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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — As the rest of America winds down from the parties, overeating and merriment of Christmas and New Year’s, New Orleans keeps the party going. Mardi Gras season officially kicked off Sunday. Jan. 6,is often referred to as Epiphany, Twelfth Night or Three Kings’ Day and commemorates the day the Bible says the three wise men reached the baby Jesus.
For weeks, the city is taken over by elaborate parades and people stuffing their faces with sugary king cake. The party culminates on Fat Tuesday, which this year falls on March 5.

Twelfth Night
A number of parading groups often dubbed krewes took to the streets Sunday to kick things off. One group parades through the French Quarter to honor the fallen French hero, Joan d’Arc. Another group, Phunny Phorty Phellows, heralds the arrival of Carnival with a streetcar ride down St. Charles Ave. wearing costumes. This year they’ll be trailed by a new group called the Funky Uptown Krewe, who will ride on a separate streetcar with New Orleans producer and rapper DJ Mannie Fresh performing.

Let them eat cake
Probably the biggest single sign that Mardi Gras season is upon us is king cake. The ring-shaped cakes often decorated in the Mardi Gras tri-color of purple, green and gold can be found at bakeries, restaurants, office parties and homes across town during the season. Cakes can be plain or filled with fruit and cream or laced with cinnamon. Bakers go all out.
For example, Alton Osborn, who owns Bywater Bakery with his wife Chaya Conrad, is this year introducing three savory king cakes — crawfish, boudin and spinach/artichoke — to accompany their nine sweet king cakes. They’re also hosting a full lineup of live music Sunday to entertain restaurant goers. King cakes account for a “huge part of our business,” Osborn said. He’s got high hopes for the new savory king cakes: “It’s going to blow some minds.”
Parades
Traditionally the bulk of the parades happen around the two weekends ahead of Fat Tuesday. Scheduling changes this year mean that Krewe of Chewbacchus , a walking parade devoted to science fiction, is rolling earlier than in previous years. Richard Riggs, one of the three overlords that organizes the parade, said the change came because city officials said they didn’t have the policing resources to protect the ever-growing parade on their traditional date while also staffing the large parades that also roll at the same time through the city’s Uptown neighborhoods.
A total of three groups were affected by the changes, said city spokesman Trey Caruso, who said the “growing popularity” of the groups requires “more coverage from our public safety assets.”
Chewbacchus, for example, has grown from a few hundred members when they started in 2011 to about 1,800 participants last year, Riggs said.
But with no other competing parades on their new date of Feb. 9, Riggs said they’re optimistic that they’ll “have a bigger turnout than usual.”

Outside
New Orleans
Towns and cities in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama also host parades and events during Mardi Gras season. Last year, Alabama’s state tourism agency purchased 10 billboards around New Orleans and southern Mississippi to promote Carnival in Mobile. Rather than mentioning Mobile specifically, the signs told drivers how many miles they are from “America’s original Mardi Gras.” And they didn’t mean New Orleans. New Orleans officials took the ribbing in stride with then-Mayor Mitch Landrieu saying: “There’s only one great Mardi Gras in the world.” And he didn’t mean Mobile.
In southern Louisiana’s Cajun country, costumed participants ride on horseback or run through towns stopping at houses to collect ingredients for gumbo in a tradition called Courir de Mardi Gras.

Cornelius Delahoussaye, 72, a native and resident of Morgan City, died Sunday, Jan. 6, 2019, at Morgan City Healthcare.
Jones Funeral Home has been entrusted with arrangements, which are pending at this time.

