Monday, February 24, 2014 - Laura Plantation

The only one up, I make myself a cup of tea without falling over or destroying the kitchen, a minor miracle.  Is Catholic New Orleans saving even me, the eternal heathen? Tinky, my walker, helps me navigate. He’s a bit worse for wear but still serviceable.  Poor Tinky, last week’s dip in the bayou didn’t do him any good.

Yesterday’s rain brought incredible humidity to New Orleans or simply restored the status quo. I could wring the air like a sponge and water would pour out. My mother would call this weather close, as in the humidity is closing in on you, stealing your breath. I do feel somewhat suffocated.  Despite the soggy atmosphere, I have escaped Denver’s winter and rejoice in parachuting into summer.

Jumping into Pearl, we drive out of the Big Easy heading toward the Laura Plantation.

Riding along, I think back upon my American History classes, sadly mainly comprised of an ad nauseum repetition of the glories of the thirteen English colonies.  I recall feeling immense pride in the pioneers, my ancestors, who marched west across the continent with a flourish, embracing their manifest destiny. Neat, tidy and beautiful, isn’t that America’s history?

Perhaps not, eh?  As an adult, I’ve accepted my ignorance, realizing that my education completely disregarded the contributions of Spanish, Indian, African and French people in founding and constructing the States.  Today, we hope to cure a bit of our missing education by learning about African slaves and Creoles – specifically the rich, slave-owning planter class who ruled Louisiana before the Anglos arrived.

Arriving at the plantation, we buy our tickets and meet our guide, Susan. Susan, a Creole herself, spent six years in France, attending the same college that Bloodroot attended for his study abroad.  Could the world be any smaller?  Susan tells us that all Creoles are related and/or know each other. Her mother informed her that her grandparents knew the plantation owners, bringing an interesting irony to her current employment. 

Our history class begins.  The Louisiana country Creole arose from a blending of three very different cultures: Western European (French & Spanish), Western African (primarily Senegal & Gambia) and American Indian. Wealth overruled color in Louisiana, creating a place where social class mattered far more than race.  As such, most Creoles possessed mixed blood.  One of the Laura matriarchs was half Micmac Indian.  Created by mixing French, Choctaw, Wolof and other African languages, Creole speech bears little resemblance to French, even Quebecois French. (Our history’s been whitewashed again!)

  

Our tour commences with a walk through the alley of hundred-year-old trees up to the front of the big house.  People planted rows of trees in front of plantation houses.  The trees served an important public health role, funneling the breeze from the Mississippi into draughts that would blow through the wide open front windows keeping everyone cool. With the white-hot humidity pressing in around me, I thank the Goddess for air conditioning.  Accepting environmental guilt, I acknowledge that today’s world would benefit from people planting tree alleys and opening their windows instead of living in tightly sealed electricity-sucking boxes.  Ah well, back to the 1800s.

Tree alley - not the Laura Plantation

Entering the basement of the big house we’re greeted by the Duparcs, full-size cardboard cutouts of the original owners. As Louisiana became American with the Purchase, Guillaume Duparc received most of his land as a reward for his service in the Revolutionary War. In 1804, his wife Nanette began construction of the big house.

Nanette bought the services of a local construction expert, a master Senegalese boat builder enslaved by a neighbor.  This brilliant man, name lost to history, created a house sitting atop brick columns.  Underground, the columns expand into pyramids. (The whole column, viewed from the side, has the silhouette of a key: a pyramidal underground base supporting a shaft.) The underground pyramids spread the weight of the house over a huge area – without them, the columns would act like spears, puncturing the soft silty sand beneath, causing the entire structure to sink into the Mississippi river-mud.  

Laura was a sugarcane plantation on the banks of the Mississippi. Around 600 feet distant, we see the levees holding the rebellious river to her course.  Anticipating recurrent spring floods, the construction crew built a water tight first floor using tongue and groove and peg construction methods – nary a nail.  Most surviving plantation houses in Louisiana used this house-boat design.

After supervising the creation of this engineering marvel, Nanette outlived her husband by over fifty years, becoming sole ruler of the plantation. She spent most of her days screaming at her children and slaves and generally being very nasty; her sons and daughters were all terrified of her. Finally, a rebellion claimed her life – though not a (well-deserved) slave rebellion. Nanette refused to leave when the Civil War came to her front porch. Ignoring the pleas of her children who fled for their lives, she dared a Civil War Yankee gunboat cruising up the river to shell her. They obliged.

I tour the plantation, riding in my manual chair and, needless to say, the plantation lacks an elevator.  No matter! The boys hoist me up 15 steps to the first floor.  Our tour guide Susan and the current plantation owners cheer us on, applauding the boys’ accomplishment. 

People used the downstairs for storage and lived upstairs, where they caught the delightful breeze funneled in from the alley (allée) of pecan trees. Now we see the cooling windows, all of them really more like open doors, facing the Mississippi. Insect screening did not yet exist, so a slave posted near the doors wielded a broom to bat out anything that came in besides the welcome breeze.

We learn more about the family: apparently, Creole men didn’t last too long. Wasting their bodies on drinking, whoring and gambling, they tended to die in their 40s.  The stronger, sturdier women (perhaps just less afflicted by cirrhosis and syphilis) lived into their 80s or perhaps their 100s, even back then. When her time neared, the matron would evaluate her entire extended family.  She would choose her most intelligent relative as the next president of the family enterprise – generally another woman.  Family allegiance formed the basis of the Creole world. The entire family was expected to work under the motto “the family is a business and the business is the family.”  If you didn’t work, you weren’t family and were shown the door.

Before being completely ostracized, though, the family gave relatives one last chance by sending lazy men, difficult children, and awkward relatives to France as the cure for any vice. If you were a duelist, a murderer, a philanderer - off to France with you!  The family expected you to wise-up before returning.

The antebellum Creoles struggled to preserve their world as the Louisiana Purchase brought the Anglos and Anglo ways.  The new arrivals painted their houses white, which the Creoles found ludicrous, knowing that all Louisiana structures quickly succumb to mold.  The Creoles preferred their sturdy, logical green, but slowly began to paint their houses white too, fearing any difference would invite criticism and attack.  Creole women, all astute business people, had always held the purse strings and conducted business in their bedrooms – a double whammy of horror to the Anglos.  When the newcomers in self-righteous indignation refused to treat with them, the Creole matrons responded by setting up men as dupes in the living room. The men always lacked real power, serving only as faces to comfort the Anglos.

We leave the big house, descend the stairs (me again carried), and head out to the slave quarters.  We tour the small extant slave cabins. Two families lived in each one.

Growing sugarcane in Louisiana, an annual weather dependent gamble, could pay off handsomely or result in financial difficulty.  Many plantations piled on debt to purchase slaves, becoming quite highly leveraged.  A plantation could survive one bad year but several years’ losses could bankrupt the owners. 

