Morgan City, Louisiana: Swamp Bells

Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

The privately-owned Brownell Memorial Park is packaged in a small box, but inside are multiple micro-adventures.

Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

First, there were the devil's horses.
Then there were the spooky bleating swamp lambs.


And then  ....

Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

... and then as I walked on the path between the bodies of water, the cypress knees, the strong trees draped with moss, the sounds of the birds and the 'lambs,' I heard:

Claire Brownell founded this park as a testament of her love for the area and a desire to share its beauty with visitors. She had the carillon bells cast in Holland and brought here.

Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

Ms. Brownell's gift, which she shared with so many, reminds me of the couple in Rustavi who had fled their homeland in Abkhazia.  In the midst of stark cement towers in New Rustavi, they created a tiny paradise and built a tiny church, both open to any who entered.

Abkhazian-Georgian woman on far right created miniature garden with her husband, Rustavi, Georgia (Caucasus)

It reminds me of something a friend told me years ago - that the flowers that Ladybird Johnson had planted on the Texas highway meridians brought joy to thousands of drivers when they were in bloom, and how can you measure the pleasure we receive by looking upon natural beauty? -  does not an endeavor like hers, like Claire Brownell's, like the Abkhazian couple's - have just as much merit as other good works?   

Ladybird Johnson amid bluebonnets. From 100 Ingredients.

 

Morgan City, Louisiana: The Brownell Memorial Witch Project

Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

I knew when I turned into the Brownell Memorial Park that I'd see a tall white tower, but I experienced much more.

Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

First came the devil's horses. Having survived the assault of the devil's pains-in-the-ass only a couple of weeks before, all I could do was laugh at the quantity of all these creepy, yet oddly-attractive, over-large insects.

Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

While I laughed, I continued walking, picking my way carefully through the black grasshoppers.

Note: I never mentioned the crunch-crunch I experienced at Sabine, did I, as I walked over all the little dried crab claws, the orts of birds' daily feasts?















So I was laughing while avoiding the black grasshoppers, alone on the path, lined on both sides by cypress knees and water and tall trees with Spanish moss. I heard birds. It was almost idyllic.

Then came the bleating of the lambs. One bleated, then several answered. Another bleated, and several answered.

It was all very Blair Witch Project-y, with me playing the role of an unnerved and expendable Star Trek extra, about to be taken out by a creature from the depths. Because lambs - why and where are they? Sacrifices tied to a stake, awaiting dusk and the approaching monster?

In New Mexico, all I had to be paranoid about were bears and mountain lions. In Louisiana, who knows what lurks in the swamps. 

The next day, I learned what made the eerie sounds:

Louisiana, you're such a jokester.

And Now for a Word From Dave

Yesterday, it was the devil's horses. Tomorrow it will be eerie bleatings from the swamp. In the meantime:

"South Louisiana is a giant sponge. That's why we keep in constant motion. If you stand still, you'll either sink or be eaten alive by giant insects." 

Dave Robicheaux, Pegasus Descending, by James Lee Burke

Morgan City, Louisiana: The Devil's Horse

Source: What's that bug?

The devil's horse ... or lubbers .... or handsome black grasshoppers. Yeah, I know that sounds kind of weird for a grasshopper to be handsome, but once I got past the heebeejeebees, I was able to see it.

Devil's horses, Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

I met them .... LOTS OF THEM ... on a visit to Brownell Memorial Park outside Morgan City.

Whereas New Mexico regularly surprised me with hidden, jaw-dropping panoramas, Louisiana regularly surprises me with sudden assaults by bizarre, 1950's-esque-creature-flick creepy-crawlies.

These lubbers are big. Fortunately, they're pretty polite. They're slow and don't fly at you. While they don't necessarily move out of your way, they don't move in your way, either.

But holy gee, there were a lot of them at the park. It was so crazy, all I could do was laugh. I mean, really, Louisiana, seriously? I don't want to know what you're going to send my way next.

Devil's horses, Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

I'm guessing rutting season for devil's horses.

Wikipedia illustrates a difference between the artistic sensibilities of South Louisiana and Mississippi (of which northern Louisiana is considered a bedroom community). In South Louisiana, these insects go by the name devil's horse, the devil, or graveyard grasshoppers. In sober Mississippi, they are "giant locusts."

I saw a snake, too. The docent told me that some years back, after it rained and rained and rained, snake refugees covered the place. There were so many snakes at the park that it closed for awhile.

Snake, Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

Let me tell you, the trail at Brownell Memorial Park is very short. But I can't think of a time when I experienced so many visual and auditory surprises in such a small distance - until I drove down the very short Grand Bayou Street in Bayou Corne only an hour later. 

More to come.
 

