Louisiana 2006

Louisiana

November 2006

Louisiana, Cajun Country where we are all one big community. The people are great, the food is outstanding, and Mardi Gras would have to be the greatest blowout. I just love Louisiana!

Sundays are great, because you got good food, and you get to watch football. I mean what could possibly be better than eating crawfish or catfish while watching the Saints? Red beans and rice are good too, but they are better on Mondays if you ask me. Sometimes I wonder how down here in Cajun country you can burn food and everyone says, “It’s fine,” and call it, “blackened.” Louisiana, a great place, and part of the reason to me would have to be the food.

In Louisiana the people help make it great. After hurricane Katrina every person came together in order to help one another. In Louisiana your family, your friends, the lady at the Albertsons that you have seen forever, these are the people that make Louisiana the place it has become. When I walk down the streets I am over come with joy when I see some one and I can put a smile on their face. Call me naïve but underneath all the crime there lies a beautiful community.

Mardi Gras, I like to call it the biggest blowout in all of Louisiana. My favorite part of Mardi Gras would be when I catch doubloons. Beads are cool too, but I collect doubloons. Mardi Gras means, “Fat Tuesday.” This tradition turns out to be great fun.

Louisiana is the place where you and I are from. If I were to make a museum of Louisiana I would have the food, a picture of the Saints and LSU, information about the people, some old and new. And last but most certainly not least, umbrellas, beads, doubloons and anything else about Mardi Gras. My home, my community, my Louisiana.

I thought that now would be a good time to share Madison’s paper on Louisiana, since Mardi Gras is just around the corner. I believe she wrote this in her 8^th grade year. Madison truly did love Louisiana and not just because she had to write a paper about it. It’s a special place in many ways.

Sometimes life just seems to move at a slower pace in Louisiana. Maybe it’s because the people are always ready to stop what they are doing to have a party. Madison always enjoyed when we had parties. It meant good food and plenty of it; spending time with people we didn’t see everyday and usually, swimming.

I don’t know that Madison ever watched more than a few minutes of a Saints game but if we had friends over, like I said before there would be plenty good food. Madison & Derric & Dallas liked going to the parades, especially when they were little. They can be quite beautiful and the kids enjoyed catching all the trinkets. For the most part Madison would sit in her wheele chair in the back so that she could see the floats better and not get hit by beads flying at her. People often threw lots of stuff to her but she couldn’t see well enough to catch anything. So in order not to get hit in the face she stayed in the back and would often direct Dallas to the things she missed on the ground. They were like a tag team.

Madison also like it very much when we went places and people knew her because we had visited that certain place since she was a baby. I know that can happen anywhere but it made her feel special. I know my kids felt special when ever we went to the French Quarter Festival. They would not want to go but once we got there they had fun. My girls loved getting macaroni & cheese from room service; and swimming in the hotel pool was high on the list too. They liked hanging out in Mawmaw & Pawpaw’s room with our family & friends visiting and people watching on the balcony. One time Pawpaw got a musician friend, Leroy, to come up to the room and play Happy Birthday to her on his trumpet. I know that made her feel quite special. Her birthday is usually near the festival.

Madison, Derric & Dallas’ absolute favorite thing about the festival was to go to the French Market to spend their money. The last FQF we went to Madison bought herself an orange t-shirt that said, “Property of Bourbon Street Jail.” She wore that with orange pants to a Sadie Hawkins dance and got her date to dress like a policeman…she was his prisoner. There’s that wicked sense of humor.

We liked playing tourist in New Orleans and I think our, off the beaten path, times there are very special. We have many good memories from our years in Louisiana. I think that slower Louisiana pace suited Madison just fine, that was her pace. We discovered many interesting things in the French Quarter and other parts of Louisiana by moseying instead of running.