Sugarcane, a tropical crop, died immediately in the lights frosts of subtropical Louisiana.  Every autumn, the enslaved workers toiled ceaselessly to bring in all cane before the first tendrils of winter appeared. They cut down the long, tall stems in the fields, then crushed the sugarcane in a mill as the foreman stood by with a machete ready to chop off in any limb that became entangled in machinery. Using open fires, the workers converted the crushed cane into sugar syrup – often burning themselves, at times badly or even fatally.  Enslaved people didn’t live long on cane plantations; the grueling dangerous work reduced the average life expectancy to around 40 years of age. Masters in the rest of the South would threaten their slaves with sale and deportation to Louisiana, a very effective fear tactic.

In the French colonial world, a Code Noir established by Louis XIV, governed the treatment of slaves.  The Code required slaves to have the same holidays as all other Catholics.   Slavery followed the status of the mother, as a free mother bore free children no matter who sired them, but an enslaved mother always produced enslaved children. The Code required masters to provide suitable housing, reasonable provisions, and prohibited breaking up families with prepubescent children. The Code legitimized corporal punishment but not torture or mutilation. 

The meanest and most successful owner of the Laura Plantation, Elisabeth Duparc, ran the place with an iron fist. She hired other slaves to catch runaways, then branded them “VDP” (Veuve [widow] Duparc Prud’homme) on their faces. The Code permitted branding of runaways, but on their shoulders, not faces.  Obviously, the Code was laxly enforced.  Elizabeth also purchased 30 teenaged women and six men to sire plentiful young slaves, gloating about the numerous resultant children ten years later. Various family members assisted in paternal fertility.

The Code required masters to baptize their slaves to bring them into the Christian fold. Unfortunately, baptism provided a record for the tax collectors, making it in the family’s best interest not to baptize their slaves. Laura had 161 slaves officially but probably actually trapped closer to 350 souls. Elizabeth, nothing if not parsimonious, provided housing for 300 people.

Creoles, we learn, only obey laws they agree with. This explains today’s drive-through daiquiri stores in New Orleans as well as sporadic compliance with the Code Noir.  One man, a New Orleans resident, bore responsibility for enforcing the Code.  Although he had the authority to remove slaves from plantations, he accepted bribes.

Susan points to the Mississippi and tells us that director Steve McQueen filmed the terrifying movie 12 Years a Slave  at the Felicity Plantation, a couple miles down the river. Susan expounds, “Everything in the film is basically true.  There’s nothing good to be said about slavery.”

The movie tells the story of a freeman in New York tricked and sold into slavery in Louisiana. Without legal recourse, he lived as a slave for 12 years. (The penalty for enslaving a free person exceeded the penalty for killing a black person, so people enslaving free people would just kill them if challenged. Also, a person of color couldn’t testify in a court of law.)

In contrast to the film and to Felicity Plantation, Laura slaves had large gardens, hen houses, pig pens, and could also supplement their rations with fish, squirrel, rabbit and other small game. Even so, cultivating sugarcane resulted in a horrible, brief life.

The years passed and little changed on the plantation.  When the owners ran away during the Civil War, the slaves stayed in their homes.  Upon returning, the owners saw that their former property had cultivated large gardens, maintained the hen houses and pig pens, but let the cane go. Through the 1930s Depression, people again remained on the plantation, in many ways virtually untouched, cultivating their gardens and living off the land.

Finally, we come to the story of the would-be last owner of the plantation. Laura Duparc Lacoul, rebelled when selected by her grandmother to reign as matron when the time came. Although the family commanded her, pleaded with her, and even renamed the place after her, they could not entice her to stay. Laura had watched her grandmother Elisabeth at work; she saw the slaves with brands on their faces. From a young age, Laura refused to become her grandmother. “Running a plantation,” she thought, “will grow callouses over your heart and kill your soul.” 

She never took up the mantle her grandmother tried to pass down, and instead ran off. Eventually, when the property was bequeathed to her despite her objections, she sold it, married a Protestant, and moved to Missouri. Later in life, when she found her children reading the mythological novel Gone with the Wind, Laura felt impelled to write her own book describing the realities of chattel slavery and plantation life.  Much of the biographical information we know of the owners comes from this book.

In a bizarre twist of fate, the Laura plantation’s rebirth as a historical site resulted from Alcée Fortier of Tulane University collecting West African folktales of B’rer Rabbit (Compair Lapin) here.  As a Creole, he spoke the local language and could record the oral histories.  Susan retracts her earlier statement to say, “Well, B’rer Rabbit is the only good thing that ever arose from slavery.”  The current owners purchased Laura out of bankruptcy intent upon restoring it as a tourist attraction.  They haven’t had the best of luck, having to rebuild the big house after a major electrical fire a few years back. Next, they plan to create museum of slavery.

Without doubt, this is the best historical site I’ve ever visited in North America. Based upon Laura Lacoul’s book and 5,000 pages of documents discovered in the Archives Nationales in Paris, the tours radiate authenticity. I give the Laura Plantation the mega-nerd seal of approval.

With Creole history spinning in our heads, we drive back to New Orleans contemplating dinner, wine and both the role and cost of sugar in all of our lives.

Sunday, February 23, 2014 – Garden District and Paddle Boat Tour - Nope, Really NOMA

All sleep; snores permeate our lodging. Last night brought a thunderstorm with terrific rain. Keith woke briefly, concerned about the crackly sound.  The imp of perversity appeared in the bedroom corner, her eyes glowing with scarcely concealed merriment. “Tell him that the world is ending,” she whispered, egging me on. With great difficulty, I resisted her tempting, delicious charm.  To Bear, I responded only, “Rain, my love.” My behavior disgusted the imp, prompting her to scowl, disappearing with a foot stomp and an angry snort.

This Airbnb, not the best we’ve rented, lacks cookware and a functioning microwave. Grillwork covers every window. Come a house fire, we’re dead cooked meat. Our host asked us to close the blinds last night as “people could see in”. I’m not exactly sure why we should care that people could see in.  New Orleans and her residents seemed braced, anticipating a siege, perhaps appropriately, considering the impending drunken orgy of Mardi Gras. As we learned yesterday, anything not battened down and securely shuttered will be puked upon or stolen, perhaps both.

The torrent continues all morning. Bloodroot and Barkley finally rise.  The sky cries in endless, lingering streams. We leave the house around 11:45 AM.  Our agenda for today includes exploring the Garden District and a touristy Mississippi River boat ride on a steam paddleboat, naturally.  We plan to step into Samuel Clemens’s world. Bloodroot calls the boat place to make sure they accommodate cripples. “Definitely, sir,” they respond, “on the top deck only. We don’t allow cripples downstairs.” So there I would be in my wheelchair, out in the storm, jumping as Sven’s batteries short out.

Given the persistent, ceaseless deluge, we decide to stop by the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) for just an hour. We read about an intriguing Civil War photography exhibit. We’ll limit our visit to an hour, wait for the storm to subside, then pick up the paddleboat tour. Who are we kidding here? Does the rain shower fill our heads with water, swishing our thinking about like the spin cycle of a washing machine?  We spent 15 hours at the Louvre!

(Once, long ago, Bloodroot and I did spend only an hour touring a Potato Museum in Blackfoot, Idaho.  I recall a glass case displaying the world’s largest potato chip, unfortunately broken.)