  

Lafayette: On the Porch with Chubby Carrier

Chubby Carrier, jam on the porch, Vermilionville, Lafayette, Louisiana

One of the things I love about South Louisiana is the symbiotic relationship between local musicians and the communities within Cajun/Creole Land. The communities hire and showcase the local musicians and the local musicians donate their artistry at times. When I say communities, I mean both the organizations and the individuals within.

Video of Chubby Carrier and Zydeco Joe playing - dancers on the porch toward the end.

Now, I'm sure there are complexities to the relationships, as there are with all relationships, but to this long-term visitor, they look solid.

Chubby Carrier and Zydeco Joe, jam on the porch, Vermilionville, Lafayette, Louisiana

At the 2014 Creole Heritage Day in Vermilionville, Chubby Carrier and company did a jam on the porch of one of the historic houses.

Chubby Carrier and Zydeco Joe, jam on the porch, Vermilionville, Lafayette, Louisiana

In the photo above, note the inter-generational aspect. Folks here are very aware of the need to bring up the young'ns' in the Cajun/Creole and Zydeco music. I wish girls were more involved, but I suspect their participation is growing. 

You don't see him here, but the man wearing a rastacap has a little boy, maybe six years old, and he already plays onstage with a rubboard. (And that little boy has a big stage presence.)

Elephant Butte State Park, New Mexico: A Flash Back

Elephant Butte State Park, New Mexico

Elephant Butte State Park isn't far from the New Mexico town, Truth or Consequences.

Elephant Butte has suffered from the recent drought. Hopefully, the big rains in 2013 and rains in this year's monsoon season will go a ways to restore its traditional depths. Mm, doesn't look as good as one might have hoped.

Elephant Butte State Park, New Mexico

 On a pass-through in May 2013, I saw a fair number of quail. Can you find them in the photo above?

Outside Elephant Butte State Park, New Mexico

In 2010, my mother and I passed by Elephant Butte on a road trip.

Elephant Butte State Park, New Mexico. 2010.

This trip included a side jag over to the Spaceport. To get to the Spaceport, we dead-ended at the ghosty town of Engle, New Mexico, and we hung a right through cattle land.

Elephant Butte State Park, New Mexico. 2010.

 
In fact, we didn't even know we were headed to the Spaceport. We turned right on a whim rather than backtrack. Over at City of Dust recently, the author wrote about Engle.

Between Elephant Butte State Park, New Mexico, and Spaceport America. 2010.

Entrance to Spaceport America, New Mexico, 2010.

Lafayette Neighborhoods: Twin Oaks ~ Oakview

As I mentioned here, Lafayette has dozens of small neighborhoods stashed behind the main arterials. They are gorgeous.

This past spring, I was lucky enough to be invited to a King Cake party in one such neighborhood, which includes Twin Oaks, Oakview, and Green Oaks.

I may have gasped when I saw this:

Lafayette, Louisiana

And how can you not be charmed by this:

Lafayette, Louisiana

There's a large website that attracts people who are planning a move to Lafayette. Visitors invariably ask which areas in Lafayette they should consider, and somebody always mentions River Ranch. Now, River Ranch has its place in the scheme of things, but I'm amazed at how many respondents are silent on the grace and beauty of the old, established neighborhoods.

I can only shake my head in wonder.

Eunice, Louisiana: Crawfish Etoufee Cook-Off

Eunice Crawfish Etoufee Cook-Off, March 2014. 

March brings the Eunice Crawfish Etoufee Cook-Off. The 2014 event was the 29th Annual, sha.

Eunice Crawfish Etoufee Cook-Off, March 2014. 

It's extraordinary to smell the fragrances of  muddy bayou, spicy crawfish boil, and cinnamon buns all at once. I couldn't decide if I loved it or felt repelled by it. Attempts to come to a conclusion required many careful inhalations, to no avail. 

Eunice Crawfish Etoufee Cook-Off, March 2014. 

The cultural fusion depicted below is pretty astounding in its complexity, even though it may appear kitschy on the surface. Everything means something: the colors, the courir de Mardi Gras mask and hat, the more urban Mardi Gras crown, the use of the crawfish as a totem; the beads, the gold coin, the fishing basket.  At least some features date back more than a thousand years. 

Eunice Crawfish Etoufee Cook-Off, March 2014. 

There was a woman at the festival selling handmade dolls for the Wishing Doll Project.

Eunice Crawfish Etoufee Cook-Off, March 2014. 

The Wishing Doll Project sells the handmade dolls to support enhancements in high poverty, high performance schools. The current drive is for an outdoor reading garden at Eunice's East Elementary School.

Do you think I loved this t-shirt? It really made me laugh.

Eunice Crawfish Etoufee Cook-Off, March 2014. 

The KBON radio guy kindly posed for me so I could get a good pic of it.

Of course, there is no southern Louisiana festival without music and dancing.

Eunice Crawfish Etoufee Cook-Off, March 2014. 

