Learing to Drive

Learning to drive is a rite of passage for most American teens.  My mother was nervous about me driving.  I think in those days, in Louisiana, you could get your learners permit at about age 14 and your license at about age 15.  I had to wait an extra year and I don’t think I got mine until I was 16 or so.  I think these ages have now been upped. 

Now as all good kids do, your Dad sits you on his lap, and lets you steer while he does the pedals, but other than that, I had not had much experience behind the wheel until I was a teenager.  I learned to drive on my family’s 88 Oldsmobile.  It was white with this gold metallic vinyl top, that we had to have re-toped at some point.  Daddy took me down the Bogle Road, out close to where my Great-Grandmother’s old place was, where we used to go fishing, and taught me to drive.  Oh I was the worst at getting the pedals mixed up.  The Bogle Road, for those of you who don’t know it, is this long stretch of black top, undivided, that goes for many miles back in the woods, on the outskirts of Logansport.  Few houses and lots of oil well sites, and lots of trees.  I think most of that land out there now is owned by Dow Chemical. 

Daddy pulled over to this well site and had me get behind the driver’s seat and then we eased off.  Driving that car, was like driving a tank, that back end was just huge, it was also kind of like driving a truck.  You have to remember your butt is extra long and trailing behind you, and you need to remember that you have to calculate for a bigger turn radius and parking.  Kind of like wearing a wedding dress or anything else that trails behind you.  We pull out of the site and on to the road, and Daddy is screaming at me to break.  I finally remember which one it is and apply it, about a foot from hitting the embankment in front of us.  Daddy, ever so calmly takes out his snuff and makes himself a dip.  I think he was shaking over the fact I had nearly killed us.  It took us a few more tries, before I was going down the road smoothly.  I did a lot of over correcting, but there were no cars coming so we were okay.

We had a few more of these sessions, with a lot more yelling, before Daddy finally handed me off to Mom to teach me to drive.  She taught me the finer points like driving on the highway and how to pass another car.  Scary stuff for me back then.  I still drive on the shoulder too much, when there is one to drive on around here.

So it was a while before they would let me out on the highway by myself, in my Comet.  I was told to practice in the front yard.  Now we had a big place about 5 acres total, but only about 2 or so of that I could drive on, and only when it was dry.  I remember driving between these great big pine trees.  Still don’t know how I didn’t end up in the ditch. 

One day I am practicing backing up and PAWYAH!  I hooked this little Pecan tree with my driver’s side fender.  It kind of stuck out a few inches from the car anyways.  The car was hanging, oh a good 6” to a foot off the ground, and Daddy had to come and pull me off with a chain on his truck.  None of them was too pleased with me.  Grandpa was mad I had hurt his tree, Mom was mad I had hurt her car, and I was embarrassed about the whole thing.  Now the body was solid metal, and I had bent in a section of car, so we just took a hammer and beat it back out.  You hook a tree today with one of these plastic cars and you will have to buy a whole new side of your car, if you don’t total it.  Yep metal cars were great, sucked on gas millage, but you could put them threw just about anything. 

Not long after I started driving I got my first job, outside of the family, babysitting Dobermans, for Phil and Ardella Browning.  I think I met them through my local library.  Either they knew me from my volunteer work there, from the community in general, or from a genealogy workshop I had taken from them.  I don’t remember and both of them are long gone now, so I can’t ask. 

They had been raising championship Doberman Pinschers for many years, but now only had two females left from their years of breeding.  Ardella and Phil wanted to travel, but needed someone to watch their dogs and their house for them.  They knew of my passion for animals and asked if they could hire me to watch over their dogs while they were gone.  I said sure!

Ardella thought it was best that I should meet the dogs first, and have her go over everything with me.  I will never forget driving up to her place.  There was a long drive way of the road to their house and at the end was a big gate.  Inside was a 2 story house, a rare thing in my neck of the woods, a greenhouse, and a pond out back.  Running lose in the front yard, with a florescent green color, was what I thought at first was a deer.  I got out of the car and said, “Ardella you have a deer running in your front yard with a collar on.”

She said, “Actually that is Bambi.  She is a fawn colored Doberman.”

I was dumb struck.  I didn’t know Dobie’s came in that color.  I had on only seen black and tan.  I was a bit frightened by these dogs.  All I knew was they were aggressive and used for dog fighting, but Ardella and Phil were not like that.  Suddenly this monster started to charge me, but I held my ground.  This massive black and tan Doberman, with cropped ears and tail, is coming at me full speed.  I’m terrified but when she gets to me, she doesn’t bit me, she swings her butt to me.  Confused I looked up at Ardella, who calmed me by saying, “This is Ursa, and she wants you to scratch her butt.”  She explained to me that Ursa had been taken from her mother too early, at 5 weeks, and she constantly wanted to be petted.  You could not stop petting that dog.  I’d be sitting in the swing, petting her, and my arm would get tired from so much petting.  I would quit and she would bump me with her nose to make me pet her more.  She was such a silly girl.  I loved her so.

I was paid $5 a day to come out, get the mail, check the answering machine for any important messages, feed, water and play with the dogs.  I was given the numbers to where Phil and Ardella would be and I was to call if anything happened, and they would come home instantly.  I am happy to say that I worked for Phil and Ardella for many years, and became good friends with them.  Only once did I have to call them home from a trip, when Phil’s sister became very ill and soon thereafter, I believe, passed away.

To keep myself straight on what day was what, and when they were coming home I kept a log of my time at their house.  On an old yellow legal note pad, I would write the date, and what happened that day.  If I had given medicine to one of the dogs, what the weather was like, any animals I saw, or what new dead thing had been drug up in the yard.  I always started it with something like, “Today was a great day.”  I always tried to use a new descriptive adjective every day, and never repeat myself.  It got quite tricky there when they were gone for two or three weeks at a time.  I’d pull out words like groovy and keen.  Ardella told me one time, “I look forward to coming back, just so I can read your little notes.  I didn’t know you kids even knew what keen meant.”  I just laughed. 

Phil and Ardella were married for more than 50 years.  They had met at a dance at a town Phil and his buddies had randomly chosen to go to.  Phil worked in the oil business, for Shell Oil Company, most often off shore.  He still wore the jumpsuit uniforms that lots of oil field works do.  He was the nicest guy, big and tall and with very broad shoulders.  Ardella was bright in her own right.  She was strong and independent.  She had obtained a HAM radio operators license, so that every night her children could say ‘Goodnight’ to their father.  This was in the 70’s.  Long before cell phones kidos.  She still had all her equipment and tower when I knew her 20 years later.  They had traveled all over the world and Ardella talked about learning to speak Portuguese when they lived in Brazil.  I’m tearing up now just thinking about her.  I miss her a lot. 

By the time I knew both of them, their children were all grown, and moved away.  Being in their house was like a refuge to me.  It was full of books, that I was welcome to read.  They helped me with my genealogy. There was this huge wind chime that was hanging between the dining room and the living room.  I loved to ring it, and hear it’s sound.  Ardella had her own art room with her sewing machine, and an organized yarn stash like you would not believe.  I think she was a knitter. 