Ignoring hindsight, we shell out big bucks for an Art Museum ($60) and walk upstairs to visit the Civil War photographs. The exhibit rocks!  We wander through myriad extant tintypes, the medium surprisingly durable. The Civil War brought photography and made it affordable to the masses. People embraced the new technology believing that the photos would protect their loved ones. Relatives back home wore small tintype lockets as talismans. As Arthur C Clarke said, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

The war produced a previously unthinkable number of casualties-unclaimed, anonymous bodies decomposing in a field or hastily buried somewhere. After the war, the federal government reburied dead combatants classifying over half “unknown”, inspiring the dogtags still used by the military today. A missing soldier could walk in the front door two or three years after a battle, the suspense keeping hopes alive and talismans treasured.

We also see photos of scarred backs, shackled children, and other mute but grim testaments to the horrors of slavery.

The Civil War, considered the first modern war, used new and advanced killing machines including repeating rifles (seven shots before reloading), Gatling (machine) guns, deadlier, longer-range, more accurate bullets (Minie balls) and railroads to supply everything. Unfortunately, expertise keeping soldiers alive lagged behind the military’s new lethal capacities. Eventually battlefield care of the injured improved, as people invented ambulances and developed better surgery. We see a surgical primer. Is it gross? Certainly, but still represents a major step forward from what had been before.

After the war came Lincoln’s assassination.  People expected posters and photos of the conspirators; the government scrambled to oblige.  “Hey, Booth died in a barn fire, he wasn’t hanged, was he?” The family thinks, the family puzzles, stirring their collective vague memories of history education. Keith reads the bottom half of the blurb next to the wanted poster – yes, Booth wouldn’t surrender, so the Feds set fire to the barn he hid in. At one point in my life, I would’ve read quickly everything in this museum. Now, my multiple lenses slow me considerably and I find that I skip a great deal.  This allows me to ask unintelligent questions with obvious answers.

Even now, Booth’s near success rattles me. He and his co-conspirators planned to take out the federal government targeting Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward.  The war would still have been lost, having slipped far beyond the South’s grasp, but what evil the conspirators could have wrought!

At 1:45 PM, Bloodroot mentions that we should mosey on over to the boat, herding us toward the museum’s door.  Opening the door, the downpour nearly drowns us.  We dodge the endless cascade, scurrying back into the museum.  The boys opine, “Forget the boat!  The NOMA is way more interesting.” We choose to indulge in a leisurely lunch.  Following our relaxing meal, Bloodroot orders a cookie and a glass of wine. He devours his treats, all the while labelling us decadent.  Rising, we explore the museum’s small but nice regular collection featuring a few works by Monet, Miro, Picasso, and Degas. Rounding a corner, we discover the museum’s famous Mel Chin artwork.  The two-story bomb-shaped bamboo sculpture hangs in the main atrium, the only space large enough to hold it.  Called Our Strange Flower of Democracy, the piece solemnly reminds us that the Athenian democracy (the very first) sentenced Socrates to death in 399 BC.

Long before we’re ready, the museum surprises us by closing.  This seems to be the story of our collective lives.  We evaluate our options. After some discussion, we decide to explore the Garden District. Bloodroot drives around for a good bit, Barkley directing. Finally we park, exit Pearl, and begin walking. Not much really to report. Perhaps more blooms later in the spring.

Barkley and Bloodroot decide they want to live in New Orleans, for hipness and cool houses.  They plan to locate their new corporation here, Napoleonic code notwithstanding.  “Don’t worry, Mom,” they say, “We’ll definitely avoid the French Quarter.”

As a dutiful, concerned parent, I provide objections:

              1)  This place is beneath sea level.

              2)   June through September are god-awful hot.

              3)   You’re downstream of much of the country’s pollution – from the old steel in                   Pittsburgh to every factory and farm in the Mississippi watershed, not to                     mention the petrochemical factories.

The boys drop the New Orleans headquarters idea.  I must admit I don’t know if they buy my stupendous counsel or simply tire of arguing.

Bloodroot drives past Tulane and Loyola Universities, both adorned by graceful old buildings and massive oak trees. Near the universities, we see old houses, long and narrow, like doublewides turned sideways.  We head home.

Once back at the ranch, the boys cook.  We discuss the trip over dinner.  What does each of us hope to see? 

Bear:  Carlsbad, Big Bend, Vicksburg and Chalmette battlefields.

Bloodroot:  Sinkholes and Big Bend.

Barkley:  Sinkholes, Vicksburg, plantations and the George Bush Center.

Beaver:  Laura Plantation.

We turn in early.  Tomorrow, we drive out to the Laura Plantation, my sole manifest desire in this month long odyssey.  “Odyssey, that’s me,” murmurs Pearl sleepily.  “Goodnight Pearl!” we reply in unison.  After all, we remember while tumbling into the oblivion of sleep, tomorrow is another day.[1]

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[1] Scarlett O’Hara, last line of Gone with the Wind

Saturday, February 22, 2014 – the French Quarter, Drunk by Noon

Our New Orleans adventure begins with Bloodroot and Barkley returning to the airport to retrieve Barkley’s lost luggage. Keith and I take well-deserved showers.

Earlier, Toby, our Lafayette Airbnb host, worried about us visiting New Orleans.  “People are crazy drunk there,” he warned.  “Most of the Mardi Gras stuff is just silliness to entertain the ludicrously intoxicated tourists.  The chicken runs and the mud wrestling are the only authentic events remaining,” Toby continued.  After a pensive pause, stroking his beard with careful consideration, he added, “Well, they’re too wasted to really harm you – just make sure you aren’t puked on.”

Believing Mardi Gras to be a one-day celebration, we figure that coming into the city ten days early, we’ll avoid it. Right?  Wrong!  Plastered people stumble along in front of us at 1 PM, surprising us by remaining ambulatory.  Sven presents a confusing obstacle; staring glassy-eyed, most avoid tripping over him, if just barely.  “Don’t worry Beaver,” he purrs reassuringly, “I’m made of steel.  With my motor, we can take out any of these fools.” The intoxication increases as the day progresses, until being vomited upon becomes a distinct possibility.

Elbowing our way through sloshed people, we aim for the New Orleans Jazz National Historic Site (NHS). Our first crisis arises, not caused by the blottoids.  We have forgotten our National Park passports!   How will we get our novelty stamps now?  Bloodroot runs back to the car to retrieve the passports.

In solidarity with Bloodroot, Barkley, Bear and I exit the NHS. We can’t tour a museum without him!  We walk down the street and climb up onto the levee overlooking the Mississippi.  “Wow!  What a huge river!” Barkley exclaims.  Cruise-ship-size boats and tankers speed along the river.  The sun shines on the water, illuminating a wide commercial, industrial, riparian environment, nothing magical.  Dwelling eternally in my imaginary eco-friendly universe, blinders on, I had forgotten the Mississippi’s importance as our main shipping waterway.  Now forcibly reminded, I learn that the port of New Orleans is one of the largest in the world with 60% of North America’s farm products leaving the country via the Mississippi, while barges ship petroleum and steel back up.

We find it somewhat disconcerting to see a river ABOVE us, contained only by massive dikes and levees.  What if they break?  Unlike the West, we see no canyon walls allowing us to climb to safety.  No “up” exists.  The possibility of another Katrina terrifies us.

