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DEAR ABBY: I got married to a wonderful guy 14 years ago, but after a year of marriage, our children (his 10-year-old and my 12- and 13-year-olds) couldn’t stand one another and caused a lot of problems. I was brokenhearted when he gave me divorce papers. I moved out but continued to date him without our kids around.
Seven years ago, after his son moved out, I moved back in, but he won’t ask me to remarry him. My kids get along fine with him, but his son hates me and refuses to come to any holiday or birthday celebration that I host.
Should I move out and move on? I feel like I have wasted 14 years of my life.
HOPELESS IN OHIO

DEAR HOPELESS: I wish you had mentioned why this “wonderful guy’s” son hates you. Could it be he blames you for the failure of his parents’ marriage, or was it something else? That this man has allowed his son to dictate how the two of you will spend your lives is very sad. Unless you can accept living with the status quo (which has to be painful), the answer to your question is: Move on.

DEAR ABBY: In 2014, I loaned a family friend $5,000. At the time, and ever since, I never asked the reason for the loan. Over time we lost touch. However, we recently reconnected and decided to go on a road/camping trip throughout the West.
Three days in, we both realized it was a poor idea to travel together for an extended period of time. He has now become quite nasty and speaks ill of me.
Should I write and request payment of the loan or let it go?
OUT OF POCKET IN VEGAS

DEAR OUT OF POCKET: If you had the forethought to put IN WRITING the fact you were lending this person money, you have a prayer of having the loan repaid. If you didn’t, you can try writing to this family (former) friend, but legally it won’t be worth the paper your letter is written on. If that’s the case, consider this an expensive lesson.
P.S. Because no effort was made over the last six years to repay your generosity, your road trip was doomed before it started.

DEAR ABBY: I have a very good friend I’ve known for 18 years. Without fail, every time we’re on the phone and she gets another call, she’ll say, “Oh, let me call you right back,” but she never does. Sometimes days will go by until I call her or she calls me, and then she acts like nothing happened.
We could be in the middle of a conversation but she doesn’t call back. Or, she’ll call me while she’s driving somewhere and end the call when she has arrived at her destination, if she hasn’t already hung up to take another call.
Is she a true friend? What should I say or do? After years of feeling unimportant in her life, it has really started to get to me lately.
NOT FINISHED IN THE EAST

DEAR NOT FINISHED: Your longtime friend is inconsiderate. Rather than wait endlessly, call HER back the same day. And when you do, tell her exactly how her lack of concern for your feelings has made you feel. Do not, however, expect her to like it, because inconsiderate people rarely do when it is pointed out to them.
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COVID-19 may have shut down or limited many different aspects of society, but one constant has been the St. Mary Council on Aging’s delivery of meals to home-bound residents.
The council on aging’s Executive Director, Beverly Domengeaux, said her clients are those who are age 60 and older who can’t drive or they can’t cook for themselves and have no one in their house that can do so for them.
She said many of her clients are over age 70.
Through the end of the agency’s last fiscal year, which ended June 30, Domengeaux said the agency served more than 60,000 meals, which is about double what they usually serve. That figure includes hot meals five days a week and shelf-food, which is two days’ worth of breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.
“It’s something that they can fix for themselves,” Domengeaux said of the shelf-food.
While COVID-19 has not stopped the agency, it has changed the way they deliver the meals. Now, meals are provided through contactless delivery, while council on aging employees are equipped with personal protection equipment.
“It’s been a little bit time consuming,” Domengeaux said. “Of course, it’s been costly on us because we had to keep masks and gloves and all of the equipment and to make sure that they are safe.”
The residents have been provided personal protection equipment as well as hand sanitizer, too.
The demand for meals also has increased.
“People have a need right now, and I have to tell you, I’ve got the longest waiting list that I’ve ever had,” Domengeaux said.
However, before services are provided, paperwork must be completed and approved.
Through the pandemic, Domengeaux said she has had just two employees who have had to stop working until they received their COVID-19 test results and were cleared to return to work.
“We have not had one instance of any of our seniors that have stayed at home since March 18 that have tested positive or have been exposed to the disease, and most of them have underlying conditions,” she said.
While the agency delivers to 282 residents across St. Mary Parish, there are some areas of the parish that Domengeaux said she is unable to deliver to right now due to a lack of drivers. It’s something she will be working on once the pandemic is over.
The meals, which come from a Lafayette firm, are repackaged and delivered from the agency’s Morgan City, Patterson or Franklin distribution sites.
The Council on Aging receives its funding from the state and federal governments as well as the parish, municipalities, the United Way, the H&B Young Foundation and other foundations.
“Wherever I can beg, and they’ll listen to me,” Domengeaux said.
In addition to meals, among the other ways the council assists clients is by picking up pharmacy and grocery orders, taking them shopping if they have the proper personal protection equipment, transporting them to doctor’s appointments and providing them things that they enjoy that they can do at home such as puzzles and coloring books.
“We’re a hand to hold, an ear to listen and a heart that cares,” Domengeaux said.