My favorite part of the house was this little sunny area, on the other side of the kitchen sink.  It had two comfy chairs facing each other and two book cases, a his’ and her’s if you will, beside these very large windows.  This little cozy space looked out on the pond and Ardella’s bird feeder on the deck.  She used to sit in that chair, watching the birds and try to identify them.  While Phil sat and read his paper or did his crossword.  Happy to be together, and each still doing their own thing.  I loved this idea, that a woman did not have to give up being who she was in, order to be married.  That she could have interests outside church, cooking, cleaning, sacrificing for her children, and gardening.  I think that was new for me back then. 

I kept that job until I went to college.  I even worked for them the summer between graduating high school and starting college when I worked for McDonald’s in Center, Tx.  I handed the job off to a friend of mine, who worked for them for several years as well. 

Ardella battled cancer in the end.  She died when I was working at Fort Jesup.  My mom called me, at the Fort, to tell me that she had just found out.  It had been some time since she had passed.  I was so upset that I burst out in tears, and was inconsolable.  I handed the phone to the other ranger standing behind me, who had never spoken to my mother, and had no idea what was going on.  I had to sit down, before I fell down.  Although it had been many years since I had seen her, I still loved her very much.  She was my good friend.  Finally the other ranger hung up the phone, and I sat and told her most of what I have told you here. 

Phil remarried and died some years back.  I miss them both dearly and wish them well on the other side. 

Ilsa

Riding Around

I have the most wonderful cousins in the world.  One of them is named Drew who I have talked about a bit before.  Drew and I were tight.  Right after Drew got his first truck, a real piece of crap that he paid $300 for and pulled out a creek, he started picking me up from school.  The truck was originally this orange yellow color, and then he spray painted it dark blue.  It took him a while, but he did it.  It had rusted floorboards, and a door seal that leaked, so when it rained and even if the window was up the seat often got wet.  I remember many mornings riding to school in a wet seat.  Oh well. 

Drew and I had the best time in that old truck.  Sometimes we would pick up one of his friends.  Sometimes he would just pick me up and we would go riding.  We would listen to music on his tape deck.  Gods we had the best time in that old truck.  We had the best conversations.  We dreamed and planned for the future. 

I had known Drew was gay almost since the day I met him.  He always wanted to play with my hair and play with my Barbies.  In my mind I thought, oh cool he is a girl and guys body.  I was 6 and he was 7.  But let me be clear here.  Drew identifies as a gay man and not as transgendered.  That was just what made since in my little girl heart and head.  Drew did not officially come out to me until I was 19 or so.  He brought me back into his room one day, when I was visiting and told me.  I told him I had known our whole lives, how I had suspected it, that I loved him, accepted him as who he was, and it was a non issue with me.   

In those days of riding around in the truck we made plans, that if we were not both married by the time we were 25 we would get married.  You know by then we felt we would be ancient.  That he could live his life and be with fellers, and I could do my thing on the side.  That way there would be no questions asked, by the family as to why he was not married yet.  My dad had already said, “Why don’t you and Drew get married?  You know keep it in the family, since y’all are not biologically related.”  I think he was pretty drunk when he said that.  I think that is the spark that got us talking about that.

So why talk about Drew being gay, because I want to say this.  At no time in my life did I ever decide to sit down and like men, neither did Drew.  As one of my oldest gay friends once told me, “Why on Earth would we chose this life?  Where we could be hated, ostracized and possible killed.”  I have had the joy and privilege to love someone who was gay from an early age.  It has helped define me.  For most of my life I have been an outspoken advocate for my gay brothers and sisters.  I want them to have the same rights and abilities that I have.  Why? because I love Drew.  I want him to have every happiness that I can be afforded.  I want him to find a good man and have a fabulous wedding, I want them to be able to have babies, and go to the grocery store and hold the hand of the man he loves, openly and in public, with no fear of being hurt, or someone saying something nasty to him.  Being gay is only a small part of who he is.  He is wonderful and loving and kind. 

Although Drew still identifies as Christian, I could not stand by and be part of a faith that in large part, condemns my beloved cousin for being true to himself, so I left the church.  I believe when Jesus made Drew, he made him gay.  Just as when Holda stirred me in the cauldron of life, she made me an Animal Communicator.  It is simply the way our brain is wired.  It is in Drew’s DNA, just as is his crazy curly hair, and blue eyes.  If we demonized gay people, we miss the chance to love some truly awesome people.  My life is better for knowing and loving Drew.  He has forever transformed who I am, just by being himself.  I wish him every joy that this life can give him.  Blessings my brother.

Drew and I rode around in that old blue truck for a long time.  Just talking, some of the best memories of my life.  I road with Drew on and off until he graduated, the year before I did.  Drew and I would go to the Opera together.  It was the truck we drove the first time Drew took me out bar hopping when I was 18, cause you could drink when you turned 18 back then.  I know I drove my car my senior year to school some, but I also still rode the bus a lot.  Because I remember falling off that bitch a lot! 

I was the last one on the bus and it was such a short ride from my house to the school, that by the time I walked all the way to the back and fought for a seat, we would be there, so I just stood, or sat on the steps.  We would pull up to the elementary side of the school and I would step off to let the little ones off.  I would give hugs, tie shoes, make sure they had jackets on and stuff, and wipe noses.  Then I would get back on the bus, ride 40 feet to the High School side.  I would take one step out the door to get on the concrete, inevitable miss, and fall flat on my face.  Everybody would just laugh and laugh their heads off.  Most people didn’t bother to come over and help me up, but many did ask if I was okay.  That’s about the time I started learning to say out loud, “I’m good,” when I fall, because so many people asked.  I still think I fall so much because my tits are so huge, I feel they make me unbalanced.

My first car, which was never titled in my name, but that I got to drive to school, was this beautiful 1973 Gold Mercury Comet that my mother had driven to high school.  She was a 4 door, automatic, 8 cylinder, 302 cc, with and engine built for drag racing in her.  My mother used to drag in her and would occasionally win.  The car had originally been built for drag racing, but when the original owner went to pick it up, he decided he didn’t like it and never bought it.   She had a solid metal body and these horrid vinyl seats with a western motif pattern on them.  So in the summer when you wore your shorts, and you got out of the car, you had this print on the back of your thigh!  Ha! Ha! 

Gods I loved that car.  We had a new windshield put in it and must have been done improperly, because it started leaking under the gas pedal every time it rained.  So I had to keep a pan under it.  Eventually it started to rust out the floorboards. 

She could do 90 like she was sitting still!  PAWYA! And done the road I went.  Boy could she fly.  I tore the roads up in that car.  I think Me and Mom and Grandpa, put a tape deck in her and I would make these great mix tapes, give them awesome names, and I would put them on and just drive around listening to my music.  That car was freedom to me. 