Turning back toward the city, we descend to the trolley tracks lining the river to watch the trolley cars go by for a bit. We search in vain for a streetcar named Desire. Wouldn’t it be cool to find a streetcar named Desire to certify that Tennessee Williams just hadn’t invented it? But no, no such streetcar: another fantasy cruelly quashed.

(Actually, New Orleans had a Desire Street Line which lost its trolley in 1948. In the mid-90s, San Francisco Muni leased the actual streetcar named Desire (number 952) from New Orleans.  Muni has restored and uses car 952 to this day, in San Francisco, not New Orleans.)

Bloodroot returns with the passports, ushering us into the Jazz NHS as a family. The site has lots of photos of jazz greats, none of whom I recognize, save Dr. John. I’ve seen Dr. John with both of my husbands. I remember the first one saying, “Look at that guy! He’s so fat he’s just asking for a heart attack.”  Ah, the irony of life!  My first husband died from obesity related cardiac arrest in 1997, while Dr. John is still alive and still obese. Bear and I saw Dr. John in Asheville in 2005, enjoying a great show.  Dr. John does always appear to be at death’s door.  Perhaps living below sea level at the water’s edge produces a certain insouciance toward life, heroin addiction aside.

For lunch we indulge in a New Orleans special called the muffaletta, sandwich meat on white bread with olives. We sit at a counter reminiscent of the Woolworth’s dime store of my childhood. My mom loved Woolworth’s; she ever fantasized about working the lunch counter. Mom struggled leaving her working-class roots behind, never entirely comfortable with my father’s financial aplomb. We all have our dreams; mine do not involve Woolworth’s. We see a signed photo of Bob Hope eating here with his wife Dolores, presumably after being pardoned for stealing cars in Cleveland. The sandwiches suck, but we enjoy tradition.

Nearby, we find the old New Orleans mint, which has been a museum longer than it functioned as a mint. Keith’s eyes glaze over as he gazes at coins to his heart’s content. Upstairs, we find an exhibit about the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.  Another room contains an auditorium where a jazz singer, unrelated to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, regales us with tales of the jazz life. She’s not an inspiring speaker; we catch naps on the comfy theatre seats during the interview.

Onward! We wander the streets of the French Quarter watching gaily, garishly dressed people three sheets to the wind. On one street 20 people sing Christian songs unamplified, totally drowned out by a rock band playing Ray Charles. If the Christians could properly lip-sync, they could look like they were singing Ray Charles. Perhaps an improvement?   At least more people would pay attention to them.

There’s no recycling in New Orleans. The city doesn’t feel French, the way Acadian Lafayette did, just beaten-up, rode hard and put up wet. Every street sign labeled Bourbon Street has been stolen. I see a city dirtied by the filth of addiction. The French Quarter does have lots of brightly colored homes with ornate grill work. I ponder, would we like the city far better had we missed Mardi Gras?  But perhaps New Orleans only exists as a world of alcoholic overindulgence, no matter the time of year.

We become lost and wander through several tourist information (TI) places, all completely worthless. Unlike Europe, where the TIs dispense useful information, like maps in English of the city you’re visiting, the American ones exist only to fleece travelers by aggressively promoting overpriced tours.  No maps today.

At long last we find our final museum, another portion of the Jean Lafitte National Park. Having spent a great deal of time lost, we arrive only a bit before closing.  We meet the most engaging Ranger. “No one can wholly separate the myth of Jean Lafitte from historical reality. Jean helped Andrew Jackson win the war of 1812 in the Battle of New Orleans. Lafitte was also a privateer, a slave trader, and like all of us both good and bad – perhaps more bad than most.” The Ranger provides no satisfactory answer to why we have a National Park named after a pirate and a slave trader.

The Park Visitor Center has a great timeline showing when each ethnic group moved to the New Orleans area:  Indians, Europeans, Africans and lastly the Vietnamese, who arrived following the Viet Nam war.

“Does the Mississippi River want to jump into the Atchafalaya River?“ I ask. “Absolutely,” states the ranger, confirming my suspicions. “Given a good hurricane or earthquake, the Mississippi River will change her course, becoming one with the Atchafalaya. This would produce a new delta-built city somewhere south of Houma, eliminating New Orleans’ vital port. The Army Corps of Engineers has spent years working to prevent this.”  “Who do you think will win, the Mississippi or the Atchafalaya?” asks Bear. “I’m not a gambling man,” the Ranger responds, “but in the short-term I’d put my money on the Corps of Engineers, over the long-term, mother nature via the Atchafalaya will win.”

What has changed since Katrina?” we ask.  The ranger replies:

“We now have higher levees but nothing has been done to ameliorate the problems associated with living below sea level.

The Mississippi, courtesy of the Army Corps of Engineers, remains one large drainage ditch, her life-giving, delta-building sediment diverted into deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.  Thus, New Orleans continues sinking. 

The world over, ocean levels rise.

No one wants to spend the money on a seawall as the English, Russians and Dutch have. The city remains a sitting duck awaiting the next big hurricane.

The French Quarter property retains its value due to its being both the most historic and highest land around. 

New Orleans will continue as it has until climate change reality in the form of hurricanes, floods and rising sea levels make it too expensive to be here.”

The petrochemical companies we saw back in Lake Charles have no interest in rebuilding the wetlands.  Is it cheaper to abandon the factories as they become untenable?  Or in the new classic move, will they wait for a disaster, be deemed too big to fail and let the feds build the seawall?  Considering the importance of oil in all of our lives, perhaps we should force building the seawall with federal funds, NOW, before a disaster occurs.

The Ranger locks the men’s room before closing time. Unfortunately, the women’s room has already been decimated by retching tanked-up morons. Assholes! Is there ever a thought for anyone else in inebriation? Does wiping out the only accessible restroom for miles matter? I find myself hating blitzed jerks even more than I already do, a feat and feeling I did not consider possible.

As the museum closes, we’re tossed out once again. We head back to our house to prepare dinner.

Relaxing after a wondrous repast, the four of us discuss Bloodroot’s cousin Drew.  Since it’s obviously our business, where should Drew go to college? Miami of Ohio offers an $11,000 per year scholarship, John Carroll competes with a full scholarship and Notre Dame costs $58,000 per year with no scholarship.  It’s 11:30PM in Ohio, but we feel that we must warn Drew about Notre Dame. Barkley currently lives in South Bend, having earned his MFA from Notre Dame. Barkley dials the phone.  For some reason, probably involving familial insanity, Drew answers.

“Drew,” Barkley begins, “people who graduate from Notre Dame are called Domers. If you get both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from Notre Dame, you’ll be a Double Domer and have two heads like Zaphod Beeblebrox.”[1] Barkley then regales Drew with tales of various infamous Domers. “Did you know that one Domer populated an entire sperm bank with only his own sperm?”  Questionable behavioral examples exhausted, Barkley returns to Drew’s life.  He continues, “Drew, do you know what you plan to do with your life?” Drew’s response, if any, is inaudible to those of us sitting about the table. Drew is brilliant and not very talkative. “Well, I did,” Barkley pontificates, “I went to college knowing I wanted to be the best writer ever! And you know what I am now? A complete failure!” Barkley thunders. “But I knew what I wanted to do!  That’s the difference between you and me Drew!”  I wish fervently for a tape recorder to record this spectacular Barkley rant. Even transcribing this part of the conversation, I dissolve into helpless laughter.  The conversation ends, we laugh a bit more, then turn in for the night.

