Journals from 2002-2004

Things I learned on the Tasse Cafe Radio Program VOL 1

 I went to Vidrine Elementary in 5th grade, and every morning I carpooled with Miss Debbie Fontenot from where I lived on Pine Street to the west side of town and on to Vidrine. On the 20 minute drive to school, Mrs. Debbie listened to the news in French and I loved it. There were advertisements for local businesses in French and local and state news and announcements, as well as the Tasse de Cafe Radio Program, where people can call in to ask questions or reminisce in local French. I remember listening and looking out of the window at the foggy cow fields all the way down the Vidrine Road. I used to imagine that I could understand it like Mrs. Debbie did. I probably did understand some. I understood little things like "trois-six-trois" because all of the telephone numbers in town started with 3-6-3, things like that, and because the French was interspersed with English, it made it even easier. Sometimes Mrs. Debbie told us what they were saying, or she'd laugh. Never did I realize that this radio program out of 92.5 KVPI in Ville Platte, would be a catalyst in my life and that one day I really would be able to understand the program and even learn by transcribing the ancient/modern French they speak.

THINGS I LEARNED FROM THE TASSE DE CAFE RADIO PROGRAM

Monday October 7,  2013

On a pas eu quek rapport de grosse chasse des éceruils qu'a pris place ce weekend. Personne après se vanter de leur report, ça fait, j'connais pas. (We haven't had a couple of reports of the big squirrel hunt that took place this weekend. No one is exaggerating their report, so, I don't know...)

Fie (?) means manière doucement... le monde est manière fie à ce matin. (Fie means kinda slow...the people are kinda slow and lazy this morning.)

Tomorrow night is the opening of the Cotton Festival with the Contradance and the Crowning of the King and Queen of Heritage Manor.

Sulfur powder and oil gets rid of la gale. Or you can dip 'em in dat kreosote. Dat'll cure dat dog with da gale. I promise you.

Gearing up for Squirrel Weekend on the Platin

Here are some clips from the Platin social media about the coming of Squirrel weekend. Merci beaucoup to PDF contributor Monsieur Al.

The People of Evangeline Speak Part Deux 2013 Edition

Here, I collect the status updates and other information shared by South Louisiana people on squirrel day. Click here to see last year's edition. Click here to read about squirrel day.

 

 No, Mama, you can not suck the squirrel heads anymore!

My girls still think its disgusting that I eat squirrel brain. It's sweet like candy.

Why are there walnuts in the squirrel gravy?

Don't shoot dem damn squirrels in da head! -Leonard Guillory

Jealous of everyone heading off to the woods........try to leave some in the trees 

I Would Say its a good week! Became Godparents Yesterday and today I Officially own my Property! now just to kill a few squirrels

The weekend of the squirrel! All of Ville Platte will be a ghost town and the woods filled with happy hunters, cold beer, whiskey drinks, camp fires, great smelling food and good times!! Haha. 

Happy "Squirrel Weekend" everyone!

Squirrel dayyyyyyyyy!

Happy Squirrel Day!

Happy Squirrel Day! Although I am not in the woods back home in Louisiana, I'll celebrate with a nice highball in a red solo cup!

Happy Squirrel day Ville Plattians!

Happy Squirrel Day... Father and son off to the woods :)

Today would be one day that I would live to be back in Ville Platte. So Sad that no one else participates in Squirrel Day!

Happy Squirrel Day to my friends back home! Ladies, make me proud and shop till you drop :)

Men head to the woods and women head to the stores. Ville Platte seems to close its doors to the rest of the world.....SQUIRRELWEEKEND

While the boys are away, the girls will........SPEND MONEY!!!! Happy Squirrel Day Ladies!

I keep thinking about the Miss Alice's squirrel sauce piquante and how the b.b.'s would go ting ting ting on the plate when you spit them out... 

Speaking of Squirrel Day, my friend Emily Porche' sang last night on Jimmy Fallon about "eatin' squirrel brains" ... Great way to start off squirrel weekend!

