"Homecoming"
For a Texas girl raised on sweet corn, baking powder bicsuits, and sweet iced tea in a small-town atmosphere I had known all of my life, it had been quite a jolt to find myself uprooted to live in south Louisiana. The strangeness of the moss-hung, swampy landscape, the French patois in conversations behind me, and the taste of spicy, okra-laden gumbos, was almost enough to send me on a search for shock therapy.
I didn't make a good transplant. I wasn't unhappy actually; I enjoyed Terrebonne High, friends I made and church activities, but there was a great deal that I yearned for. I missed the rolling Texas hills, my grandmother's flower garden, the kids I see-sawed with at age five and cheered on at sports events later, and everything that meant home. I could hardly wait until I graduated from high school to go back to my home state. But, as life's lessons often show, sometimes we rush off in all directions, not knowing how memorable, how uniquely special those times of our youth were.
Several years ago (before Katrina)I traveled across country on Amtrak's Sunset Limited. The tracks carried me across state lines and into Louisiana, past ripe rice fields, cutting machines scooping up sugar cane and the swamplands of the Atchafalya River Basin. It even dashed through the small town of Schriever where I had lived, a place I hadn't seen in over 45 years. From somewhere deep inside me excitement bubbled up. I pressed my face against the wide club car window and held back joyful tears.
New Orleans offered wonderful sights, favorable scents of sugar-coated beignets and the clarinet of a Pete Fountain concert, not to mention the impromptu jazz sessions around Jackson Square. The artists at that same location offered priceless images of scenes from the past.
But this had not been my home through those teenage years. Our tour carried us into that area, the heart of Acadiana or Cajun Country. Huge oaks dressed in moss shawls filled front yards and city parks. Slow lazy bayous flowed through small towns, in front of houses built at the waters edge, and boats at their docks with engines sitting in the water. Tiny, colorfully painted shotgun houses dotted the streets. Draw bridges still crossed the waterways, opening to allow shrimp boats to head down the Intercoastal Canal to the Gulf of Mexico. French names graced businesses, streets, billboards and newspapers, bringing back names of classmates--Bourgeous, Arceneaux, Haydel, Devereaux--to name a few.
But it was the night in Lafayette that brought me home. Over a meal of fried fish (including alligator) with red beans and rice, hot home-baked French bread, and Jack Daniels Bourbon sauce poured over bread pudding, the sounds of those sweetly accented Cajun voices surrounded me. The strains of accordians and fiddles playing, "Jole Blon," "Corina," and generations-old Cajun tunes floated around the room.
The familiar, so long forgotten, brought me comfort. I realized on that night how fortunate I was to have been emerced in this extraordinary culture, to have made wonderful friends who loved me even though I talked "funny," and to have learned so much from these hardworking, fun-loving people who have always been more in tune with the world of nature that surrounded them than the rest of us.
While preparing to board a bus to the station for my return journey, a smiling, elderly black hotel bellhop, sent me off with a light heart. "Come se vaux," he chirped.
And I returned the same, dredging up the proper accent from the memory of my youth, "Come se vaux, cher."
Good morning, dear, how are you, have a good day, dear . . .the phrase can mean any of these. To me it said, "Welcome, you've come back home."
***
Next year I will once again return. This time I will drive into that little town, Schriever, where I will be a real participant in the giggles and gossip of a group of my female classmates calling themselves "The Steel Magnolias." I will once again visit Terrebonne High, only this time at a 50th year reunion. I still have lessons to learn from those who made me one of them, no matter how much I protested.
And one of them will surely say to me, "Come se vaux, Cher."
I didn't make a good transplant. I wasn't unhappy actually; I enjoyed Terrebonne High, friends I made and church activities, but there was a great deal that I yearned for. I missed the rolling Texas hills, my grandmother's flower garden, the kids I see-sawed with at age five and cheered on at sports events later, and everything that meant home. I could hardly wait until I graduated from high school to go back to my home state. But, as life's lessons often show, sometimes we rush off in all directions, not knowing how memorable, how uniquely special those times of our youth were.
Several years ago (before Katrina)I traveled across country on Amtrak's Sunset Limited. The tracks carried me across state lines and into Louisiana, past ripe rice fields, cutting machines scooping up sugar cane and the swamplands of the Atchafalya River Basin. It even dashed through the small town of Schriever where I had lived, a place I hadn't seen in over 45 years. From somewhere deep inside me excitement bubbled up. I pressed my face against the wide club car window and held back joyful tears.
New Orleans offered wonderful sights, favorable scents of sugar-coated beignets and the clarinet of a Pete Fountain concert, not to mention the impromptu jazz sessions around Jackson Square. The artists at that same location offered priceless images of scenes from the past.
But this had not been my home through those teenage years. Our tour carried us into that area, the heart of Acadiana or Cajun Country. Huge oaks dressed in moss shawls filled front yards and city parks. Slow lazy bayous flowed through small towns, in front of houses built at the waters edge, and boats at their docks with engines sitting in the water. Tiny, colorfully painted shotgun houses dotted the streets. Draw bridges still crossed the waterways, opening to allow shrimp boats to head down the Intercoastal Canal to the Gulf of Mexico. French names graced businesses, streets, billboards and newspapers, bringing back names of classmates--Bourgeous, Arceneaux, Haydel, Devereaux--to name a few.
But it was the night in Lafayette that brought me home. Over a meal of fried fish (including alligator) with red beans and rice, hot home-baked French bread, and Jack Daniels Bourbon sauce poured over bread pudding, the sounds of those sweetly accented Cajun voices surrounded me. The strains of accordians and fiddles playing, "Jole Blon," "Corina," and generations-old Cajun tunes floated around the room.
The familiar, so long forgotten, brought me comfort. I realized on that night how fortunate I was to have been emerced in this extraordinary culture, to have made wonderful friends who loved me even though I talked "funny," and to have learned so much from these hardworking, fun-loving people who have always been more in tune with the world of nature that surrounded them than the rest of us.
While preparing to board a bus to the station for my return journey, a smiling, elderly black hotel bellhop, sent me off with a light heart. "Come se vaux," he chirped.
And I returned the same, dredging up the proper accent from the memory of my youth, "Come se vaux, cher."
Good morning, dear, how are you, have a good day, dear . . .the phrase can mean any of these. To me it said, "Welcome, you've come back home."
***
Next year I will once again return. This time I will drive into that little town, Schriever, where I will be a real participant in the giggles and gossip of a group of my female classmates calling themselves "The Steel Magnolias." I will once again visit Terrebonne High, only this time at a 50th year reunion. I still have lessons to learn from those who made me one of them, no matter how much I protested.
And one of them will surely say to me, "Come se vaux, Cher."
posted by Barb | 10:23 PM
1 Comments:
KC,as you can see I am not too good at reading my comments. But one of the problems is discussed in my blog for 3/2--AOL!!!!!!
My hometown was spared, as was LaFayette as they are southwest of New Orleans and the storm seemed to go east when it hit land.
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