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[1] Zaphod Beeblebrox is a comedic character sporting two heads in Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Friday, February 21, 2014 – Canoeing, Sinkholes & the Tinky-Winky Tango

When we began our trip, I feared pain, weakness and walking difficulties would send me home quickly, long before we reached Louisiana.  As we’re halfway through our trip today, perhaps it’s time for some reflection.  How do I feel?  Spending most of my time in the Honda’s passenger seat instead of a wheelchair has eliminated back pain. By taking it very easy, I’ve become strangely stronger, if just a wee bit.  I rely heavily upon Tinky, my walker, both physically and emotionally.  Tinky encourages me. “We can do it,” he says.  “We are strong.” Bathroom issues keep cripples at home. With Tinky’s help, we triumphantly walk from the bed to the bathroom as needed.  Life is good.

Last fall, through the trip planning process, we uncovered a lodging conundrum.  In the States we can rent either a room with a kitchen or a place potentially handicap accessible.  The two seem as different and mutually exclusive as oil and water. 

Generally, we’ve chosen kitchens over handicap accessibility. Bear and Bloodroot have unearthed previously unknown culinary skills, much to our collective delight. They now excel at cooking under travel duress, be it strange kitchens or outdoor picnic tables.  We search for the finest, freshest yet simplest-to-prepare foods. We’ve taken to shopping at Whole Foods, going so far as to plot out when our locations will intersect.  Despite the exorbitant per item cost, we find Whole Foods far cheaper than any restaurant and certainly tastier.

Last night in Lafayette, we watched a huge thunder-boomer with lots of lightning.  Safe, snug and inside, we enjoyed a real southern rain where the sky opens and buckets of water cascade, drenching the earth below.  I miss the people of the South and a real Southern Rain.[1] The storm’s lingering humidity curls our papers.

Leaving Lafayette behind, we speed down state route 90 again today.  As eternally indulgent parents, we find ourselves encouraging Bloodroot’s sinkhole obsession.  We stop at Lake Peigneur, exit Pearl, and begin acting as junior archaeologists seeking visible remains of a large mining disaster. 

In 1980, Texaco engineers seeking oil hosed up and punched a hole through the lake’s bed, piercing the roof of a massive underground salt mine.  The lake, previously a placid shallow place visited primarily by fishermen, drained into the mine, dissolving all salt in its path.  A huge vortex ensued, sucking in the drilling platform, a tugboat, eleven barges, numerous trees and 65 acres of the surrounding terrain.   Houses wobbled, then sank.

Flooding the mine consumed so much water that the Delcambre Canal, the lake’s normal outlet to the Gulf of Mexico, ran backwards as the yawning underground caverns drank until sated. Eventually, the mine filled restoring equilibrium, nine barges popped out of the sinkhole, leaving the remaining two permanently mired beneath the lake. 

To Bloodroot’s disappointment, the maelstrom has left few traces of its fury.  While watching the whirlpool itself would’ve been very exciting, at this point only a pretty lake remains, albeit now deep saltwater (1300 ft.) instead of shallow freshwater (10 ft.).  Bear and Beaver return to Pearl, while Bloodroot embarks upon a voyage of exploration and discovery.  He finds chimneys, the tops of trees and shingles left from the time when the sinkhole claimed so many houses. 

Leaving Lake Peigneur, we drive to the Lake Fausse State Park on the Atchafalaya River.  Desiring lunch with minimum toting effort, we seek a picnic table close to both the parking lot and the river, with a view, of course. Finding the perfect spot, we park.  A sidewalk lined by shallow bayous runs between the parking lot and the covered picnic tables.  The boys empty Pearl’s hat, carrying the stove, cooler and cooking implements out to the picnic area. Keith begins concocting lunch, attaching the propane fuel tank to the camping stove and sifting through the cooler, seeking appropriate foodstuffs.

Bloodroot, for no apparent reason, rolls Tinky over to the picnic table while Keith fusses at him about it.  Bloodroot ignores Bear, intent upon performing the Tinky-Winky Tango.  I drive Sven toward the table, where I will chop vegetables, my contribution to our midday repast. 

Bloodroot decides to charge me with the walker.  He runs, forgets that Tinky has brakes, and loses control of the walker. Bloodroot trips, veering to the left.  Staggering to the right, he nearly recovers. But it’s too late. Bloodroot careens off the sidewalk, flips over and lands on his back in a shallow bayou.  Tinky flies across the sidewalk into the opposing bayou. Bloodroot emerges unhurt, outside of his pride.  We retrieve Tinky, a bit worse for wear.  Tinky never fully recovers, his legs permanently bent.

We pluck dead leaves off of Bloodroot.  He’s sopping wet before he even goes canoeing.  Fortunately, Bloodroot finds both a towel and clean clothes in Pearl. She laughs at him too, much to his annoyance.  For the rest of the day and into the evening we can’t stop laughing helplessly every time we look at him or think of this event.  Keith repeatedly mimes the adventures of Bloodroot and the walker, wishing fervently that we had videotaped the entire incident.  At times I think Bear would be an excellent playwright.  He can act out the scenes and block while I write dialogue.

After lunch, fully dry, Bear and Bloodroot go canoeing.  I sit at a different picnic table overlooking a branch of the river and write.  Spring is beginning here, sending out tentative tendrils of herself, checking the safety of the temperature before proceeding.  The green grasses surprise and delight me, so different from Denver’s arid winter. The trees haven’t leafed out quite yet, but the magnolias and some yellow flowers bloom.  I bask in the sun resurgent after last night’s storm.

The boys paddle by me, go a few hundred feet in the water, turn around and paddle by me again. “Oh my men,” I query, “are you lost?  Confused?  Perhaps going the wrong way?” “No, there are many paths,” our son mystically replies. “And many puddles to fall into,” adds Keith.

The river flows by placid and calm, riled by the wind kicking up now and again. Looking up into the tree branches I see a fishing bobber caught by someone’s poor casting.   

I spend the afternoon writing, reading and napping in the sun. Shadows fall on the river as the afternoon wanes until even my perch becomes shaded. Bloodroot and Bear pass by again proudly telling me that they have canoed four miles.  They dock the boat without incident. Outside of the puddle adventure, no one has gotten wet today.

We pack up and make ready for our journey to New Orleans.  We find our next Airbnb location, the bottom floor of a house in the 13^th Ward.  This ward flooded during Katrina, but has now been restored.  We move in. Keith and I prepare dinner while Bloodroot drives up to the airport to collect his best friend Barkley. 

Bloodroot and Barkley met in college becoming fast friends.  Both writers, they plan a website with the goal of being as important and influential as the Paris Review. (http://theunion4ever.com)  They’re undecided about being a secret front for the CIA. We consider Barkley our other son.  He’s bright, witty and charming, enough to make any adoptive parent proud. We love him dearly and are so grateful that he has chosen to spend some of his limited vacation time with us.