I would put Texas, my dog, in the car, and down the road we would go.  Gods I loved him so!  I think he was the first dog I ever really communicated with.  My dad had brought him home years before.  This skinny little thing, that had been sleeping under dozers at my Dad’s pipeline location.  He was giving him his sandwich everyday.  Finally Dad brought him home.  He said, “I had to bring him home, or I was going to starve to death!”  My Daddy has always had the biggest heart.  Texas was covered in oil, and mud, and gas.  It took us 2, if not 3 baths to get him clean, and that water was just black.  He was the best dog.  We believe he was part Border Collie and part Lab. 

Texas and I would go get gas together, I could fill that huge tank up for $20 back then and drive around for almost two weeks on it.  I would go in the gas station and get candy for me, and Famous Amos Chocolate Chip cookies for him.  He loved them!  Back before we knew not to give dogs chocolate.  One cookie for me, and 2 or 3 for Texas, then we’d drive a bit, and then one for me and more for him.  He was so heavy that when he road in the front seat, and it bounced the seatbelt light would come on for him.  He loved to go ridding with me.  I knew if he was in the car with me, nobody was going to mess with me, so I went anywhere I pleased.  I really liked to go riding when the flowers bloomed.  I would watch the land over the years, and knew where the flowers bloomed in spring, and I would just go down some lonely road and pick flowers, Texas in tow. 

Texas was my best buddy.  When I had no body to talk to, I talked to him.  He was a great friend.  He never told anybody my secrets.  He just wanted his belly rubbed.  I have this great picture, that Mom took of us, sitting on the porch, a book by my side, and his head in my lap.  I had no idea she had taken it.  It’s one of my favorites.  Here I am holding court with my dogs, in my favorite blue dress.  He died 6 weeks after I went to college.  The vet said he had Hepatitis C, that he got from eating something dead.  I think he died from a broken heart of me not being there.  I still miss him.  I have his picture on my ancestor altar.  I think of him often.

Ilsa

 

Christmas 2015

It’s coming on Christmas/

Cutting down trees/
Putting up reindeer/
Singing songs of Joy and Peace/
-          River by James Taylor

I’m sitting here listening to James Taylor’s Album Christmas to a song called River.  I love the first few lines I have posted here for y’all.  I am trying to get in the Christmas / Yule Tide spirit.  I thought I would tell y’all a few stories of Christmas past, and as always we will start with Oma.

Oma made the holidays joyful, with a huge tree covered in lights, lights on the house, and a plastic Santa complete with Reindeer outside.  What I remember about her most was Christmas at her house.  The whole family would gather.  My uncle and his family would drive in from Houston, and the rest of us would come in from our local towns and communities.  There was often a well timed phone call from Germany calling to wish us well.  With a seven hour time difference they would have already had Christmas and be heading to bed at that point.  With that call and all of us there, it would seem as if we were not so far apart, for one night we were this big loving family, even if there was an ocean between us.

I think Christmas was when we expressed most of our German culture and traditions.  A week or so before Christmas a large metal box would arrive from Germany sent by Oma’s brother, from a company in Nurnberg.  It was filled with all kinds of candies, cookies, and breads.  For us it was Christmas Eve that was most important.  That’s the night we opened presents.  There were lots of presents, but nothing extravagant.  Angie and I often got matching gifts.  One year we got these huge life size dolls that Angie’s mom had made for us.  Angie’s looked like her’s, with blond hair and blue eyes.  Mine looked like me with brown hair and brown eyes.  We both got typewriters that year.  That was Oma’s last gift to us.  We were 6. 

In our area of Germany they did not do stockings.  The custom was to do Weinachtstellers, or Christmas Plates.  They were these thick paper plates with Christmas images on them, and fluted edges.  They were filled with nuts, an apple and an orange (luxuries during winter, not that many generations ago), a good chocolate bar, cookies, gold chocolate coins (for wealth), Marzipan, a few candies and sometimes a small gift.  My last plate from Oma had a lip gloss dressed up as a dolly, on a string.  Everyone had their own plate, per their own tastes.  I have a wonderful photo of those last plates she made sitting on a table in her house.  Christmas at her house was always warm and loving.

We kids had our own table, where the appetizers were, I always ate heavily from the relish tray.  The relish tray for those of you, who are not from the South, had black and green olives, and several types of pickles on it.  We kids would all get excited and run to open the presents, or try to eat from our Christmas Plates, have to be corralled back, told that no, we had to eat our dinner first, and then we could open presents and have our plates.  Only after dinner, desert, and finally when they were almost done with Coffee and/ or starting on the Schnapps would we be allowed to open them.  Oh waiting was such agony!  That joy and wonder of the season, that since of family and connection, across towns, states, and continents, when Oma died it all went away.  As far as I remember, after her death, we never gathered as a family again to have Christmas Eve.  Oma’s brother kept sending the metal boxes from Nurnberg, until his death, but it was never the same.

Christmas at Novelle’s, Daddy’s Mom, was different.  There were no plates, no calls from Germany.  I have this great memory of us going to hunt for a tree for Novelle.  You didn’t go buy a tree back in those days.  We drove down the road, until we saw some trees we liked, and then got out of the truck with an ax and just cut one down. 

We were out doing this one Christmas, and Daddy had been chopping on this tree for a bit, and this man walks up to us.  He was dressed all in hunter orange, gun over his arm, and I think carrying some birds.  He stopped to speak to us and my Daddy got real nervous like, and the man says to us, “This your land?”  Daddy says, “No sir.”  God I knew were in so much trouble, when he said it like that, and the man says, “Mine neither,” and then he just walked right past us.  It never occurred to me, until much later in my life, that we were not supposed to be on, whoever’s property we were, and damn sure not stealing their tree.  I think Daddy chopped down a little scrub pine, could not have been more than 4 feet tall.  We brought the tree back to Novelle’s, stuck it in a coffee can full of dirt, put some paper chains on it and called it a Christmas Tree. 

Mom and I have continued with the tradition of Christmas Plates and talking on the phone to the family in Germany on or around Christmas.  Calls to German, for most of my life, were just too expensive to do any time you wanted, so you had to save it for something special.  Now we have Facebook and can talk to them anytime we want!  Yeh for technology!

I went looking for the origins of the Christmas Plate early on in my Pagan path.  I found that it comes from the tradition where a bowl of milk would be left out on Christmas Eve as an offering, and if it was accepted the next morning, it would be filled with nuts and gifts.  I believe, although I cannot think of the reference at the moment, that the milk was left out for Odin and the Wild hunt, which includes Holda.  Milk is a traditional offering left for her, since she is related to children and domestic animals like goats and cows.  That makes sense to me.  Offerings for Odin and the animals that pulled his chariot could also be left in the bowl instead of milk, things like hay and carrots. 

In my family traditions the Christmas Tree does not come down until the New Year.  Oma refused to wash clothes between Christmas and New Years.  She believed it would bring bad luck.  She was big on luck.  She loved shamrocks and had lots of superstitions, like no shoes and no hats on the table or bed.  She loved shamrocks so much that she took Good Luck Bear, the green Care Bear with a shamrock on his stomach, as her personal totem, when she got cancer.  He went with Oma everywhere.  I think we even buried her with it.  On his stomach Oma wrote her personal mantra, “I can, I will, I must.”  

