Teeny-tiny reminders of Hurricane Francine have caught my attention daily since she blew through Louisiana. 

Reminders in the form of poppy seeds. 

I’ve coached myself to smile when I see them and think of Walker Percy’s hurricane theory — that not only do times of crises provide a setting for everyday people to do heroic feats, they are also a time for the rest of us to be freed from the everyday sameness of life.

Francine was like that for me. It was the first Louisiana hurricane I’ve weathered since my kids grew up, flew the coop and left the state. Turns out that hurricanes without children around are very different from hurricanes with children around, likely regardless of the children’s ages. Additionally, for Francine, my husband happened to be out of town. 

Not wanting to be alone in a house without a generator, I gladly accepted the offer of friends to join them. Not only did they have a generator, they had made it to the store in time to stock up and were planning to cook throughout the day. 

I gathered up ingredients to make my favorite cookies — an oatmeal, pecan and poppy seed concoction that is generally delicious and always provides a hard-to-understand level of comfort for me. By noon on the day of the storm, I had thrown all the ingredients in a mesh Frida Kahlo bag, grabbed my suitcase and raincoat and drove to be with my friends.

They had another hurricane guest whom I had never met. She was busy on a series of virtual calls working with people across the country whose lives had not been disrupted in the least by an approaching storm in the Gulf.

The moment I walked in my friends’ home, I could smell the red beans and rice. The rain began in earnest shortly after I arrived. All of us were busy for the afternoon.

The rain fell.

The muted meteorologists on the ever-playing television told and retold us about the potential track of the storm and surge along the shores. 

The red beans simmered — and the earthy aroma filled the house. 

By late afternoon, my friends and I were feeling like the storm was likely going to pass us by, and we loosened up a bit. Their friend was still working in another part of the house. 

Prepare yourself. This next sentence is not one you will likely anticipate. 

I had mentioned to my friends several times that I am a leg wrestling champion, and I was pretty sure I could take them both down even though they were 20 years younger than me. They laughed. I explained I was serious. 

It was on — at least with one of them. My friend’s husband refused to leg wrestle. 

As I knew I would, I walloped her. No woman had ever beaten me in leg wrestling.

Work was done. I made my oatmeal, pecan and poppy seed cookies. The red beans and rice were ready. Their friend I didn’t know joined us at the dinner table. I learned that pickled banana peppers take red beans and rice to the next level. 

We enjoyed the cookies for dessert and sat at the table for a long time talking. We talked about big things and little things. We talked about our highlights of the day and what we all think happens after we die. We had time. The day was different. The storm was in motion. 

The new friend asked what all the commotion earlier had been. We began to discuss leg wrestling — and the evening’s tournament began to take shape. First, to demonstrate, I beat my old friend again. Then, the new friend took her place on the carpet — and I beat her. 

She said, “Oh, now I understand how to do it. Let’s try again.”

And we did.

And she beat me! She has no idea the magnitude of her accomplishment, and I have to face that my decades-long streak and bragging rights are done. We could not stop laughing.

While our hearts continue to go out to those affected by the storm, it was a day and night that my friends, both old and new, and I needed. It was a break from the sameness of life. It was a time to eat good food, work, play and laugh with each other. 

Walker Percy was right.

So where do the poppy seeds come into play? I make my oatmeal pecan poppy seed cookies often enough that I buy poppy seeds in bulk. I took the whole zippered container of poppy seeds with me on the day of Francine’s impact. I brought it home the next day, in the same mesh Frida Kahlo bag. The problem was: I didn’t zipper the poppy seed bag completely. I now have poppy seeds in my car. In my driveway. On my steps. In my living room. On our big dining table. In the kitchen. On the ironing board. I find poppy seeds in new places every day. 

And when I do, I smile and think of the warmth and wonder of friends and a storm that missed us. 

If Louisianans are tired of finishing near the bottom of every rating of civic health, they should buy into major reforms.