After hugs, over dinner, Barkley cautions us to be careful in New Orleans.  His attorney has warned him about Louisiana, saying “They use the Napoleonic Code down there, something I know nothing about. Don’t get in trouble because I can’t help you.” Duly advised, the boys swear off prostitutes, drugs and gambling for the duration.  We turn in for the night.

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[1] To understand the longing, listen to the Cowboy Junkies Southern Rain.

Thursday, February 20, 2014 - Avery Island

I have a grumpy Bear this morning, as the Beaver twisted herself up in the covers and slid out of bed last night, flopping her tail about helplessly on the floor. Poor Bear worked on righting her for quite some time, eventually setting her upside up. Shortly thereafter, she arose to visit the bathroom. Bear helped her back into bed, complaining of sleepiness while tormented by Lowly Worm, the Beaver’s alter ego. Lowly worked hard to turn Beaver onto her left side for sleeping.  Lowly failed. At long last, Bear adjusted Lowly’s blanket and pillow, turning her onto her correct side. Breathing a sigh of relief, Bear returned to slumbering.  A short while later, Beaver and Lowly got up to read their Nook, inadvertently waking Bear once more, much to Bear’s disgust.

I suggest some caffeine to Bear this morning, only to find my suggestion heartily disdained.

Whew!  Silence may be the better part of valor here. Our first stop, the Alexandre Mouton house, disappoints, reminding us of touring a random old house in South Carolina.  Heavy on mold and furniture, the house lacks any explanation of how the Mouton family morphed from poor, dispossessed Cajun refugees into Governor and first family of Louisiana. 

Ah, but the internet provides answers.  A Jean Mouton, probably not a Cajun refugee, emigrated to Louisiana early on, acquiring massive lands and a plantation.  Enriching himself by successfully exploiting enslaved African labor, his wealth funded his patrician son Alexandre’s stint as governor. 

As governor, Alexandre balanced the state budget by liquidating state assets, leasing out prison labor and flat refusing to spend one single red cent on anything.  No wonder Louisiana lacked roads before Huey Long!  Alexandre did support public education and enfranchising landless white males, two quite progressive ideas for the time and for Louisiana.

Exploring the house, we find one picture of Jean’s grandson Alfred.  The photo’s caption notes that he died in the Civil War, nothing else. Curiosity piqued, I research his life, finding him the most intriguing of the bunch.  Alfred Mouton served as a Confederate general during the war.  Aided by an obligatory draft, he recruited Cajuns and other poor whites to “The Cause.”  Stuck in the war derisively called “a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight,” and seeing no gain in supporting slavery and the wealthy, much of his Cajun army deserted, melting into the swamps to become guerilla, Union-supporting jayhawkers.

The Mouton House displays their collection of Mardi Gras outfits accompanied by beads in the traditional colors of gold, green and purple.  The docent hands me some beads, apologizing for restricting me to the first floor (no elevator). Ascending the steps to the second floor, the boys report little to see. We depart. Outside in the parking lot, we find a thirty-foot tall holly hedge, by far the coolest thing about the house.  ”Enough Moutons!” Pearl shouts.  Trapped against the hedge and unable to open her ramp, she squirms around impatiently, finally gaining enough clearance to allow me entry. 

Today, to all our chagrin, we encounter the second poorly engineered feature of our BrawnAbility cripple van.  The BraunAbility conversion added motors that move the driver’s seat back and forth, up and down and side to side, all to accommodate wheelchair transfer.  But the D- student design engineers didn’t fasten down the Honda wiring harness controlling normal seat movement.  We run over the wire harness with the seat, severing numerous connections.

“I wish that you hadn’t burdened me with BraunAbility.  Hondas, as you well know, will outlast you,” Pearl huffs, fussing at us.  “Pipe down, Pearl!  You know full well that the Beaver can’t get into the van without the ramp.  And if Beaver weren’t crippled, we would have kept the Prius.  We would never have met – you’d have different owners, probably ones who wouldn’t talk to you,” lectures Bear.  Pearl begins to cry deep, loud, wracking sobs.

We pull into a gas station attempting to quiet Pearl.  A Colorado plated van crying loudly in traffic attracts attention, even in Louisiana.  Sitting in a Lafayette gas station we learn all about Honda fuses, but the Honda-controlled portion of the seat remains inoperable.  The boys use the cripple mechanism to move the seat back and forth, but I can no longer reach the gas pedal, for good or for ill.

Pearl recovers her composure.  Her sobs reduced to just an occasional sigh, we give up on the seat and head down Louisiana route 90.  Our brief jaunt takes us to Avery Island, a massive salt dome a few miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico and incidentally the home of Tabasco sauce.  (No, I don’t understand why an island is inland-it’s Louisiana.)

The Avery family has owned Avery Island since 1818, initially using the land as a sugar plantation.  In 1862, the Averys discovered the underlying salt dome and began massive mining and shipping operations, the Confederate Army their largest customer.  Unsurprisingly during the course of the war, the Union Army conquered the island and destroyed all shipping and mining equipment.

A banker, one Edmund McIlhenny, married into the family before the Civil War.  After the war, flat broke, banks decimated, the family mining equipment annihilated, McIlhenny found himself mollycoddling over food.  An avid gardener, bored with bland Reconstruction-era cuisine, he dreamt up a new business venture:  pepper sauce. 

Currently, a seventh McIlhenny descendant, aided by 200 workers, produces Tabasco here on Avery Island. Yeah! We enjoy seeing a food company not owned by Pepsi, Tyson, Kraft or Nestlé. Many of the workers, also second & third generation employees, appear to have the same roles as their ancestors, the majority of blacks working in the fields and whites in the factory.

We learn the McIlhenny family secret-where there’s salt, there’s oil.  The island has an immense salt mine and oil, providing all the income the family needs.  Is Tabasco merely noblesse oblige?  A good thing, whatever the reason.  By supporting, retaining and maintaining the plant on Avery Island, the family has preserved employment and local infrastructure in the rural marshlands of Louisiana.

To make Tabasco sauce, workers pick peppers at the peak of ripeness, selecting only those peppers whose color matches their “baton rouge” or red stick. On the day of harvest, workers grind the peppers into mash, mix the mash with salt and seal it in white oak barrels to age for three years. The workers cover the barrels with an additional layer of salt.  Opening the barrels at the appropriate time, workers mix the mash with premium vinegar, stir it daily for 28 days, then bottle the sauce.

The company saves seed from their peppers each year. Take that Monsanto! No terminator genes in seeds here! To mitigate farming risks, the company grows the pepper plants around the world.

We tour the McIlhenny plant, watching employees operate machinery bottling Tabasco sauce.  The manufactory uses the same bottling machinery my father used in his factory all those years ago.  Déjà vu engulfs me as I watch the bottles run along the beltway, each bottle pausing to receive its allotted share of pepper sauce from the overhead hopper.  Tossed back in time, peering through a dim, veiled mirror, I observe a different factory.  Via the same process, Dad supervises his plant as his workers bottle various cleaning products. 