It took me a while to track down the origins of leaving the tree up and not washing clothes.  Oma was unknowingly passing down to us, old traditions of Yule.  The Christmas Tree was left up from Christmas to Epiphany, which covers the 12 days of Yule, a holy time for our ancestors, a time out of time.  House work was traditionally not to be done during this time of year, cause you cleaned like a mad woman right before it.  You were to take these days off and not clean house, or wash clothes.  The old saying is that, “no wheel, should turn during Yule.” 

I have, since I became Pagan, tried to keep the 12 days of Yule, which starts on Mother’s Night the night before Winter Solstice and goes until New Years Day.  I used to clean like a mad woman starting about Halloween and going right up until Mother’s Night, until Jay told me he didn’t like that, cause it just about drove me crazy.  The old belief is that when the Wild Hunt pass over your house during Yule, and finds it neat and tidy that Mother Holda will bless you.  I hoped each year that she would bless us with a human child, but that didn’t happen.  So the crazy cleaning has fallen by the wayside, but I am still anxious to get up and clean the top of my kitchen cabinets before Yule starts.  But Jay will have to help me with that, so we will see. 

For the last, oh so many years, I have made sugar cookies for Christmas.  I always try to leave Mother Holda an offering of these cookies and milk on Mother’s night.  The next morning I remove the milk and pour it in her well, a sacred spot, in my little grove area, where my outside altar is.  I split the cookies between our fur children (7 dogs,3 goats and pig). 

I hate the commercialism of Christmas / Yule Tide.  Some of my Christian brothers and sisters get it right.  I feel most Americans today are missing the entire point of Christmas.  Excluding Christmas in July, in this country we start putting out Christmas stuff just as soon as the Halloween stuff is sold out.  Christmas commercials start before Thanksgiving, which has gone from a major holiday into a minor one.  I like my holidays one at a time, Halloween, Thanksgiving and then Christmas / Yule Tide.

We can’t even give thanks in this country for all we have, without being bombarded with what almost seems like the foreplay of Christmas.  This ecstatic rush of presents, and lights, and parties, and charging up one’s credit cards to keep up with the Jones, and so that no one in the family might for a moment, be denied the smallest things they want.  People fight each other over dolls and rolls of wrapping paper, that will all at some point be thrown away.  It all finally culminates in Christmas Eve / Morning with the ripping open of presents, and beleaguered now broke parents.  These happy children who have no value of a dollar, who as adults will be dismayed when they finally learn, they can’t have everything they want.  When the kids go to their room and the parents are left to clean up all the mess, they are as exhausted as if they have just had a long loving session.  And in a way they have.  They have been fucked by this idea of crash commercialism that we are feed as Americans.  Buy more and you will be happy!  It’s all about making the kids happy!  X marks the spot, sorry darling, but that’s not it.

Long before the myth of Santa, or of the Wiseman giving gifts to the Christ child, or of Odin and Holda in the Wild Hunt, it was about Winter.  We forget in our cushy lives of AC / Heat and ready available food supplies, that winter used to be the time when lots of people died, those most vulnerable among us, the young, and the old.  Presents were given at Winter Solstice, the start of winter, so one might SURVIVE to see the next spring.  Gifts were practical, warm clothes, good portions of food, blankets and furs to keep warm with.  Anything that might help that person you loved, get to the Spring.  Neighbors helping neighbors, family helping family, friends helping friends, no hospitality was to be refused even to one’s enemies during winter.  The most valuable resource we have, is each other, both now and then.

Parties were held in the north lands on Mother’s night to honor the mothers in our lives, both alive and long dead.  To honor the gift of life, and the sacrifices they made for us to be here.  I think of those Viking Mother’s often, in the dark, by a smoky fire, never quite warm, and never with quite a full stomach.  Spinning, knitting, weaving, a gift to keep a brother, a husband, or a daughter warm and to make it through to the warmth of Spring.  The mother’s worried then, if she could ration out the food they had stored up long enough, to get them to the first harvest, and to when the chickens would again lay eggs, and they would have fresh protein for their children and themselves.  During Yule the family would come to visit and gifts would be exchanged, it would be one of the last times they would see their families before Spring, because soon the snow would be so thick, that traveling would be almost impossible. 

So as you are maxing out your credit cards this year, standing in line at Wal-Mart reading this on your smart phone, I urge you to think, “Will this gift help the person I love get safely to the Spring?”  Maybe put back the Xbox that you can’t afford, and get them some fuzzy socks and a good book instead.  I’m just saying.

Last year Juno told me that she had never really had a Christmas, that her family had always been too poor.  So Jay and I gave her and Kay one.  Many poor kids grow up thinking that Santa doesn’t love them, or that they were not good enough to be given gifts at Christmas.  I hate that.  I hate that in this culture, some poor kids believe that no matter how good they are, they will not be rewarded by presents, because that is what our culture teaches them.  If you are good Santa will come, and give you these lavish gifts.  Maybe if we didn’t buy into all of this, and got back to what the root of what each of our holidays are, no matter your tradition, it might be better for all of us.  Me, I’m hoping for functionality and practicality this year, I am hoping for fuzzy socks.

Blessed Yule to all of you. 

Ilsa

Many thanks to my Heathen Brother Rob who proofed this for me. 

http://urglaawe.org/Englisch.html

My Freshman year in High School

My freshman year in high school would have some momentous life events in it for my whole class. 

On August 17^th, 1990 a few days after we started school, we would lose Heather and Becky.  They along with their boyfriends, would be killed on a well site, when it exploded.

You have to remember we were all from a small town. There was no place, where kids might hang out together, drink beer and make out.  What was done in those days, is that kids would go down on a well site and party.  Well sites, are old oil well sites, where the rig has been removed, and now have only collection tanks remaining.  These sites are usually down a dirt road, and in those days rarely protected, by a gate and / or a lock.  These places are often secluded and hard to find.  I frequently heard my father tell tales of finding old, long abandoned well sites, when he was working on a new pipeline.  I am not sure, in those days, that even the oil companies knew, where all their well sites were.  On a well site you have these huge natural gas tanks, that sit on a large gravel or dirt area,  that have been cleared and can easily accommodate a large crowd, and most of the time 5 or 6 vehicles easy.   Their seclusion, large cleared area, and easy accessibility made them natural gathering spots for teenagers. 

The tanks on these well sites are called 210’s, meaning they can hold up to 210 barrels of natural gas.  A natural gas barrel is 42 gallons, you have to allow for the natural expansion and contraction of the gas.  That means just one of these tanks can hold 8,820 gallons of natural gas.  These tanks are usually 12 ft tall and there can be 1, 2 or as many as 4 on a well site.  One thing most people don’t know is that natural gas sweats, and when it does it produces a condensation that is as powerful as jet fuel. 