Coastal lawsuits solely aimed at oil and gas companies in Louisiana do more to harm the state’s and the nation’s oil supply and economy at the expense of taxpayers, thousands of lost jobs, and other long-lasting effects, two coastal parish presidents and other members of the Grow Louisiana Coalition contend.
In 2013, some local governments in Louisiana sued more than 200 oil and gas companies, seeking compensation for damages they claimed the companies caused to the region’s wetlands. Coastal lawsuits such as those filed in Louisiana do not exist anywhere else in the country.
Terrebonne Parish President Gordon Dove and Lafourche Parish President Archie Chaisson have fought against the lawsuits, arguing they are “money grabs” made by trial lawyers that have nothing to do with environmental preservation. Both parish presidents have pledged to never sue an oil and gas company as long as they are in office.
“These lawsuits don’t make sense … for Louisiana as a whole,” Chaisson said. “They are a farce.”
Dove and Chaisson participated in a new online webinar series organized by the Grow Louisiana Coalition. The webinar brought together industry leaders and state and federal lawmakers who discussed how the energy industry is critical to the state’s economy and to Louisianans’ way of life.
U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, state Sens. Bret Allain and Mike Fesi also participated. The Louisiana Oil & Gas Association, Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association, Gulf Economic Survival Team and many other associations also participated or supported the efforts to launch the series.
Chaisson, a former coastal zone manager and administrator in the parish who has worked to preserve the region’s economic and environmental viability, said that 2020 was the first year the parish built more land than it lost. They’ve been committed to preserving their coastal wetlands but also to ensuring the growth of the oil and gas industry.
Dove, who previously served in the state legislature, has been involved in the oil industry since 1980. In Terrebonne Parish, 65 percent of the land is owned by the oil and gas industry.
In Lafourche Parish, more than 250 companies use Port Fourchon as their base of operations. In addition to its huge domestic hydrocarbon significance, Port Fourchon is the land base for LOOP (Louisiana Offshore Oil Port), which handles between 10 and 15%of all domestic oil in the U.S. and 10-15 percent of the nation’s imported oil.
LOOP is also connected to 50% of the U.S. refining capacity. More than 400 large supply vessels go through the port’s channels every day.
Port Fourchon currently services over 90%of the Gulf of Mexico’s deepwater oil production, and plays a strategic role in providing the U.S. with roughly 18% of its entire oil supply. More than 1.5 million barrels of crude oil per day are transported via pipelines through the port.
Deepwater fields produce some of the highest oil rates in the Gulf of Mexico, which are significantly higher off the southeastern Louisiana coast.
Over 45 percent of total U.S. petroleum refining capacity and 51% of total U.S. natural gas processing plant capacity are located along the Gulf Coast.
The Gulf of Mexico alone provides the U.S. with roughly one-fifth of its domestic oil supply.
Scalise said before COVID-19 hit, the U.S. “had the most energy-dominant industry in the world. And a lot of that success in energy dominance was because of what’s done in Louisiana. So much of the global innovation comes from the great engineering and innovative minds that we have in south Louisiana. This is something we have been doing for decades and generations.”
The Gulf region, including Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, and federal offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, produces nearly 40 percent of total U.S. crude oil and 35% of total U.S. natural gas.
Because of what Louisianans and others in the Gulf have done, Scalise argued, “America has never been more secure in terms of ability to produce our own energy, to lower energy costs to families, and to start sending energy all around the world.”
That’s one of the many reasons why both Chaisson and Dove oppose the lawsuits.
Referred to as “jackpot justice,” trial attorneys have cashed in, or are attempting to cash in, on billions of dollars from energy companies that are legally conducting production activities that were encouraged by state incentives and carried out under rigorous state and federal regulations, Melissa Landry, a longtime advocate arguing for legal reform in the state, said.
According to a recent Pelican Institute analysis, coastal lawsuits have directly cost Louisiana’s economy between $44 million and $113 million every year since they were first filed in 2013. The lawsuits resulted in at least 2,000 jobs lost and roughly $70 million in lost earnings for Louisianans.
Offshore drilling declined by more than 50 percent since 2013, resulting in a loss of $22.6 million per year in royalties that would have otherwise been paid to the state and local governments.

The St. Mary Community Action Agency and the Food for Families Program will distribute commodities on Friday at various locations.
Commodities will be handed out at the Berwick Civic Complex, the Amelia Recreation Center and the St. Mary Community Action Agency office.
Due to federal COVID-19 regulations, a “no touch” policy will be enforced where recipients will be required to give their names and stay in their vehicles. The commodities then will be placed in their vehicles.
For more information, contact the St. Mary Community Action Agency central office at 337-828-5703.