And here's a slide show:

#30

Rootless Review: Looking Back

2013: July 14 in New Mexico: Trains and rain

Leaving Raton, New Mexico. July 2014.

I wrote about my drive back home to Alamogordo from Raton.

What is it about trains and song?


2012: July 13 in Istanbul: Bandana girl and leeches at the Spice Market

 The highlights of the Spice Market in Istanbul were the bandana-girl thief and the jar of leeches.

Leeches at the Spice Market, Istanbul, Turkey. July 2012.

2011: July 14 - Caucasus Georgia

Three years ago today, I was getting ready to leave the U.S. for Caucasus Georgia.

Racha, Caucasus Georgia

The day before a year-long adventure.

I've been very lucky.  

Lafayette: 2nd Saturday Artwalk: June 2014: The Trash

Gosh darn it, the Astra Modern Market always surprises me with some artsy trifle that catches my fancy on the 2nd Saturday Artwalk. 

To wit: The Trash.

Astra Modern Market, Lafayette, Louisiana.

Louisiana: A Government on Posts

Cameron Parish, Louisiana

It is a peculiar sight to see bricks and mortar government buildings atop posts.

Cameron, Louisiana

Somebody got this sparsely-populated area a lotta money to construct these government buildings.

Cameron, Louisiana

The population of the all Cameron Parish is less than 7000 people. Fewer than 2500 households. Looks like 1600 or so people under the age of 18.

Cameron, Louisiana

Not all the buildings are new.

Cameron, Louisiana

I love the ubiquitous Louisiana port-a-potty, this one owned by the sheriff's department. 

Cameron, Louisiana

 Cameron gets hammered regularly by hurricanes.

In 1957, Hurricane Audrey killed 300 residents of the town of Cameron.

In 2005, Hurricane Rita blew through.

And in 2008, it was Hurricane Ike that wreaked destruction.

About the money

An excerpt from a 2012 news report:

Horn says the parish is still working on a new $12.6 million jail. She says a $5.5 million courthouse annex including Police Jury administrative offices should be completed in August. Horn says the courthouse basement had to be flood-proofed, the outside repaired and windows replaced, among other work.

From a congressman's website in 2011: 

Congressman Charles W. Boustany, Jr., M.D., (R-South Louisiana) released the following statement today after the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced a grant totaling $4.7 million was awarded to Cameron Parish to replace contents damaged throughout its library system during Hurricane Rita ...

A coastal protection project from 2013: 

The restoration project mines sand from federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico and transports it onto the Cameron Parish shoreline, restoring a beach that was eroded to the point of threatening the only east-west highway in the parish and one of the main routes for evacuations, State Highway 82/27. ... The $45.8 million project is being paid for entirely with state funds set aside for shoreline restoration

The new high school, from a 2010 New York Times article   

  .... new $28 million building with two gyms and three elevators.


Coastal restoration - I get that. A major investment in Louisiana's future, benefits reaped by all. But these big new government buildings for a parish with so few inhabitants? I don't know. I'd like to understand the reasoning along two lines: 

• Decisions on how to allocate finite financial resources for the greatest good; and 
• Decision to rebuild in a location that regularly gets decimated by forces majeures.

Louisiana: Sabine Wildlife Refuge

Wetland Walk, Sabine Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana

Do you know that when you're walking on a trail where there is tall grass between you and the water channel, so you can't see the water, that when you hear a sound like a glub-into-water right next to you, and it makes you jump a little bit, that you don't know if it's an alligator ker-plopping into the water from the bank, or a boat drifting by with fishermen, with water slapping against its side?

Wetland Walk, Sabine Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana

Louisiana's so flat that you have to build a rise.

Wetland Walk, Sabine Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana

 Once you walk up that long, long plank to the raised deck, you feel a cool, restorative breeze. Then, when you walk back down the plank, you descend into the heavy, heated air of sea level (or, in the case of Louisiana, perhaps below sea level - sad laugh).

Wetland Walk, Sabine Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana

Lafayette: The Mardi Gras Tree

Mardi Gras tree, Johnston Street, Lafayette, Louisiana

The parade route for most of Lafayette's Mardi Gras parades is long.

Mardi Gras tree, Johnston Street, Lafayette, Louisiana

So there are actually a number of  "Mardi Gras trees"  along the way. 

Mardi Gras tree, Johnston Street, Lafayette, Louisiana

One of them is on Johnston Street between St. Mary's and Cajundome. 

Mardi Gras tree, Johnston Street, Lafayette, Louisiana

Year 'round, the beads remain on the tree, with a new accumulation at each Mardi Gras.

Mardi Gras tree, Johnston Street, Lafayette, Louisiana

Mardi Gras trees. They don't grow just anywhere.

