Louisiana ranked fourth with the highest percentage of Christians, according to two different studies.

One study said Louisiana had 59,598 Christians for every 100,000 people, just below 60 percent, while another had us at 54 percent Christian.

I read these numbers in Leila Pitchford-English’s column in The Advocate recently.

I was not surprised that Louisiana was among the more Christian states but I was a bit surprised that four out of 10 in our state were not Christian. I would have guessed 20 to 30 percent non-Christian and/or non-believers at most.

Utah was at better than 78 percent Christian and ranked No. 1 in one of the studies, while the other said Mississippi was No. 1 with 59 percent and Utah second with 57 percent.

Not sure the methodology that allows for such variation.

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And not sure what sort of segue this is, but here we go, from thoughts about Christians to one about the Devil, or at least Devil’s Pond in New Iberia.

I was asked the origin of the name for Devil’s Pond and realized I don’t think I ever heard the story behind it.

I’m betting some Sweet Talk reader will know, and might

email me at iberianpub@cox.net to share it or point me to where I might find it.

I found where someone had posted this question on ask.com, but an answer posted was related to a Devil’s Pool in Australia.

Was some Australian reminded of home in naming our local pond?

I’m hoping to find out, and will share what I discover.

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I was in California on business last week and would offer my snapshot perspective on flying, this time on United out of Lafayette.

I am interested in how frequently I hear these days about the aggravation of air travel, the hassles of getting through airport security and such.

Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but on this trip and most I’ve made, I find things usually go incredibly smoothly considering the huge volume of planes and people involved.

Of course it just takes one big problem with my trip and I guess I’ll gripe too.

I really appreciated one change United has made to simplify boarding. In the past, airline personnel would start boarding with their first-class and various “elite” flyers who through their volume of travel or other qualification had qualified for the privilege of getting on the plane before others.

But some airlines had so many ways people qualified for elite status, it was hard to keep them straight. You had Global Elite, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Tin Elite (or so it seemed). It seemed as if the first, second and third cousins of someone who qualified as elite qualified as elite.

Sometimes it seemed as if everyone boarding a plane qualified for some sort of elite status, and herding him or her onto the plane in some sort of order was confusing.

United has made it a lot simpler. There still is a preference for Global Elite and active military personnel, but after that, there were group numbers on your boarding pass and they called you in numerical order making it simple, and cutting down on the “Which group are they taking now?” confusion.

One traveling hassle lessened, I think.

WILL CHAPMAN is publisher of The Daily Iberian.