My knowledge comes from living here all my life and having a father in the natural gas business, and years of going on these well site locations with him.   Now I should be clear, I only heard of these parties.  I was never cool enough to be invited to one. 

Somehow a spark was made and it ignited the gas tanks. It shook houses a mile away, and broke windows a good distance away as well.  Becky who was tall and slender like her sister, was two years older than me. Heather was in my same grade, but we were not often in the same class.  I have always regretted that we were not closer. 

As much as I suffer with that guilt, I know others it has eaten alive.  Other who were supposed to have been at the party that night, but for whatever reason never made it.  Heather and Becky’s death taught me to be grateful for every birthday, because not everyone gets to be this old. 

After Heather and Becky’s deaths I saw a great effort on the part of the oil companies, to mark and lock their well roads and other properties.  Today you rarely find one open.  I have no idea if parties on the well sites continued after their deaths, or it they still happen today.

The same year we lost Heather and Becky we lost our school as well, on the evening of February 4^th, 1991 our school began to burn.

I got a phone call, from one of my uncles long before dawn.  I remember him saying, “Ilsa, schools on fire.” I said, “Okay,” and went back to sleep.  I woke up just about the time Daddy was getting ready to go to work.  I caught him just before he left.  I told him of the phone call.  At that point I was not completely sure I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing up.  I asked if he would drive by the school, and come back and tell me what was going on.  He said he would.

Now Logansport is a small, quiet town.  In those days I could sit on my porch, and listen to the football games.  I always knew when we made a touchdown, because I could hear the crowd cheer.  While Dad went to go check, Mom and I looked in the general direction of the school and saw an orange glow.  Daddy returned a few minutes later to say I was correct.  I didn’t dream it.  The school was indeed on fire.

Now I know it’s almost every student’s ardent hope and wish, that their school would burn too.  I must tell you we had all wished for such a thing, until it happened to us.  One night affected our lives for the next year and a half.

Mom and I hoped in the car and immediately drove to my school.  We could see it’s flames long before we ever got there.  My ancient 2 story high school was engulfed.  I will never forget driving past the blaze and the windows in the car being too hot to touch.  At that point my school was just a shell.  I would find out years later, that the original school had been wood.  Some years later it had been bricked over.  So when all was said and done with, the interior of the building was gone, but the brick facade remained. 

There were fire trucks and fire fighters everywhere.  I wonder now if they called in mutual aid from adjacent fire districts.  They must have, at some point, marked it as a total loss and let it just burn.  I think by the point we arrived, they were just trying to keep the other nearby buildings from catching fire as well. And they did a phenomenal job.  They saved the “Middle School” (the building the 7^th & 8^th graders used), the gym, the annex, the band building, and the home economics building.  The only things that burned that night were the main high school building and the annex, but that had been condemned long ago.  We stopped to talk to one of the firefighters.  I wanted to warn him that there was a chemistry lab upstairs.  He said, “Yes Mam’.  We know.  It was putting off pretty colors & sparks last night.”  Stories abounded about how firefighters and teachers alike risked their lives to save important documents, like test scores and grades in the councilor’s office, and those who tried to save trophies from the trophy cases. 

My school burned for three days straight.  It was a week before it stopped smoldering.  The steel beams inside were twisted from the heat.  I do remember hearing that part of what fueled the fire, was the very thick, probable 2” – 4” thick layer of wax, on top of the wood floors.  I know it was a while before investigators could get a good look, at what was left of our school, and decide what the cause of the fire was. 

The fire was deemed to be arson.  No one, as far as I know, has ever claimed responsibility for the fire.  No one has ever been convicted in this crime.  We were all told that a homeless person had been inside and set the fire.  Logansport had no homeless person, that I ever saw.  We were badly in need of a new school, long before the fire.  There was another rumor that the son of one of the school board members was asked to set it.  I have no idea.  The think the rumors are still wild and varied on who did it. It all kinds of depends on who you ask. 

I want to give a shout out to all the peps from Shreveport and the Ark-La-Tex, who stepped up and helped my little school out after the fire.  People came of the woodworks to help us.  People donated books by the truck load, as our beautiful little library had been part of what was destroyed.  Within a few days what had been the gym became the new library, admin offices, councilor’s office and 3 or 4 class rooms.  Four T buildings, temporary one room portable buildings to have classes in, were brought in and set up.  In less than a week were back in school.

I remember going to school, and seeing what was left of the building, still smoking and with twisted beams.  Then came the men in white suits.  My guess is they were checking for asbestos, or trying to see if what remained was toxic or not.  What was left of the school was soon surrounded by a chain link fence.  Why we tried to get on with our lives, and figure out what to do next.  I remember Mrs. Land’s room and her asking us to put our library books on the green built in book case at the front of the room.  We did. It only filled a few shelves, but that was all that survived of our library, was what we had checked out a few days before.  It was terrible to me to think of all those books gone. 

Discussions were had on whether to rebuild the old building, what to do with what remained of the old one, or whether to build a new building, and if so where.  It took a while, but finally the decision was made to build a new school.  It would take about 2 years, and would not be at the same location as the current school.  There were 4 beautiful white columns on the front of the old high school. It was decided that they would be saved, and everything else burned by the fire would be demolished.

The 4 columns and the front part of the school stood for several years, before it was deemed unsafe, as people were prone to climbing on it.  Finally it was destroyed as well.  For a year and a half we lived like that.  I remember letting out a great scream when the high school was being demolished.  We all stood around the fence and watched the bulldozers destroy what was left.  We couldn’t stop watching.

The new school was built on a sprawling property just before the Maple Springs Baptist Church, down from the Louisiana Pacific Plant, and the VFW building.  It was beautiful, but with none of the same charm as the old school had. 

The land where our old high school stood was bought by the First Baptist Church, which was next door to our old school.  Ironically their building burned down a few years ago.  They built a new million dollar church in the same spot as our old school stood.

The trees were the last witnesses to go.  On either side of the sidewalk in front of our old school were two massive old oak trees.  Turns out they had been planted to honor students who fought in WWI.  They were as much a part of the school as the columns were.  At the beginning of the new churches construction they were cut down, despite protests from those in town, including one beloved lady who had to be dragged away from there by the police.  I must say I admire her style.

I was recently through that neck of the woods for a cousin’s baby shower.  I saw the new church in all its glory and out in front had been planted two new trees.  Ironic and typical, at least in my mind anyways.

Ilsa

A brief history of North Louisiana

So Spain is in control of the Louisiana territory at this point and sells it back to France.  The French government is in control of Louisiana for only 20 days, before it officially sells Louisiana, to the United States on December 20^th, 1803.  The US really only wanted the Port of New Orleans, so they could continue to use the Mississippi River, and have access to the Gulf of Mexico.  The US paid 11 million for the Louisiana Purchase.  Other then South Louisiana there were few settlers in the Purchase at this time, a lot of this territory was still owned and controlled by tribal people.  The Purchase added 828,000 square miles to the United States.  Most of you know that President Thomas Jefferson, sent Lewis and Clark, to explore this new area of the US. 