Returning to now, I watch Tabasco’s machines spin caps onto the now-full bottles, affix labels and pack the bottles into boxes.  Employees watch, resolve jams, and perform periodic quality controls.

Unlike most fermented foods, people the world over love Tabasco.  I discovered Tabasco in my teens, ever seeking escape from my family’s bland white bread cuisine.  Scandinavian-Americans worship white food.  We even have official food whiteners-Miracle Whip, cream of celery soup, marshmallow cream, etc.  Besides being spicy, Tabasco was red.  I rebelled, really breaking the mold here!  I vaguely remember putting Tabasco on mashed potatoes.  I was a convert, but not alone.  Asians find cheese disgusting, while we find stinky tofu downright scary, but we all enjoy Tabasco. Long ago, the British ran a “Buy British” campaign in Guam, outlawing Tabasco sauce. The company proudly reports riots ensued, ceasing only when Tabasco became legal again. A map shows a hundred Tabasco sauce-importing countries.

Leaving the factory, we visit the gift shop. Bloodroot and I find several must-have Tabasco items, namely an apron, a magnet, boxer shorts and some bottles of sauce. The Bear finds some shirts he likes but refuses to purchase them, deeming them too expensive. This is an old argument. “How much does it cost to drive to Louisiana?” I think.  I always buy something small to remember each trip, fulfilling my obligation as a good tourist.

Snowy egrets adorn the factory.  Huh?  By the 1890s, egret populations had declined precipitously, decimated by hunters seeking egret plumage for hats.  The McIlhenny heirs became ardent conservationists.  In 1895, a Ned McIlhenny rescued the last eight egrets, bred them and created a sanctuary on the island.  Freed, the birds migrated to Mexico to return annually with others.

As we’re already on the island, we visit the sanctuary/nature preserve named Jungle Gardens. We see roseate spoon bills, snowy egrets, fluffier headed egrets, and a gray hawk. We walk amongst oak trees dripping with Spanish moss, mangroves and cypress trees.  We delight in spring’s blooming magnolias and camellias. Resting under a 300 year old Cleveland Oak, named after the president (Grover Cleveland) who visited the bird colony, we startle an alligator that actually moves, but doesn’t bite us.

 Ned was a big collector.  After establishing the rookery and saving the egrets, he included a Japanese Shinto gate, Roman Temple, and a centuries-old enshrined Buddha in the gardens. When the family found oil on the island, Ned insisted upon burying some pipelines, rerouting others around specific trees and painting any remaining visible pipeline green.

Bear and Bloodroot walk up to see the old nursery. I nod off. They return brandishing bamboo sticks that they whirl about, trying to out-fight each other like some goofballs in a kung-fu movie. Has my family morphed into Bruce Lee’s?

The boys tire.  Returning to Pearl, we drive out to revisit the Jean Lafitte National Park, desiring to soak up all the Cajunness we can.  Too late again, the park closes in ten minutes. On to Lafayette where we cook a good supper and rely on Toby for Cajun culture. 

Over dinner we raise our glasses to toast Paul Distad.   He would be 87 years old today, were he not 13 years dead.  All day I’ve been musing and reflecting that I never saw him really old.  When he passed, one month before his 74^th birthday, his hair hadn’t turned fully grey yet.  What a life we now live, where 73 just isn’t all that old.  I still cry; I loved my daddy.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014 – Lafayette, Real Cajun Country

Wednesday, February 19, 2014 – Lafayette, Real Cajun Country

We arise and leave our hotel somewhat disgusted by our room, handicap-accessible in theory only. Perhaps I am too demanding of a cripple. The room has high beds that swallow me whole, a bathtub that I can’t get into without a crane, replete with a bathroom door opening out and into the room that Sven and I can barely maneuver around. Generally exceedingly careful, Sven bashes into the bathroom door unintentionally and repeatedly.  Surveying the damage – dented door and spattered paint chips, neither of us feels too much guilt.  The bathroom has bars by the toilet which I suppose in the hotel’s mind provides sufficient handicap-accessibility.  What else could I possibly want?  

We make the car-wash today’s first stop.  An automatic car-wash would demolish Pearl’s hat, so we opt for the tall bays of the manual.  Poor Pearl feels excruciatingly dirty, still wearing Colorado’s magnesium chloride.  She whispers her disgrace to me.  “I’m downright embarrassingly filthy,” she cries.   The boys appease us both by washing her twice, removing most of the road grime and salt from her flanks.  Floating through the South’s ceaseless warm humidity, we find it hard to remember Colorado’s cold and snow.  Pearl pearlesces, looking down both her sides with unabashed joy.

On to Jiffy Lube for Pearl’s first oil change!  She has now reached the 5,000-mile mark, seasoned but still young.

Clean and sparkly, cruising along with new oil, we head toward Lafayette, driving our sole hour today.  We pass many towns with names of French origin. The French, in a part of our history untaught and forgotten, marched across the New World, from the St. Lawrence down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.  Follow the names they left: Québec, Montreal, Detroit (the straits), Eau Claire (clear water), Des Moines (the monks), St. Louis, Baton Rouge (red stick) and finally New Orleans.

I catch a good nap, relaxing as my hair puffs and curls in the humidity.  Around 1PM we find our Airbnb house, indeed in the center of Lafayette, just as advertised.  Like all older Lafayette houses, ours sits on blocks, a simple, effective, yet inexpensive answer to periodic flooding. 

We meet some delightful fellow travelers moving out as we move in.  They wholeheartedly and enthusiastically recommend the gumbo at Don’s Seafood and Steakhouse.  Eternally seeking distinctive regional culinary experiences, we file that tidbit for later use.  But for now, we’re famished and our new Airbnb palace has a kitchen.  We make chicken alfredo, sharing our late lunch with our host Toby.  Toby proffers pertinent advice about what to see and do in Lafayette. During our stay, as a Cajun himself, he graciously shares his knowledge of Acadian culture and history with us.

By 3PM, we begin touring Lafayette, starting with the Jean Lafitte National Historic Park, stuffed full of Acadian history.  What?! A national park dedicated to a pirate?!  After collecting the all-important stamps in our passports, we learn a bit about Jean Lafitte and a good bit more about the Cajuns.

First, Mr. Lafitte:  In 1807, responding to English and French seizure of both merchandise and people from US ships, Thomas Jefferson enacted a trade embargo against imports from the UK and France.  Jefferson wanted to cripple the continental economies but only managed to shoot himself in the foot.  The States, a small player in global affairs, now refused to trade with the day’s great European powers, rather like Liberia refusing to trade with us today.  By preventing our things from leaving the country, Jefferson greatly harmed nascent American commerce.

Enter the Lafitte brothers.  The embargo proved unenforceable as Pierre smuggled much needed manufactured products into Louisiana, which Jean distributed through his New Orleans warehouse.  At this time in the States, no options existed besides imported stuff; in our archaic colonial economy, we supplied raw materials to Europe and purchased their manufactured items.  Heroes to the common people, the Lafittes brought in desperately needed merchandise. 

