Festival
Acadiens et Creole: The People pt 2
Lafayette,
Louisiana
Sunday, October 14, 2012
"I've lived here all my life and never been to one of these festivals," says the lean black man with a smile. "This is really good. When I went to school here at the University of Louisiana Lafayette, one of my teachers, Miss Joe, taught us a little about all these dances - some Cajun, some zydeco and some two steps and good lord didn't I see her out here dancing a few minutes ago."
"Where you from?"
"I live down by St.
Martinsville, a place called Cypress Island, my mother takes care of Dr.
Ralph Bourgeois, who was our family doctor for about 60 years. She's
about 85 years old right now."
"You ever hear of Catfish Island?" he asks. "That's a big pond where
they raise a lot of the catfish that people eat around here."
One
minute you're standing around watching what's going on and the next
you're talking to the man, woman or couple next to you like you were
next-door neighbors. That's why this part of the country draws me like a
magnet. I've been talking to Ken, who tells me he's 57 years old and is
on his way to search for Ms. Joe. "I I remember how to do some of those
dances," he says with a smile, "and I want to try some with her."
There's Doug Borel, Louisiana born and raised, now living in East Texas.
"This is Derek Landry, he's a DJ at KBON. He has a show every Saturday
morning." Doug knows I write about Louisiana and is helping me make
another connection.
Starved, I find a vendor selling shrimp jambalaya, "What do people put on this for dressing?" I ask. "Try some
of this," he says, and ladles a generous spoonful of chicken étouffée
onto the heap. "Come back tomorrow for more," he says with a smile.
I
pull up a chair at a nearby picnic table. Soon I'm joined by two
couples and, you guessed it, spend the next half hour talking. Rather
than dance, they had gone to one of the smaller stages and heard Balfa
Toujours and T.K. Hulin and his band, Smoke, featuring Charlene Howard, Steve
Adams and Jamie Hulin. T.K.Hulin, at 69, is one of the all time Swamp
Pop singers in Louisiana. I'm crushed. Swamp Pop is the best belly
rubbin' music to come from Louisiana. I would have loved to hear it sung by one of it’s pioneers.
Richard Conques, "conquest without the T", he says, born in Lafayette, now lives in Alexandria with his pretty wife, the sister of the other couple who've joined me at the table.
"You're from Boston?" they exclaim,
standing up to smooth out their Kelly green Doyle's of Boston T shirts. They
recently spent a one-week vacation in Beantown. They packed it in - went to
Hanover Street, walked the Freedom Trail, took a famous Duck Boat Tour, and a “Whale
Watch” where they were thrilled to see a mamma humpback and two
of her calves. Small world. Here we are trading stories about Boston in
Lafayette.
"You should come down for the Mercredi Dances in Carencro in the spring and fall," says Richard, recently retired. I understand French but Cajun French is a dialect all its own. I ask him twice to repeat the French word for Wednesday until i understand it.
"We drive 100 miles down from Alexandria every Wednesday to listen and dance," they say, "but for this festival, we stay overnight. Were going to the French mass tomorrow morning at 9:30 AM which is right here in the park and will be here for the rest of the day."
I guess you could say that music is pretty close to being a universal religion in southwest Louisiana.
Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
I love it.
Posted by: Rebecca Wilson | November 09, 2012 at 05:01 PM