Louisiana: "Kaw, that's a big one!"

 

     "Kaw, that’s a big one!” said 59-year-old Danny “Eagle” Edgar.


    “That’s a man,” agreed 56-year-old Clay Switzer.


    “Boy, he really is big,” hissed Harry “Hop” Dugas, who at 47 is the baby of the group.


    “It’s got eyes like an alligator,” murmured Edgar in wonderment. 

Tense excitement bled through the three men’s Cajun accents. What could have had them, with nearly 150 combined years of life in the woods and on the water, so excited? Were they perched on a rickety bamboo machan, hunting a man-eating tiger? Were they perched in the flying bridge of an offshore boat, gawking at the massive bulk of a great white shark? 

Neither.

 Source: Louisiana Sportsman

 

Bullfrogs, Acadian Heritage Memorial, St. Martinville, Louisiana.

A friend and I went to the Acadian Memorial Heritage Festival in St. Martinville today.

Some kick-ass music, good food, gorgeous day along the river, and, and, and ..... holy swamp gas! Gigantic bullfrogs!

Bullfrogs, Acadian Heritage Memorial, St. Martinville, Louisiana.

Who knew frogs got so big?!

Bullfrogs, Acadian Heritage Memorial, St. Martinville, Louisiana.

 
I was so fascinated by these creatures, I had to go back a second time during the course of the festival, just to gawk some more.

Bullfrogs, Acadian Heritage Memorial, St. Martinville, Louisiana.

I understand about the frog legs for eating, but what happens to the rest of the bullfrog's body? Returned to the water for recycling? Used as bait for fishing? Given the popularity of frog legs in southern Louisiana, we're talking about a lot of skin and guts here.

Bullfrogs, Acadian Heritage Memorial, St. Martinville, Louisiana.

Interesting articles about bullfrogs and frog hunting: 

• Of Frogs and Men, Louisiana Sportsman (excerpted at the top of this post) 
• Real Cajun Cooking: Cajun-Fried Bullfrog Legs
• Cleaning a Bullfrog/Skinning a Bullfrog

Bullfrogs, Acadian Heritage Memorial, St. Martinville, Louisiana.

 My mother and a brother are coming to visit next week. Maybe we'll try some frog legs.

Bullfrogs, Acadian Heritage Memorial, St. Martinville, Louisiana.

Louisiana: The Flags

The other day I was standing in the check-out line at a big-box store in Lafayette.

On the cornice at the front of the store, facing into the store, were four flags, in this order (left to right):

Credit: Sears

Yes, so I got that the first flag was the American flag and the fourth flag was the University of Louisiana flag. And I knew one of the middle flags was the state flag, but which one? And what was the remaining flag? The city of Lafayette's flag? Cajun flag? Parish (county) flag?

So seeing as how there were other people around me, I asked. The first woman said she didn't know because she'd only lived in Louisiana for two days. The cashier hadn't a clue. Among three other employees, one said she was pretty sure the pelican flag was the state flag and the one with the fleur-de-lis was the Acadiana flag.

I checked it out later online and she was right.

At first I thought, harumph, maybe this general flag ignorance is part of the allegedly dismal state of Louisiana education. But then I had to turn the tables back on myself for two reasons:

• Isn't there a protocol that determines the order in which a facility displays flags? In other words, the national flag, then state, then ... So shouldn't I have known this protocol?
• Also, isn't it incumbent upon me to research this stuff (something as basic as what the state flag looks like) before coming to live somewhere? 

Some notes:

The Louisiana graphic above is from the Secretary of State of Louisiana page, and it is the official flag standard. In the store, the flag was not official as evidenced by the irritatingly jarring text graphic: Union, Justice & Confidence. Yechh, that comma and ampersand - visually busy mess!

The Acadiana flag depicted above is the "official" Acadiana flag. Since Acadiana is neither an organization nor a political subdivision, I wondered who made it "official." Ah, the Louisiana state legislature did.



I like the New Mexico state flag for the simplicity of its design and for the powerful, multi-useful symbology of the zia. Both qualities make it easy to brand the state, and quite a few New Mexicans have tattoos of the zia symbol.









I've noticed in Louisiana that the fleur-de-lis serves a similar purpose as the zia - displaying a connection to a place, or better explained perhaps, to the spirit of a place.

Louisiana: The Three States

At the first Louisiana visitor center I hit after crossing over from Mississippi, the greeter mentioned that northern Louisiana was different from other parts of Louisiana, that it was more Mississippi-like than the southern half of the state.

More recently, "Thibodeaux," a student of history, explained to me that there are three states within Louisiana: 

• New Orleans, with its Catholic, French-from-France, Spanish, Caribbean-neé-Africa-and-France, and German roots; 
• North Louisiana, which was not part of the Louisiana Purchase (a delicious, salacious story in itself), predominantly Protestant, and its development more like the typical westward colonization from "Americans" as in Mississippi; and 
• South Louisiana, or Acadiana, with its strong French-from Nova Scotia-expelled to Louisiana culture.

Well, then there's Baton Rouge, added Thibodeaux, which has only one culture- make that "cult" - that of LSU and its high priests of the Church of Football.

More on the three states of Louisiana in the future, I'm sure.