henry would still weigh less than he did at the start of the year.
Henry decided to resume his diet. He made more of an effort than before and wound up losing 20 pounds by July and had reached his goal of 30 pounds by September. If Henry had abandoned his plans because of his setback in March, he would have shortchanged himself.
Diane needed to get on a budget. Her credit card balances were up to $8,000. Diane decided to use cash for her spending until the credit cards were paid off. Her goal was to pay $400 per month towards the card balances. This plan would enable her to get rid of the debt in about two years; many years ahead of schedule were she to make only the minimum monthly payment.
Everything went fine for 18 months. Then Diane’s car needed $1,500 in repairs. She had to charge the garage bill since she didn’t have that much cash. Diane was undaunted. Even with the unexpected repair expense, she never failed to make her $400 monthly payment. It took her five months longer than she had originally planned, but she paid off all of the balances. Diane didn’t allow an unplanned financial setback to derail her plans.
Setbacks happen. They are a normal part of life. Take them in stride. Deal with unplanned events as they arise. It’s normal to feel frustrated. Just don’t give up on your goals. As long as you persevere, you can and will achieve them.

ERATH - The Erath Bobcats lost a high-scoring game at home on Friday night against the Crowley Gents in a District 5-3A match.
The game ended with a score of 47-46 in favor of Crowley, who scored the final touchdown.
The two teams played an exciting game with a total of 14 touchdowns and 913 yards of combined offense.
Crowley quarterback Omar Butler was the standout performer, rushing for over 200 yards and passing for 218 yards. His performance made the difference in the game. The Gents piled up a total of 538 yards of offense in the game.
Erath started the game strongly and took a 12-0 lead, which they extended to 18-6 in the second quarter.
The Bobcats played well, using both their passing and running abilities to trouble the Gents’ defense.
The Bobcats took the lead in the first quarter when sophomore quarterback Jacob Landry threw a 34-yard touchdown pass to Christian Pillette, who made a spectacular leaping catch in the endzone.
The Bobcats successfully executed a two-point play to take an early 8-0 lead.
However, the Gents responded quickly with a touchdown via the air and tied the score at 8-8 by the end of the first quarter.
In the second half, the Bobcats’ offense started to perform exceptionally well and extended their lead to 21-8.
Pillette managed to break a couple of tackles on a 41-yard touchdown run, following which Landry threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Lynkon Romero, who had to play as a tight end due to a shoulder injury.
Unfortunately, the Bobcats missed both of their extra-point kicks, which proved to be costly.
Nevertheless, with a score of 21-14, EHS running back Mason Hebert scored a touchdown from the 1-yard line.
Hebert had an outstanding game running the ball, rushing for 170 yards on 13 carries, and scoring two touchdowns.
His longest run of the night was a 33-yarder.
The Gents managed to score a touchdown late in the second quarter, narrowing the score to 27-21 in favor of Erath. However, the Bobcats came out strong in the third period, scoring two touchdowns and putting them ahead 40-21.
Jack Landry ran for a 20-yard touchdown run and Mason Hebert scored from 15 yards out.
The Bobcats also learned that no lead is safe when playing the Crowley Gents.
Crowley scored three straight rushing touchdowns and tied the game 40-40 early in the fourth quarter.
With four minutes left in the game, Erath retook the lead, 47-40, when Jack Landry threw a 10-yard pass to Cameron Soirez.
But behind the legs of Butler, the Gents found a way to win.
Butler had a 78-yard touchdown run late in the game, and the Gents nailed the extra point that put them ahead 47-46.
Other ball carriers for EHS were Brayden Landry (6-20), Pillette (2-50, 1 TD), Landon Lamaire (4-19), and Jack Landry (2-14, 1 TD).
Pillette had three catches for 60 yards.
Lemaire (1-20), Romero (1-11, 1 TD), and Soirez (1-10, 1 TD) had the other catches.
Erath is at home Friday to play Donaldsonville in a non-district game.