On April 30^th, 1812 Louisiana became the 18^th state in the Union, well most of it anyways.  From the early days of French and Spanish exploration in Louisiana, the western border had been disputed.  The Spaniards said that the state of Texas went all the way to the Red River.  The French said their western boarder was a river deep into Texas, several hundred miles on the other side of the Red.  This is part of the reason that Fort St. Jean Baptist was in Natchitoches, in order to protect France’s western border, as well as protect settlers to that part of Louisiana. 

Spain set up a mission and presidio (fort) outside of what is modern day Robeline, Louisiana.  Robeline is about 15 or 20 miles west of Natchitoches.  The mission was officially called, “San Miguel de Linares de los Adaes.” The presidio, was called, “Nuestra SeÑora del Pilar de Los Adaes (Our Lady of the Pillar of the Adaes). The mission was there to convert the Caddo Adai tribe that lived there, and protect Spain’s Eastern border.   It was also the capital of Texas from 1729 until 1770.  Los Adaes was not supposed to buy goods from France, but it took 6 months for them to be restocked by Mexico City.  So out of necessity, they began to trade with Fort St. Jean Baptist, and they began to intermarry as well.  Remember that thing I told you about the shortage of women.  All that mattered is that they be Catholic. 

In 1819 the Adams-Onis Treaty was signed.  That brought Florida into the United States and also established the Sabine River as the western boundary of Louisiana.  In 1823 Fort Jesup was established outside of Many, Louisiana, 30 miles west of Fort St. Jean Baptist and 15 miles west of Los Adaes.  Today all three of these are state parks. I would have the joy of working at 2 of those 3, and relating its place in history to 100’s of tourists, both from this country and around the world.  

For twenty years, between 1803 when Louisiana was purchased, until 1823 when Fort Jesup was established, the land between the Red River and the Sabine River was a No Man’s land, sometimes called the Neutral Strip.  It was a wild lawless and godless area, full of murders, robbers, and anybody who was running from the law.  I think some of them never left.  They were untouchable by either the Spanish or the Americans.

Fort Jesup was established to clean the area up, provide stability and law to the new territory, and assist settlers both coming to Louisiana and on their way into Texas.  Spain could not keep enough people in Texas, so they opened it up to anyone who was Catholic and would swear allegiance to Spain.  Many of those on their way to Texas passed thru here.  One of the Jesup soldiers jobs was to help Americans, going to Texas not be robbed by bandits, still in the Neutral Strip.  Fort Jesup was also established to watch the Mexican border, and protect the United States from what they felt would be an impending conflict.  That did not happen until the 1840’s, when the fort closed and every one left to go fight in the Mexican-American War. 

The Red River at this point was still pretty much impassable.  The great log jam extended 400 miles North West of Natchitoches.  Enter Captain Henry Miller Shreve “who designed and built the first snag boat, which removed stags, a hazard for river travel” (Garvey & Widmer, PP.  84). In 1833 he commands a group of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and begins to clear the Red River.  The Great Raft was all these old rotting and uprooted trees, and eroded soil that filled the river.  So great and deep was it that at some points, trees grew on top of the floating logs.  The river was not officially completely cleared until 1874. 

Now the Caddo were still in the area at this time.  Their population had been decimated by disease, as most first peoples had no immunity to western diseases.  On July 1^st, 1835 the Caddo sold their lands, which include most of North Louisiana to the United States Government.  For his years of service, Larkin Edwards, translator and friend to the Caddo was given 640 acres of land.  This land he would sell and it would eventually become downtown Shreveport.  The Caddo moved west into Texas, which was then held by Mexico.  In 1859 the Caddo were removed to Oklahoma.  They now make their home in Binger, Oklahoma.  They are still alive there and they number over 5000 strong.  They are a proud and wonderful people struggling to hang on to their way of life and their language. 

So by the 1830’s Louisiana was now owned by the US, the Red River was clear up to Shreveport and the Caddo were gone.  Beginning in the 1840’s great numbers of settlers began to move in to north Louisiana.  Most of them being white, of Scotch-Irish and English decent and Protestant, a massive contrast to Catholic and French speaking South Louisiana.  These new settler were from the Appalachia’s, or from descendants of the Appalachia’s.  Many of them continued to carry with them a distrust of government and the idea of total self reliance.  They had moved from the mountains across into northern Georgia, into Northern Alabama, Mississippi, North Louisiana, and right on into East Texas.

My family came out of Lowndes County in Alabama, just south of Birmingham.  They travel by wagon and it takes the more than a month to get here.  Slaves had been sent two years before, to begin clearing land and building houses.  Records have our family living in Keatchie by 1858.  We have been there ever since.  Yes we owned slaves, and no there is nothing that I, or anyone else can do about that.  It was simply a fact of the times back then.

There remains a huge gap in the way North Louisiana is treated.  The state capital of Louisiana is in Baton Rouge, in South Louisiana.  When you go into South Louisiana the roads are better and the schools are better.  Why?  Because South Louisiana has all the money and all the power.  In South Louisiana the only thing that matters is the French culture.  It is engrained in everything they do.  So much so, that until the last 10 or 15 years, when the governor of Louisiana took their oath of office, it was first done in English and then in French.  When I was a child, it was not believed a governor could be elected who did not speak French or have a French back ground.  Gods help you if you were not Catholic as well.  There have only been a few protestant Governors and very few from North Louisiana. 

North Louisiana is treated like the red headed step child that is locked in the attic.  Another example, recently a woman lost her child in a car wreck on I-20.  The accident happened on one side of the road, one of the cars, crossed across the median.  It traveled over and caused the death of this young woman on the other side of the road.  Had there been cable barriers across the median, like there are in South Louisiana, the young lady might have been saved.  The mother of the young lady lobbied for several years for these cable barriers to be put in place.  I remember the news conference announcing that they would be installed, on more than 20 miles along I-20.  The reason they said that South Louisiana had them and not us, is that they had a higher population then we did, and therefore more traffic. 

There was also a movement some years ago for North Louisiana to secede from South Louisiana.  I do not however advocate that, as this would leave us landlocked and I feel much poorer.  I do know that from living in South Louisiana, many there did not consider me to be a real Louisianan, because I did not take French in High School (it was not even offered), I was not Catholic, and not of French, Cajun, or Creole decent.  Even though we all root for the Saints on Sunday.  Yes even though I am from North Louisiana I am a member of the Who Dat! Nation.  I will never root for the Cowbags.  I remember one of my friends telling me I was from “the hills.”  When I came home I didn’t realize how much hillier the land was then South Louisiana.  I kept a blown up map of North West Louisiana in my room, to show my new friends , where I was from, and that I was in fact just as much a Louisianan as they were.  I am not the only person to go thru this, I know many other people who have similar experiences. 