As the Lafitte brothers continued to expand their criminal empire, blockade-running proved to be just their gateway drug. Moving on to outright piracy, they retained their heroic stature even as they attacked and stripped ships – following the larceny, the Lafittes, acting like gentlemen, would return the ships to their owners. (At this time, a sailing ship reflected a far bigger, life-or-death investment than its contents.) For good reason, the fledgling federal government branded the Lafittes outlaws.

Their fate changed with the War of 1812.  Andrew Jackson arrived intent upon defending the vital port of New Orleans from the British.  Jackson mustered a local militia, desperately in need of help and supplies.  Lacking any ships to deal with the British fleet, Jackson recruited the Lafittes and their pirate armada to the US cause. The outlaw navy served admirably, helping the States win the War of 1812. After the war, pardoned but unreformed, Jean Lafitte returned to piracy, ending his days as a pirate off Galveston.  Pierre became a successful New Orleans merchant. 

So, I still don’t understand the national park designation. The boy was eternally an outlaw pirate, albeit in the Robin Hood vein. Does our culture consider all French people basically crooks and corrupt and Lafitte the best of the bunch? Why not a Lafayette or Rochambeau National Park? Both are certainly more unabashedly heroic, but as upper-class Frenchmen do lack the common touch embodied by Lafitte’s pirate flair.

On to the Cajuns, this National Park’s primary subject.  Originally from the coastal regions of France, the Cajuns (Acadians) emigrated to the Canadian Maritimes (primarily Nova Scotia) in the 1600s. Fleeing religious wars, bad harvests, rapacious nobility and plague, the Acadians farmed, fished, trapped and prospered in their new home, eventually numbering around 15,000 souls. 

Misery returned when Britain realized the strategic importance of the Maritimes during the French & Indian War (1754-1763).  In 1755, the English Crown settled 7,000 Protestants in Nova Scotia and expelled the Acadians.  French and Catholic, unwelcome in the English Protestant colonies, many Acadians returned to France, where Louis XV pitied them, granting them land near Poitiers.  Unfortunately, the land proved a useless barren rocky waste.  Unable to coax a living from the unforgiving soil, many set out for Louisiana, crossed the ocean again and became Cajuns.

What a different life to lead! Farmers in Nova Scotia and France grew cold hardy crops like wheat, rye, millet and cabbage. Adapting to Louisiana’s heat, the Cajuns learned to grow rice and sugarcane. The park mentions nothing of the enslaved Africans. Since we are so late, we have very little time in the park, but enjoy every minute of it.

We return to the house so that BLOODROOT can take a nap, not me for once!  While Bloodroot sleeps, we spend a congenial hour listening to Toby expound upon both Lafayette and Cajun culture.

Unfortunately, we learn, the persecution of the Cajuns did not end with the British.  Around 1920, the Louisiana authorities mandated school attendance while outlawing speaking French in schools. Although conceived with the best of intentions – that of bringing all Louisianans into the American melting pot – the policy had the effect of decimating the ancestral Cajun language.  Before its demise, Louisiana French had evolved into a language completely separate from the French spoken in Canada or Europe today: a creole of mixed African languages, Choctaw, Spanish and English overlaying the original 17th century French. A bit of the language survives in cuss words Toby learned from his parents and the patois found in Cajun songs. 

As a late recompense, today Louisiana has French immersion schools with high French taught by Parisians and the Québecois, two rather different languages in and of themselves. With my limited French training, I can pick out Parisian French, but find the French of the Québecois completely unintelligible. I wonder what the Louisianans hope to achieve by teaching two different varieties of French, neither of them remotely similar to the original Louisiana French? Sadly, we will never reproduce the unique evolutionary chain that shaped Louisiana’s inimitable, lost verbal landscape.

From Toby, we learn about “real” Mardi Gras parades. The traditional parades require masked marchers.  With Mardi Gras revelry providing a much-needed excuse to ridicule authority, masks provided safety for the participants, probably saving lives.  In old-fashioned parades, all marchers contribute food to a huge gumbo concocted at parade’s end. Paraders provide music - accordions, fiddles, singing and absolutely no radios!  Tired after their marching exertions, paraders beg the soup-makers for just the tiniest bit of the gumbo. In recent town history, Mardi Gras parades became huge revels involving too much liquor and loud bad music (courtesy of those evil radios!) with too many people running about trashed.  The purists moved in, banning radios while restoring masks, gumbo, real music and legitimacy. They forbade glass beads, considering them pure tourist trash.

After Bloodroot wakes and rises, we venture out to the highly recommended Don’s, as a bowl of soup sounds mighty good to us.  We’ve learned that time-honored Louisiana food includes red beans and rice, crawdads, cracklings, gumbo and boudin (sausage).  Ever hopeful of finding a genuine Louisiana meal, we expectantly order Don’s gumbo with hush puppies (fried cornbread dough).  Our server brings Land O’Lakes margarine, providing our first hint that we may not be in gustatory heaven.  My, would our parents have loved this place!  We have just enough Louisiana to be slightly different, yet feature the familiar comforts of margarine and salt.  Flavored only by salt, I find my gumbo both atrocious and inedible.  Bummer! Another restaurant failure, our high hopes for distinctive local dining once more cruelly crushed.

Next we visit the Blue Moon Hostel/Bar for the Wednesday’s open mike night.  Primed by Toby, we know that real Cajun music involves fiddles, and accordions, and singing in Louisiana French.  We hear one accordion, nine fiddles, two guitars, and various unmiked singers play some amazingly wonderful music.

Contrary to the song I’d heard for so many years, bars do indeed close in Louisiana. [1] Each parish sets its idea of the appropriate bar closing time, unsurprisingly tending to later hours down south than up north.

We love hearing genuine Cajun music.  We can’t understand the singers singing unmiked in their unintelligible French patois, but we bask in the music’s flavor.  (Even Bloodroot, with two years in Paris under his belt, can’t make heads or tails out of whatever has survived of Louisiana French.)  The much smaller Lafayette, with only 125,000 residents, has become a music town on par with Austin and Nashville, cities four times as large. Fortunately, success has not yet devoured Lafayette.  Everyone seems to know everyone else here, and all the local bands feel very authentic. 

We worry, noting that any act making it big seems to be bought out by the Nashville/Hollywood Music Complex, losing the flair that made it unique in the first place.  Case in point: compare the Oak Ridge Boys performing Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight on what appears to be a Dukes of Hazard TV episode[2] (or perhaps lip-synching since the music doesn’t match the singing) with the Emmylou Harris heartfelt, soulful, fiddle-filled rendition of the same song.

Entranced, we drink beer while the music surrounds us, becoming our whole world.  Sadly, our bodies began to scream for sleep, forcing our departure. Were we immortals, we may have spent years here enraptured, not leaving until beer consumption exhausted all of our funds. Mere mortals and also old people, we leave long before closing time, whenever that is.

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[1] Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight (Rodney Crowell) “This is down in the swampland, anything goes.  It’s alligator bait and the bars don’t close.”

[2] Ok, I’ll admit it.  The Oak Ridge Boys are so bad that I couldn’t bring myself to watch the three and a half minute You Tube video. I obliged my ears screaming for relief after about one minute.