When you survey the decades of your life from high atop a perch of fifty years, you begin to notice landmarks that dotted the terrain, directing you along the way of your journey. Though you did not know where you were going, or even where you wanted to go, these signposts were steering you in the way you needed to go, and only now, having drawn within the horizon of that home, can you see them for what they were. They were to your journey what the Northstar is to the sailor adrift on an indistinguishable landscape that is the open sea. For the land traveller the opposite is the obstacle. Everything doesn’t look the same wherever you look, but everywhere you look there is something; something new, something different, something peculiar, or something alluring. There are so many ways you can go it seems impossible to discern the true path, and yet, you encounter bellwethers which guide you along your way.
In the past I’ve written about the people, places, books, movies, food, and musical influences that drew me to my love of Louisiana in general and New Orleans specifically. At twelve I was introduced to the Mardi Gras Indian chant “Iko, Iko” — as sung by Justine Bateman and The Mystery in the 1988 motion picture “Satisfaction”. That song would eventually lead me to Dr. John, and from him a never ending catalog of Louisiana music in my twenties (you can read about that here: https://brandonbritton.blogspot.com/2019/06/brother-john-is-dead.html).
In time I would get to meet and converse with the legendary Mardi Gras Indian, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux of the Golden Eagles at the Louisiana Music Factory on Lundi Gras in my thirties. I reflected upon this long and strange journey as I stood, now in my forties, in the Backstreet Cultural Museum on St. Philip Street in the Treme, looking at the Indian costumes display and learning a first person account of their tradition.
When I was still in my single digits, episodes of Justin Wilson’s PBS show “Louisiana Cookin’” intoxicated me with accents, language, food, and stories that in time would manifest themselves in person when I was fourteen and met the Cooper and Holden families when they migrated to my hometown from St. Tammany Parish in Louisiana, and was accepted into their family. I had no way of knowing at the time but these experiences and encounters were leaving me breadcrumbs that I would follow to a love of Cajun cooking and the name my grandchildren now know me by: Gumbo.
In my early teens, my mother worked for Phillip Morris, who hosted the Marlboro Talent Roundup, which my parents got to attend. As a sales rep, mama got samples of everything under the sun and she brought home cassettes and singles of artist who performed at those concerts. One of them was the Louisiana based all female country act called Evangeline. It wouldn’t be long before they crossed my radar again, touring with Jimmy Buffett and signing to his record label. Their sound was a mixture of bayou country and Cajun Zydeco and I was hooked from the start. Their self titled debut album was so much fun to sing along with and played right into my Cajun fantasy by teaching me my first Cajun French (Our life est dans la louisiane - our life is in Louisiana). I have always had an obsession with words, and how poetic some of them sound and when I discovered Cajun French I was absolutely intoxicated (and still am). They had one minor hit that made the country airwaves (Let’s Go Spend Your Money Honey), but they shot across the skies of my life like a shooting star, burning brightly, but burning out just as quickly. They did leave me with a few lasting things of value: my all time favorite version of “By the Rivers of Babylon” and a curiosity about the origins of their name Evangeline, which led me to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
In a high school English class I was introduced to the poems of Longfellow during a semester focused on poetry and it was there I encountered the beautiful, and tragic poem “Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie”. If you aren’t familiar, Evangeline is an epic poem that follows an Acadian girl named Evangeline and her search for her lost love Gabriel during the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia. The exiled Acadians found their way to Louisiana, settling the inhospitable and largely unwanted land of the Atchafalaya Basin. In time their name "Acadian" became Anglicized and slowly gave way to the more commonly known pronunciation "Cajun". Spoiler alert: Evangeline describes the betrothal of a fictional Acadian girl named Evangeline Bellefontaine to her beloved, Gabriel Lajeunesse, and their separation as the British deport the Acadians from Acadie in the Great Upheaval. The poem then follows Evangeline across the landscapes of America as she spends years in a search for him, at some times being near to Gabriel without realizing he was near. Finally she settles in Philadelphia and, as an old woman, works as a Sister of Mercy among the poor. While tending the dying during an epidemic she finds Gabriel among the sick, and he dies in her arms. The poem begins at the end, long after the Acadians have been driven from their home, and fair Evangeline has been denied her beloved. Though quite tragic with its tale of loss and heartbreak, it is also a testament to the kind of hope that only love can create.
Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.
Forgive the embarrassing cringe I am about to share, but as a pubescent boy who was very awkward, and quite often single and lonely, though a hopeless romantic at heart, I fell in love with the girl in the poem and I fell in love with the poem itself and I fell in love with the name Evangeline, which means good news. I know what you are thinking: 1 - all of us who know you know how awkward you are, 2 - it's terribly obvious now why you were often single and lonely, but 3- how can you fall in love with a fictional character, someone you haven’t even met? But wait, there’s more cringe to come. Why am I confessing all of this voluntarily? Because today I sat on the side of our bed and wept while eating a plate of garlic parmesan chicken wings…doesn’t everybody spend their Saturday’s like this? No, just me? Awkward.
Let me give you a little more backstory. Less than a month ago we found out we were going to have another grandchild, our fourth in five years. Yesterday we found out that grandchild is going to be a little girl, our third in a row. Her mama and daddy, and overwhelmingly proud big sister Magnolia, are going to name her Willow Claire, but each of my grandchildren have a Louisiana inspired nickname that I give to them. These nicknames come after long and careful consideration of a variety of factors that I won’t bore you with. Deciding on these names isn’t always easy. Honey and I had narrowed it down to two, but we just couldn’t decide which one because we loved both of them for different reasons. Then today, while preparing to create her playlist (that’s another thing I do for each of my grandchildren) I came across and played a song from what is probably the only animated movie I genuinely like — for obvious reasons — the 2009 Disney film, “The Princess and the Frog”. The song is called “Ma Belle, Evangeline”. In the movie, the song is sung by a Cajun firefly named Ray as a profession of love and devotion to a star.
Look how she lights up the sky
Ma belle Evangeline
So far above me, yet I
Know her heart belongs to only me
J'tadore, J'taime, Evangeline
You're my queen of the night
So still, so bright
To someone as beautiful as she
Who loves someone like me
Love always finds a way, it's true
And I love you, Evangeline
Oooh, yeah!
Love is beautiful, love is wonderful
Love is everything, do you agree?
Mais oui!
Look how she lights up the sky
I love you, Evangeline
Longfellow was inspired to write his poem in the style of the Greeks like Homer, which he was reading at the time of his composition, and I am drafting this writing the day after watching the newly released movie of “The Odyssey” by Homer. From this vantage point I can see that Evangeline is another one of those landmarks that has been guiding me along the way to this very moment from nearly forty years ago. From the band, to the poem, to the cartoon and the song, all the way to this little girl who will very likely be my last grandchild. I told Honey that I’d finally settled on the nickname for our upcoming blessing, and her name simply has to be Evangeline. Then I played this song and I just completely fell apart. When I regained some semblance of my composure I asked Honey how is it possible to love someone so much when you’ve never even met them? It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s real and it’s powerful and it’s beautiful and it’s good. Perhaps it’s just written in the stars. Good ole Cajun Ray said it best, “Love is beautiful, love is wonderful, Love always finds a way, it's true and I love you, Evangeline.”
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