Louisiana remains a corrupt and polluted state.  Our long time governor Edwin Edwards was put in the federal pen for crimes he committed while in office.  I believe it safe to assume that almost every politician is crooked.  As my mother likes to say, “He’s so crooked, they going to have to screw him in the ground when he dies.”  I remember being in college and hearing that a garbage scowl from New York was not allowed to dump it’s trash in New Jersey.  It was all finally dumped here in Louisiana.  As a child, we were told not to eat out of the rivers and lakes, because they were full of toxic waste.  I know there were many politicians who took kick backs for turning my paradise into a toxic waste dump.  For many years, Louisiana has been the $20 dollar hooker for the US, allowing them to do whatever they want to us, and dumping whatever they pleased here.

I had hope as a young woman that the corruption in my state could be changed.  So I voted out the old and in the new, and had hope, but now I know now it will never change.  Although I will continue to vote, and spend time researching those who I will vote for, and I encourage you to do the same, I have lost what hope I had for Louisiana ever recovering.  We have become Pandora, once beautiful and wild, and now used up.

I think many of the politicians get into office, so they might become rich off of the kick backs and from the lobbying groups.  I think it has been this way for a long time, maybe back to the beginning of our state.  I feel it has always been their plan to strip Louisiana, of her natural resources, and leave her people with nothing, few if any of them try to protect or promote what is beautiful and unique about our land.  With each election I have renewed hope and by the end of their term, I know that nothing has been done to improve the roads, or the schools, there are no new jobs, and fierce competition for those that do exist.  If Louisiana will not invest in herself, who will?  I have watched generation after generation leave this place for somewhere better.  Like rats abandoning a sinking ship.

If people would only fight for Louisiana!  Even if I was to become Governor, I don’t believe that I could make a real difference.  I don’t have the family name, connections, money, or political clout to be able to change the system.  The people of this state are often just trying to keep food on the table for their families, living from paycheck to paycheck and trying not to end up homeless.  Those of us who are educated and smart, and are somehow still here, feel stuck at what few morsels we are thrown.  I believe the situation is hopeless, we are all doomed, and it will never get any better. 

Ilsa

This article could not have been possible without the help of :  Louisiana: the first 300 years, by Joan B. Garvey and Mary Lou Widmer, Garmer Press, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2001.

Louisiana - a short history

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It occurs to me that some of you may be dialed up to this blog, from other parts of the country or world, and don’t know much about Louisiana or why it is the why it is.  For those of you who did not have Coach Morvan in 8^th Grade Louisiana History, I would like to give you a short history lesson.  Don’t worry, you will like it. I promise!  And you will not be tested on this material.

First I want you to think of the shape of Louisiana.  It’s kind of like a boot.  Anybody who has ever been to Louisiana, to visit or live here, understands that we are a kind of crazy all unto ourselves. Our state has a beautiful culture, and I am not just talking about Cajun or Creole peoples here.  Louisiana is unique in that it was colonized, and please forgive my use of that word, from the bottom up.  Most states in the US were colonized from east to west.  That happened, but only in Northern Louisiana. 

A bit of a geography lesson first.  Louisiana is all old alluvial flood plain.  We are stuff that has been deposited from eons of the Mississippi River’s and it’s tributary’s silt deposits.  So this leaves Louisiana with a high water table. You can’t dig too deep around here without hitting water, especially in South Louisiana.  This is why people are buried in crypts like you see in New Orleans.  Those are actually above ground or very shallow vaults.  This is also why coffins are tagged in South Louisiana.  We get a hurricane and people get washed out of their graves.  Tags tell you who they are, and what cemetery they belong to.

Louisiana is still evolving.  The Mississippi had changed her course many times, always flowing to the path of least resistance.  It was not until the levee systems were put in, that we began to try to hold her in.  Flooding was part of her annual thing and why the land is so fertile.  Today this is part of the reason we are losing our coast line, by holding her in, we are holding back her silt to deposit and make new land. 

Most of Louisiana is not very high above sea level.  New Orleans is actually a few feet below.  When she flooded during Katrina, you could see what she is really supposed to be like.  We have drained and changed that land over the years, until it is what it is today, to allow more people and more commerce.  The hill I write you from is about 250ft above sea level.  Built long ago, I am sure by the deposits of the Red River.  The highest point in Louisiana is 535ft at Mt. Dristkell, not far from Ruston, in North Central Louisiana.

The tribes were of course here long before the Europeans arrived.  The first peoples learned to function in all Louisiana’s vast and different eco systems, swamp, prairie, forest, and wetlands.  The people of Watson Break were an older civilization then Poverty Point.  They go back 6000 years. They were “The earliest known evidence of settlement in the New World, predating both Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids.” (Garvey and Widmer, Pp. 4). 

Most of Louisiana’s first peoples were mound builders, they were very different from the Plains tribes were all taught about in school.  These people were hunters, gathers and farmers.  Some of the first people of Louisiana were Tunica, Opelousas, Natchez, Tchoupitoulas, Attakapas, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Acolapissa, Chitimacha, Houmas, Caddo, Natcheans, and Biloxi.  The Cherokee came in later, as they ran away from the Trail of Tears.  Each of these tribes had their own language, as different to each other as French is from English, and German is from Italian.  There is not just one single “Indian” language.  Most of these tribes, other than the Caddo, who I will talk about in A Brief History of North Louisiana, have had problems with federal recognition.  No recognition, no programs and no assistance for the tribe.  The reason is that the United States only recognizes tribes that have treaties with them.  Many of these tribes had treaties with Spain or France, and so were never recognized officially by the US.

The Spaniards were the first Europeans to see Louisiana in the early 1500’s.  They were exploring these lands that were new to them.  The Spaniards had started with the Caribbean.  Remember there are no maps at this time, no satellites, so they were kind of fumbling around in the dark.  They hit Florida and wanted to see what it was attached to.  They were also still looking for the fountain of youth. 

At one time, Spain owned most of the southern half of the US.  This include: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana and Florida.  The tribes had no roads; neither did the first settlers and explorers.  They used the river systems like highways.  Spain and France would flip flop for years in who owned Louisiana.  In fact the Spaniards owned Louisiana longer then the French did. 

Discovers and explorers came and went, killing tribal people along the way with disease, weapons and dogs.  In 1682 LaSalle lead an expedition that traveled down the Mississippi.  When they reached the Gulf they planted a cross and a column and claimed the river, and everything drained by it, for the King of France.  Little did they know how much land they had claimed.  This claim would eventually become the Louisiana Purchase and made up all or part of 13 states. 

LaSalle tried a few years later to colonize Louisiana.  He set out with 4 boats.  He missed and hit Texas.  Only one person of the compliment that include 350 settlers and the explores men, survived.  Almost as if Louisiana did not want to be colonized.  Louisiana remains a land that is difficult to tame.  She is still a difficult mistress.  It is always feast or famine around here.

Now the French already had settlements in the New World in Canada, but in the 1690’s they wanted to try again to colonize Louisiana.  This time they chose an old boy named Iberville to do it.  The establishment of a colony was necessary to make the claim stick.  They made the first colony in Biloxi, Mississippi, and used this as their base of operations.

