36, Day 55 (Written Saturday February 4)
Those who know me know of my passion, or as a friend recently suggested, obsession, with all things Louisiana. I love Cajun food, music and people. I love New Orleans, its people, architecture, history. I record everything that comes on television that has to do with New Orleans, Cajuns or Louisiana. I read books about the same. I cook Cajun food in my home and can tell you any Cajun/Creole restaurant within 500 miles that is worth eating. I am trying to learn to speak Cajun and I visit the state every single opportunity I can. One day I will likely live there. Get the point yet. Most of my friends know all of this already, but you probably don't know why.
It all started when I was 15 years old and playing Babe Ruth baseball. One day at practice a new guy showed up to play on our team. His name was Jode Holden. He had a really funny accent that was at times difficult to understand. When I asked him where he was from he told me, "Twenny-five miles narth of N'awlins." I had no idea what he'd just said or where that was. We started to be good friends and hung out pretty often until eventually I spent the night at his house. His mom, Miss Diane, had cooked in restaurants much of her life, and his step dad Marvin, or "Troid" as they called him, worked on a river boat. When I stayed at their house his momma was always cooking and it was stuff I had never seen or heard of before, but it was so good. Things with names like gumbo and etouffee, with ingredients like shrimp, crawfish and andouille sausage. I loved eating at Miss Diane's table. To this day, she made the best gumbo I have ever eaten anywhere and I have eaten everybody's gumbo, everywhere and every way. I know it sounds crazy but I'd put a hundred dollar bill down right now for a pot of it (I haven't had it in 15 years).
The food lured me in, but the people stole my heart. A couple of times a year their friends and family would come up to Tennessee for a visit and then the fun would really begin. They would bring coolers full of fresh seafood (shrimp, blue crabs, oysters, crawfish) for feasts that were always backed by great music and lots of laughing and storytelling. Listening to them talk was an adventure. Their brogue was so hard it was difficult to understand them, and the ones who jumped back and forth between English and French were nearly impossible to comprehend. Everything they did and said seemed like a celebration of life. I've come to learn in the years since that they have an expression for it (they have an expression for everything), "joie de vivre" which means "the joy of living."
The week before Jade and I married I spent a week in Covington, Abita Springs, Mandeville and New Orleans, Louisiana. Being surrounded by those folks in their "native habitat" won me over forever. If it hadn't been for Jade waiting for me at the altar, I would have never come back. Since then I've devoured everything I could about Louisiana. The more I learned the more I loved. After we married Jade and I spent nearly every weekend at Marvin and Miss Diane's (they lived just a quarter mile down the road), eating and singing and laughing. She came to love these people and their culture as much as I do. Once I took her to New Orleans she was hooked to. It seems I've passed this passion on to my kids as well, especially Kase. I know when people think of New Orleans or Mardi Gras they only think of Bourbon Street or the immorality, but there truly is so much good to love about it. I tell people that New Orleans is no different than any other big city. You wouldn't want to define Nashville by Printers Alley and you shouldn't judge NOLA on Bourbon Street. New Orleans is as much about the Faubourg Marigny, Treme, Canal Street, Congo Square, Lake Pontchartrain, the Garden District, Tulane and Audobon Park and a thousand other things, as it is the debauchery. Do you know what is the best part of Louisiana? I will be there in ten days.
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