If you plan to work past 65 and keep the health insurance you’ve had from your job, you’re likely to wonder what, if anything, you need to do about enrolling in Medicare.
About 1-in-6 older Americans now remains in the workforce beyond what was once the traditional retirement age. And the number of older workers will only grow over time.
One reason is that Social Security now requires you to be at least 66 to collect your full retirement benefits. Retiring earlier means a smaller Social Security check.
Then, too, a number of 60-something workers continue to pursue their careers because they can’t afford to retire. Still others simply prefer to stay engaged and on the job.
Whatever the reason for postponing your retirement, you still need to consider Medicare as you approach your 65th birthday and qualify for the health care coverage.
First, you should visit with your company’s human resources manager to determine how your employer-provided insurance will fit with Medicare. That’s also true for anyone turning 65 and receiving health care through a working spouse’s group plan.
Most workers will want to sign up for Medicare’s Part A, which usually has no monthly premium and covers hospital stays, skilled nursing, home health services and hospice care.
Of course, like most rules of thumb, there’s always an exception. And this one is no different.
If your employer coverage takes the form of a high-deductible insurance plan with a health savings account, you should defer enrolling in Part A. That’s because the Internal Revenue Service forbids you to continue contributing to your tax-advantaged savings account once you have Medicare.
When you sign up for Medicare’s Part B, which covers doctor appointments and other outpatient services, mostly depends on how large your employer is.
If your or your working spouse’s company has 20 or more employees, your employer-provided insurance will remain your primary coverage and will pay your bills first. You can delay enrolling in Part B until you stop working.
If your or your spouse’s company has fewer than 20 workers, Medicare will become your primary coverage, and your employer coverage will be secondary, so you should sign up for Part B.
Assuming that you’re not yet receiving Social Security benefits, you’ll need to enroll in Medicare by contacting Social Security at 800-772-1213 or www.socialsecurity.gov.
Completing the online application is fairly simple and typically takes 10 to 30 minutes.
You should do this during what’s called your “initial enrollment period,” which runs from three months before the month you turn 65 to three months after your birthday month. For example, if your 65th birthday is in September, you can sign up any time from June 1 until Dec. 31.
There’s also the question of whether you’ll need to enroll in Medicare’s prescription drug coverage, also known as Part D, when you turn 65 or whether you can put off that decision.
Again, you should consult with your company’s benefits manager. If your employer plan includes drug coverage that’s at least comparable to Part D coverage, you won’t need to sign up right away.
When you do finally stop working, you’ll be able to enroll in Medicare (Parts A or B) without risking a late penalty during a special eight-month enrollment period. You’ll also have two months to select a Medicare drug plan without a penalty.
To learn more about how your employer health plan works with Medicare, visit www.medicare.gov/publications and view the booklet “Medicare and Other Health Benefits: Your Guide to Who Pays First.” Or call 800-633-4227 to request a free copy.
Understanding how your insurance choices fit together as you continue working beyond 65 will help you get the best care for your dollars.

DUSON (AP) — A Houston man celebrated the last weekend of 2018 with family he never knew he had.
Earl Luckett, 54, made his way to Southwest Louisiana for the party, the culmination of months of searching.
He found out the big secret in October while at a funeral. He asked an aunt if he’d been adopted, having always suspected.
“I had no idea I was adopted,” he said. “(But) I had a feeling. None of us looked alike.”
She called his bluff and answered truthfully.
Yes, he and his sister had been adopted, she told him. Their parents hadn’t been able to have biological children. It was a secret they took to their graves.
He doesn’t fault them for it.
“I had a great childhood ...,” he said in an interview. “I was raised.”
But Luckett still wanted to know about his biological family and, in turn, about himself.
Days after the funeral, he contacted an adoption service in Corpus Christi, where he was born.
It was a lengthy process of phone calls, providing documentation and identification, and lots of work to get his documents unsealed.
He received them the day before Thanksgiving.
His birth certificate revealed a new name, calling him “Baby Boy Brown” and “Nelson Brown.”
It also included the names of his birth parents, and he soon found his mother had died in 2006. She was from Duson.
They found her obituary and her survivors. Luckett’s daughter found them on Facebook and reached out.
Luckett talked to his newfound sisters by phone. He backed up his story by sending them photos of the documents with their mother’s signature and photos of himself.
“Once we saw a picture of him, we knew he was related to us,” said his aunt, Joyce Brown Lewis, who lives in Duson.
Luckett felt the same way when he saw their photos. They looked alike, especially the green eyes.
They all met at a party in Duson.
“It’s the best feeling,” Luckett said. “I still can’t even tell you the feeling it was. I’d seen pictures, but it was different face to face.”
They found they had more in common than just looks.
“He’s just like us,” Lewis, his “auntie,” said. “He likes to eat. He likes to dance. He likes to laugh. He’s one of us.”
She said her sister never told her about this baby boy, and she’s thankful “he was interested enough to look for us.”
“That’s love,” she said. “When you want to know who you belong to, that’s love.”
And she’s thankful to have this “extra” part of her sister.
Luckett also met his six biological siblings — two sisters and four brothers — and his father.
“We sat and just talked. His accent was a little different than what I’m used to,” Luckett laughed.
They had something big in common, too — their passion for baseball.
The two played in minor leagues in their own times, and today, baseball is how Luckett makes a living, running the youth travel ball organization Team Houston Baseball.
Luckett said his dad remembered when his mom was seven months pregnant and went to Corpus Christi. When she got back she wasn’t pregnant anymore, and the dad asked.
She said there was no baby, Luckett said, so his father assumed she had miscarried. They later went on to have five more children.
Luckett was born in late February in Corpus Christi while his mother was there “on vacation,” according to the adoption records. He went into foster care a few days later.
They probably will never know her reasons, as she and the cousin she stayed with are gone now.
While in Southwest Louisiana the family took him to see his mother’s burial site, which was a meaningful trip for him.
“I’m happy to find my biological blood,” he said. “It’s still sinking in. The love they showed to me and my family was overwhelming. As we move to 2019 this is a new beginning.”
The get-together won’t be the last for this newly united family. They’re already planning more.
“I know we will keep in touch ...,” his aunt said. “We have to. I told him, ‘Maybe we don’t have a lot to give in this family, but we have a lot of love to give.’”
Now Luckett’s adoptive sister is following her brother’s lead and going through her own process to find her biological family.