The French were a little different masters to the tribal people of Louisiana.  They helped each other out in the beginning.  Had it not been for the tribes’ generosity, Louisiana may not exist as we know it today.  Many a French soldier turned native and went to live with the tribes.  Many took tribal wives as well. 

The first colonists were fur trappers, fortune hunters, and criminals, (Garvey and Widmer, PP. 22), some from Canada and some from France.  Louisiana ain’t changed all that much.  We are still full of criminals and fortune hunters. 

So in 1714 Louisiana finally got it’s first real settlement and town.  A feller named St. Denis, founded Fort St. Jean Baptist and the town of Natchitoches on the Red River in what is central Louisiana.  They chose this spot to trade with the Spanish in Texas, and the tribes as well.  They also could get no farther up the river, because of the great log jam.  Natchitoches is the oldest, continuously occupied (by Europeans), city in the Louisiana Purchase.  New Orleans would not be established for another 4 years, and it would be washed out by disease and flood several times, before it finally had a permanent settlement. 

It was here at Fort St. Jean Baptist on May 29^th, 1755, Jay’s ancestor, Jean Baptisite Mathieu Plaisance would marry Jeanne Marguerite Toutin.  We know a few things about this first Plaisance.  He was of course Catholic and was a native of Pau, Lescar, France.  He came from the southern region of France called Plaisance, literally meaning pleasant.  He probable came from a large family of boys.  Under French law, only the first male inherited.  By custom, the second son often went into the priesthood.  Any boys born after that, would have to find a way to make their own fortune.  Jean Baptisite was the name of the saint who protected the family.  In fact the name Jean / John has been used in this family for over 300 years.  His friends probable called him Mathieu, the French version of Mathew.  I do not know at this time if he was a settler or a soldier at the fort.

There are still Plaisance’s in the Natchitoches area, 260 years later.  Jay’s Great – Grandfather moved up here to Shreveport, around the 1900’s.  He had been a police officer in Campti, and came up here to work.  Jay swears he is Cajun although he speaks no French, and has no Cajun customs.  He just has a French last name, of which he is very proud.  In doing Jay’s genealogy, we also found that there were several tribal ladies, who were married into his family.  We believe them to have been Caddo Adai.  We also know that there were a lot of Spanish that intermarried with his French side. 

It is said Louisiana has some of the most beautiful women in the world and there is a reason for that.  In the early days there were not a lot of ladies around.  So finding a suitable wife could be difficult. If it walked like a woman and talked like a woman, and of course was Catholic, they married them, or took them as loves.  So we became this beautiful mix of French, Spanish, Native American, and African-American, with a little German and Italian thrown in for good measure, a gumbo of peoples. 

 

Jay’s BFF is a guy named Kenny.  He is Creole.  He is descended from the Creole community outside of Lake Charles.  It’s funny.  Jay and Kenny look so alike, except that Jay looks more white, and Kenny looks more mixed.  On several occasions, I have approached the wrong man, thinking he was the other one.  We know there has got to be common ancestor around there somewhere, but as yet we have not found them.

So you are going to hear these two words in Louisiana, Cajun and Creole.  Originally Creole meant anyone born in Louisiana of French or Spanish decent.  The word has changed over the years.  Creole in Louisiana has no relation to the persons or language by that name in the West Indies.  Most of the time, in Louisiana when we speak of Creole, it is in relationship to a unique ethic group with our state, and area.  These persons were and are a mix of African-American, French and/ or Spanish.  They were early “Free People of Color.”  Many of them even owned slaves.  They continue to have French traditions and customs.  They have for centuries lived in over 100 small endogamous communities, scattered threw out Louisiana, many of them still in existence. One of these major communities is outside of Natchitoches on Cane River.  Another one, is the one Kenny ‘s family is from, outside of Lake Charles.  Now make no mistake, these are not just mix persons or mulatto.  This is a culture with it’s own language, history, food ways, and customs.  They are just another part of what make’s Louisiana so wonderful!

Cajun is a term that is often applied by other persons not from Louisiana, to anyone who is from Louisiana.  That is incorrect.  Cajun is a bastardization of the word Acadian, which means “of Canada.”  Acadia was the French name of what we now know of as Nova Scotia, in Canada.  In the 1750’s the British living there, decided they wanted the French, to swear allegiance to the British crown, and denounce their Catholicism and become Protestant.  They refused.   Some left, and some were thrown out of their homes.  Many left carrying only what they had in their hands, and set sail for Louisiana.  They settled over, the next few years, into the bayou country and worked the land.  Some say so they would never again be found to be expelled by anyone, and some say they just wanted to be alone. 

From this Cajun culture we have those who speak a 17^th century version of French, with a lot of Spanish words thrown in, as well as some tribal and African words as well.  You have this wonderful music that also has a heavy German influence to it.  This tremendous food, that comes from living off the land around them, and what they could grow where they were.  Rice became a staple, because South Louisiana was too wet to grow potatoes, west of the Atchafalaya Basin.  The peppers and the heat came from the Spanish.  It was something they learned from the tribal people.  Peppers and hot food makes you sweat, and when you sweat you are cooler.  We also know now that peppers have antibiotic properties to them. 

So today you have Cajun country, which makes a triangle from Lake Charles in the South West corner of Louisiana, kind of close to Houston, over East to New Orleans and then up to about Alexandria, in the middle of the state.  This includes Lafayette where I would go to school at ULL, then USL, from 1994-1996. 

When I met my first roommate at USL, she was from so far back, and her accent so thick, it took her 3 days to convince me she was not a French national.  Some people there had a thicker French accent, come more of a Cajun, and some just plain Southern.  It was defiantly an interesting place to live.  After two years there I came back with an accent and love for hot spicy food.  You learned quick there to like spicy food, or you didn’t eat.  Even the pizza sauce was special made for the area, and was spicy.

It is hard to say exactly when you pass into Cajun country.  For me, it is when I can’t pronounce the names of the towns on the signs anymore.  My Cajun friends used to laugh at me because I could not say anything right.  They did not believe that anything north of Alexandria, was even part of Louisiana.  It was just America to them, and not part of who they were.  This creates all kinds of problems in our state government and we will talk about that in a bit.

Cajuns also have a distinct accent, which I am sure many of you can try to imitate.  They also say strange things like:

“How many channels does your TV catch?” = “How many stations do you get on your TV?”

“Go open the light.” = “Go turn on the light.”

“We going to get down and go make Groceries.” = “We are going get out of the car and go into the grocery store.”

“Che’” =a version of Cheri, a term of love and affection

“Boo” = a term of love and affection

“ça suffit” = Is that enough?

I do.  I think that’s enough for one night.

Ilsa

This article could not have been possible without the help of :  Louisiana: the first 300 years, by Joan B. Garvey and Mary Lou Widmer, Garmer Press, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2001.

 And my good buddy Ryan. Thanks Y’all!