In proposals within the last week, state Revenue Secretary Richard Nelson and the Pelican Institute think tank make good sense when pushing for a flatter, simpler, more growth-oriented tax system in Louisiana. Still, a little caution is in order.

On personal income taxes, Nelson proposes a flat rate of 3.8% on all income over $12,500. Pelican, in a paper to be released Monday, will propose a 3.5% rate. Nelson estimates the state would lose $500 million a year in revenue as a result of the reduced rates in his plan, but would make up for it largely by eliminating numerous targeted tax breaks and extending the sales tax to previously untaxed services. Pelican’s plan, on paper, would reduce revenues even more.

Both assume, though — Pelican more abundantly — that another large portion of the revenue loss on paper would be recouped through far more dynamic economic growth.

Pelican’s “fiscal reform” plan is comprehensive, calling for flattening not just personal income tax rates but also corporate income tax rates, along with eliminating the corporate franchise tax and the inventory tax. Noting that state spending has grown at twice the inflation rate for nearly a decade, Pelican also proposes an expenditure limit that would block state spending from rising faster each year than the inflation rate plus population growth.

Much more boldly, Pelican says both corporate and personal income taxes in Louisiana should be phased out, slowly but entirely. The think tank lays out an arithmetically cogent process for doing so.

To which, some observations are in order.

First, Pelican is right in noting that the dizzying complexity of Louisiana’s tax system, along with its imposition of outmoded, inefficient franchise and inventory taxes, “hampers entrepreneurship and family prosperity.” Louisiana increasingly is an outlier with its multi-tiered, multi-exemption system that causes compliance problems while retarding growth. For example, writes Pelican, “There are 99 exemptions, deductions, and credits for personal income taxes.” This system disfavors those with lower incomes who can’t afford accountants to take advantage of all these specialized provisions.

Second, both Nelson and Pelican rightly point out that a simpler system with lower rates will spur economic growth. Other states repeatedly prove it. It is a travesty that, as almost every other Sun Belt state boasts growing populations and economies, Louisiana is losing people and ranks near the bottom on almost every economic index. By comparison, as Pelican CEO Daniel Erspamer wrote in these pages on Sept. 27, “states with a flat or zero tax rate comprise 13 of the top 15 states in U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of the country’s best economies.”

Now, though, consider caveats.

First, as both Nelson and Pelican note — but as neither has fully detailed in their new plans — systemic spending reform also is necessary. While the dynamic “growth” effects of flatter taxes surely will replenish some of the “lost” revenue from lower rates, and while the elimination of special-interest exemptions will make up most of the rest, spending reform remains necessary to avoid so-called “fiscal cliffs.”

To that end, the Legislature should significantly tighten its system of mid-year “supplemental appropriations” in which it redirects several hundred million dollars each year from deliberately overstuffed original accounts into legislator’s pet projects, with less de facto oversight than in the regular budget process. Lawmakers should rein in the waste from this supplemental hocus pocus.

The second caveat is an eggs-in-one-basket warning. Pelican goes too far, even if its numbers technically balance, when it recommends a steady but eventually complete phaseout of both corporate and personal income taxes along with elimination of the franchise and inventory taxes. Those taxes together account for 38% of all state revenues plus a chunk of local revenues. This would leave the sales tax, already 27% of state revenues, to shoulder a much larger load for state government. This is unwise.

Every economist knows sales taxes are by their nature regressive, meaning they take a higher percentage of the income of low-wage workers than of wealthier people. Basic fairness suffers if there’s too large a reliance on sales taxes.

Second, while the revenue from almost every tax rises and falls with the strength of the economy, sales tax receipts are particularly — and quickly — susceptible to sharp drops during recessions. For revenue stability to protect crucial government services, it makes far more sense to have several major revenue sources. That’s why it may make sense eventually to phase out either the corporate income tax or the personal income tax — but not both.

With those caveats, Pelican and Nelson are pushing in the right direction. To jump-start Louisiana’s economy, lawmakers should pursue these reformers’ central recommendations enthusiastically.