ST. MARTINVILLE — The Abbeville High football coaching staff was confident that if the Wildcats stuck to their gameplan, they'd find a way to stay unbeaten in District 5-3A play, even after falling three touchdowns behind St. Martinville just a minute into the third quarter.
The Wildcats outscored SMSH 32-0 in the final 22 minutes of the game, including the game-winning touchdown on a diving catch by senior Brian Gordon of a 30-yard pass by Da'Zavien Maze with 10 seconds to go in the game.
"We talked about the backs, but how about our best receiver, our leading, returning receiver, going over for the first time in his life, playing in the secondary on defense, because that's what the team needed him to do," AHS head coach Roderick Moy said. "But at the end of the day, when the chips are down and we need the long pass, one play with 10 seconds left, I'm going to Brian Gordon. We threw it up, a 50-50 ball to give him a chance. And as we knew he would, four years in this program, he came through for us."
"All that effort and hard work we all put in as a team, it all came together and finally it worked out," Gordon said. "It was just a great experience for me."
The defense then clamped down on St. Martinville, with senior defensive end Te'Zarron Stewart knocking the ball loose from SMSH quarterback Kaden Zenon on the game's final play, then recovered the resulting fumble himself to seal the win.
"Every day this week we talked about the pain of discipline vs. the pain of regret," Moy said. "If they stayed with me, I wasn't going to panic. If we got behind 15, like we were down 21-6 (the score at halftime), we almost prophesised this thing. We talked about being down, and not giving up — staying the course, believing in each other, trust that we were going to find a way to put them in a position to be successful. And they did that for us."
Abbeville improved to 7-2 overall and 3-0 in district, setting up a showdown at home on Friday with Kaplan, which is also 6-2 and 3-0 after a 12-8 non-district loss Friday against Church Point.
"We just appreciate everybody for coming out and supporting us," Gordon said.
The Tigers made Abbeville work for the win. After the Wildcats took a 6-0 lead with 1:34 left on a 10-yard scoring run by fullback Zaylun Williams, SMSH scored on its next four possessions to build a 28-6 lead.
The Tigers (2-7, 1-3) did it largely on big plays. Zenon scored on an 11-yard run and Jayden Mallery kicked the PAT for a 7-6 lead with 10:42 left in the first half.
Running back Steven Blanco, who will sign with UL Lafayette after the season, then scored on a 59-yard run.
After the Tigers stopped Abbeville on downs at the St. Martinville 6, SMSH put together its second one-play scoring drive when Zenon raced 94 yards for a touchdown and a 21-6 lead before the break. Zenon had 144 yards on 13 runs and threw for 70 yards, but completed only 6 of 19 pass attempts.
Blanco, who ran for 216 yards and two TDs on 19 carries, scored on a 79-yard run on the first play from scrimmage in the second half for a 28-6 lead. That run put St. Martinville over 300 yards on the ground for the game at that point, but the Tigers netted only 50 more rushing yards in the game.
Abbeville dominated the rest of the game offensively as well, sticking to what they have done all year — running the ball with five different ballcarriers.
"We did what we do, though," Moy said. "We didn't do anything off book. We stayed with veer, we stayed with iso (downhill run with the fullback lead blocking), we stayed with G (two backs with the frontside guard pulling). We were us. And we fought all the way back with these kids.
"I couldn't be any more proud of these kids, not for the play on the field, but for the mentality. They went out there and trusted and played hard. We called inside runs when we were down 20 points, and they did the best they could, and they just did the best they could."
Moy then pointed to his heart, and the stitching that said "The Ville" at that spot.
"This right here," he said. "All heart, straight through The Ville (a nickname for St. Martinville) tonight. One of us was going to be it (The VIlle) tonight, and we stood up and made sure it was going to be us."
Maze, the Wildcats' sophomore quarterback, got things going with a 25-yard TD run. He finished the game with  65 yards and a TD on 12 carries.
Justin Montgomery scored the next two touchdowns on runs of seven and 59 yards. He finished with a team-high 134 yards and two touchdowns on 13 carries.
Fullback Zaylun Williams, who had 44 yards and a touchdown on seven rushes, added the tying 2-point conversion to make it 28-28 with 3:52 left in the game.
Edmar Simon III added 52 yards on only five carries, helping Abbeville pile up 372 rushing yards as a team.
The defense then forced a punt, and AHS took over at the 24 with 1:46 left. A personal foul penalty and a pass interference penalty against the Tigers gave Abbeville a first down at the 38, and Williams converted a third-and-eight play with a 13-yard run with 15.5 seconds left.
Maze nearly hooked up with Chayson Gray on the next snap for the go-ahead touchdown, but Gray couldn't pull the ball in after a defender forced him to bobble it, which set up the final TD to Gordon.

In honor of All Saints Day on Nov. 1, Linda Bourque is spending the next few days changing out artificial flowers and cleaning graves at three different cemeteries in Vermilion Parish.
All Saints Day is a Christian holiday to honor the dead. Bourque will visit 16 different graves of her family members and friends, even though no one asks her to do it.
On Wednesday afternoon, Bourque fixed the flower arrangement on her grandmother’s grave behind Vermilion Catholic High School.
She removed the old plastic flowers, put them in a plastic bag, and brought them to her SUV.
Eventually, she will throw them in the trash. She then grabbed a handful of new pink and white flowers and returned to the grave. She sat on the granite and put in one flower at a time.
“I think I need more white flowers,” she said. She got up, walked back to her vehicle, grabbed a couple of white flowers, and then returned to the vase.
Each arrangement, created by Bourque, has its own character because of the different types of flowers in them.
Before Nov. 1, Bourque still has a few more graves to visit. She will soon head to the cemetery in Maurice where her parents are buried and then to Jacquelyn Street in Abbeville.
Bourque, 67, did not just start caring for family and friends. When she was in her 20s, she would join her mother, Anna May Bourque, and the two would tag team replacing flowers and cleaning graves for 20-plus years together.
Then in 1993, her mom passed away, but Bourque kept the family tradition alive.
“I do it for the love of my family,” explained Bourque on why she continues to take care of 16 graves. “I will continue doing it until I physically cannot.”
Bourque, who is from Abbeville, said her knees and back are hurting, making it challenging to get up and down from the ground. Depending on her health, she hopes to continue cleaning and painting everyone’s grave for the next three years.
With so many flower vases to fill, she spends the entire year buying artificial flowers. Throughout the year, she looks for specific colors of flowers that she puts in certain family members’ vases.
One vase has red, white, and blue flowers because the person is a veteran. Another vase has pink flowers, while another has only blue flowers.
“If I see some flowers I like, I buy them,” she said. “I once kept them in the attic, but I can no longer climb in the attic. I keep the flowers in a spare bedroom.”
She will continue caring for her family and friends’ graves if her health improves. What happens if she can not do it anymore?
“I do not know that answer,” she said.