Reppin Hard for Exit 11

Prairie des Femmes, Exit 11 (dis wat made me)

 

Facebook message I sent to my old student, who was raised up by Exit 11

The area around nearby Grand Coteau, Louisiana was called Prairie des Femmes in a land grant as early as 1776. These days, off of I-49, the Grand Coteau/Sunset exit is Exit #11.  The small towns are similar in size, and straddle the interstate, where are concentrated a few modern conveniences: the Chevron, Beau Chene Truck Stop, the Grand Coteau Popeye's and the new McDonald's:(.  The towns themselves are quite small and lie back about 1/2 mile off of the exit in either direction. Sunset, on the west side, seems to harbor many of the utilitarian services that her sister town needs: a grocery store (Janise's), restaurants,  a pharmacy, doctors, dollar stores, etc. Grand Coteau, French for big ridge, is a charming, historic village. She is known as the Holy Land of the South (and heavily Catholic South Louisiana) because of a miracle that took place there.  Grand Coteau was spared a burning in the civil war because the girl's school, the Academy of the Sacred Heart (founded in 1821) lay back in the fields, and it was said one of the northern generals had a daughter that was a student of an Academy of the Sacred Heart elsewhere. As a result, the school was spared and the town unburned. Today, the main drag, Martin Luther King Drive (Hwy 93) is lined with antebellum acadian style and Victorian homes, colorful with antique shops, facing the manicured grounds of a Jesuit retreat center. You'd think that the town was an affluent historical hamlet from the look of MLK drive. Historical it is, but the town's streets are shallow, and the houses behind MLK spread into a few historical homes, a few modern ones, old shacks, and trailer homes. What I mean is, the culture of the back streets does not mirror the mecca of Catholic antiquers the main drag attracts, rather, this is the real culture of Exit 11, as I have observed, as follows:

King Bobb's Tat, Reppin hard for Exit 11

Ain't that the damn truth

As you enter Grand Coteau...

and across the Street, King Bobb, reppin his car...

Looks like some people love ole Exit 11 as much as I do...