“Mais, jamais d'la vie!”……

 

The kid and I are invited in a little over a week to spend some time with my friend from Louisiana.  She and her family will be staying in a little ocean front condominium about 1 hours drive from my home.  They are Cajuns, she, my friend, more particularly being born and raised in the Acadiana section, what I call the Bayous…

On her first day of school, at the age of 5 or 6, her dad took her and her siblings (by boat) to the small one room school.  The teacher returned them back to their parents, and said “Until they have shoes and can speak English, they cannot go to school.”  That was a while ago, but NOT that long ago… and she and her family were true and true Cajuns, speaking the French dialect.  She’s tried to keep it alive with her own young-uns, passing down as much of the history, culture and language.  Her brother is a professor of music at one of Louisiana’s universities, and has traveled all over the World introducing Louisiana’s Cajun (historic) music… I feel that Cajuns have a certain “joie de vivre” that makes them so much fun to be around.

When I dated, not that long ago, a guy that works for the oil companies, who also lived in Louisiana, I got introduced to many “Cajuns”.  I found everyone I met to be warm and “jolly”… they loved their food and drink, very much!!!  They loved sitting down and eating, drinking and talking for hours… maybe it’s the closest I can come to how I feel about the Belgians, Dutch and the countryside of France… just this wholehearted enjoyment of the senses, warm personalities… just something that a lot of my country misses out on… 

I was very sad that the man I was dating did not find any enthusiasm in Zydeco or the dance halls/bars - - - and I never got to enjoy that part of the area when I’d go to visit him… but I did get to smell the sweet air of the countryside, the Mimosa trees were in bloom and so fragrant, to see the run down old “Estate” homes, like sad, sad “Taras” or “Monticellos” which once held wonderful soirees in their time… now surrounded by fallow fields, when my “boyfriend” at the time took me on long rides on his motorcycle… we’d ride for hours and hours – on long, pitted, bumpy country roads, stopping here and there in every Whistle Stop on our way to quench the thirst from being in the sun and hot winds… I loved it… I got to see a part of my country I had never seen before… I got to meet people that seemed so friendly and yet, foreign… That ride on the motorcycle was like riding on a time machine, into the 1950s – like the setting of “A Long, Hot Summer” with Paul Newman…

And, don’t let me start with how the men seemed so “appreciative” of the women.  Maybe there was some romance seeped into me because I was visiting a boyfriend, but it just seemed like the men there jumped at the chance to flirt, to hold a door open, to just be appreciative of the female species… I loved it… I just found myself beaming from ear to ear over the small little flirtations … It seems to me, a single woman should not be single very long when living in the Lafayette area – there were plenty of men, and lots of pretty big smiles and twinkling eyes, senses of humor, and my favorite, “joie de vivre”…

Maybe I should go stay with my friend in Louisiana the next time I feel an inkling to find some romance!!!!!!