December 2023

happen. It would have been
disappointing.”
“We’d have still built it, but
we would have had to wait
until the ban was lifted to set
it ablaze,” added Courtney
Laiche. “That wouldn’t have
had the same feel, and we do
this for the community. We
would have lost their interaction
were we to burn it after
New Year’s Eve.”
“I mean we are in Louisiana,
so we were holding out hope
that it’d rain eventually. It always
does,” quipped Duplessis.
When I first met with members
of both families thirteen
years ago, they were putting
the finishing touches on an
enormous space shuttle;
an homage to the final year
of the NASA flights. It was
a chilly afternoon, which
somehow made what I was
witnessing all the more spe-
LMR | DECEMBER 2023 Page 15