Rootless: On Getting a Puppy

It's not really a puppy, but kind of like a puppy

No, I haven't got a real puppy. But I have aquired something like a puppy. I've got to learn its ways, train it, and be trained by it.

I've got to keep track of it, so it doesn't get lost or stolen. I can handle it playfully, but not roughly.


It's not really a phone, but it's called a phone

It's a smart phone, my first. Only to call it a smartphone is a misnomer. It is a mini computer with a phone application.

This is not just semantics. How I view my new puppy affects how I socialize it with the world.

With my soon-to-be-old "dumbphone" - let's say my pet "turtle" - I could:

• Make and receive phone calls;
• Laboriously write texts and check email; and
• Make limited forays onto the internet. 

I had little concern about privacy boundaries or theft or malware because the dumbphone itself was like a turtle. A built-in shell for protection, by dint of its limited features, and thus easily monitored or caught if it meandered off, too humble to attract unwanted attention from strangers.

It's an entirely different story with my mini-computer.


Why did I get this puppy?

Being rootless, why would I want to be tied down with a puppy? Sheesh, now I've got to worry about dropping the damn thing or the glass will crack. It's cute and sweet and thereby attractive to strangers who might like to adopt it for themselves, so I've got to always have my radar on to make sure I know where it is. And it requires so much training - for the little one and me - to become true pals.

There are several reasons why I went this route: 

1. My turtle phone was on its last legs - that reliable, albeit limited, $30 phone I've had for years, with the cute little teeth marks on the top left-hand corner.  
2. My laptop is getting on in years and it could go belly up at any time, and I need a sophisticated, on-the-spot back-up to turn to for my work. 
3. I'll be headed out of the country again soon and I want an unlocked mini-computer that can run by wifi or a data plan. 

An invisible fence

When I bought my little puppy, I was still thinking of it as a phone. A phone with a lot of very cool enhancements. Consequently, I was startled by the decisions I had to make right away. Such as:

• What personal bits about myself - my data exhaust - did I want to have on this device? 
• What apps did I want to download - and what information was I willing to share in order to get these apps? 
• How could I enjoy all the benefits of a mini-computer without leaving a trail of personal me everywhere I went? 
• How many ads - if any - can I tolerate in exchange for a "free" app? 
• What data am I willing to lose if my mini-computer falls into the hands of strangers? 
• Like a puppy, I'm not willing to let my little device sit in a hot car for hours while I'm off canoeing or swimming or doing something else that puts it at risk. So do I change my habits and just leave it at home for such activities? 

Some decisions I've made (and it might make sense here to note that I've bought an Android device): 

1. Thank God, I have more than one email address (hehehe), so I chose one of my little-used accounts to be the email account on my device. I can put some distance between this account and me-central.
2. Do I really need to download a free game that requires access to my contact list? Hell, no! No games for you, little puppy! 
3. Do I need to download Kindle to my mini-computer? No, I've got a kindle e-reader, and I don't want to connect my Amazon account to my device. If I want to read, that's what my e-reader is for. Or an actual book. 
4. Do I want to stay signed in to my Skype account on my device? No; I've only got it on there as a back-up, and I don't ever want to make another mistake call to a work-related client.Whoops. (The lil' puppy is so eager to please, it tries to anticipate what you want by going to fetch somebody else's paper. Bad boy.) 

I'm trying to find the right balance between security and maximum fun + utility.

Again, it's all about safe sex.


What'd I buy? 

Short answer: Moto G 4LTE.

Longer answer: It was all about: 

• Excellent reviews;
• Budget; 
• Long battery life; 
• Unlocked and GSM for international use; and
• Android operating system. 

  

Louisiana: A Woman Without Her Own Name

In The Louisiana Story, the mother is played by E. Bienvenu, aka Mrs. E. Bienvenu.

I was reminded of this when I saw the tombstone at a cemetery outside Abbeville, on Highway 82.

Cemetery outside Abbeville, Louisiana. Highway 82.

Louisiana: Watch Out for the Stobor

At the end of the Blue Goose Trail, Sabine Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana

In Robert Heinlein's sci-fi classic, Tunnel in the Sky, the professor warns the survival-class students: Watch out for the stobor.

The students assumed the terrible stobor were large, fierce beasts such as lions or dragons. So the students chose their survival gear with these threats in mind. Little did the students know that the stobor were actually .... well, I don't want to ruin it for you.

I had feral pigs and alligators in mind when I packed gear for my tiny foray to the Sabine Wildlife Refuge south of Hackberry, Louisiana. I had a long stick and I had my knife.

But neither pigs nor alligators were the stobor. .... the stobor were the dratted flies that plagued my face, hat, and neck! Thank God I brought my bandana! And now I know to invest in more earplugs because all I thought about as I swatted and swore like a crazed woman was that my ears were exposed.