 

“Your song tonight is a love ballad, very emotional song, it’s called ‘Eatin’ Squirrel Brains’" Fallon tells the first contestant. 

STOP! Squirrel Time.

Beech Nut Still In His Mouth: An Evangeline Parish Ex-Pat Remembers Squirrel Day of His Youth

 

From my younger years in the 70’s, I remember with distinct clarity, the palpable excitement in the air as the opening day of Louisiana squirrel season approached. Long before Facebook and Twitter, or Budget day, men and boys at schools, stores, and bars, busily chatted of special spots, careful not to reveal exact locations, but trying to figure out locations others were speaking of.  As the season neared, we spent hours in the woods looking for cuttings, where squirrels were feeding, “calling” spots, which gave unofficial stake to a found bevy of squirrel activity. More hours putting thought into, and discussing the “best” hunting clothes and shells, and packing them.

The day before the season opened, the loaded pickups and campers headed to the woods. Supper eaten around the fire, men drinking beer and whiskey, boys overdosing on pop and messing with the fire, anxiously asking each other, “so where’re you going tomorrow?” It was hard to sleep that night, thinking about the next morning, and through the tipsy men’s snoring.
The next morning came with a wave of excitement, not even overtaken by presents under the tree at Christmas. Men chuckled at the boys, who were afraid to get out too late and miss the first movement, and gave them last minute advice. “Move your eyes, not your head, even if a mosquito bites you”. “Listen for the whoosh of the branch that a squirrel jumped on, or the scrape of claws on bark”. “Don’t get impatient and move too soon.”
I remember feeling hurried during the trek through the woods by flashlight, to the prescouted spot of known squirrel activity. “What if it gets light earlier today”. I remember feeling even more hurried as I tried in the dark to pick a sitting spot with the best view of the cutting tree, sometimes sitting at several spots. The whole affair climaxed as first light began to filter through the trees, and tension built as the time neared for gray squirrels to begin moving. I remember being a bit mad when I heard shots before I saw something, worried someone was getting ahead of me, and maybe I picked the wrong spot. Then….that telltale whoosh of a branch with the jumping weight of a squirrel in the still air. My heart would race so much I had to fumble for the safety of my shot gun.
There he is, looking like a thin string flying along the branches in the dim light! Gun comes to shoulder, but he’s gone, bitter disappointment and trembling hands, the gun comes down. There he is again! Gun comes up, but he’s running and zig zagging too fast to find at the end of the barrel. Then gone again. Man, I’ll never kill one today. Then, there he is, shaking the end of the big beech tree I found the cuttings under. A trembling aim, and BOOM! And…..nothing. Oh, man…how did I miss. I won’t cry, but I sure want to. Then, thump, thump, POOF!, The squirrel finally falls, hitting branches on the way down to that satisfying thump on the ground.
I should wait to see if there’s more, but I can’t help but run over to where I think he fell. There he is, with pretty soft fur, beech nut still in his mouth. I pick him up and admire him for a few minutes, noticing all the little ticks on him, before sliding him in my bag. The shooting of other hunters reminds me I need to get going if we’re gonna be eating brown gravy tonight, so I move off, constantly feeling behind me to make sure he’s still in the bag.
Getting back to camp after the squirrels quit moving, we each felt the need to discuss, in complete detail the full sequence of events that lead up to each squirrel seen, complete with dramatizations. Then, that night, there was somewhat of a blissful feeling, eating squirrel and brown gravy, cooked by master chefs. I remember feeling sorry for the women folk who had nothing better to do than go shopping.


Bryan LaFleur, grew up in L'anse Grise, a suburb of Mamou, La. He joined the Marine Corps right after high school, which had a huge and long lasting impact on him. After enlistment, he ended up in NE Texas, though he is not sure how. He has reconnected with his Cajun cultural roots in SW Louisiana through the language and music with the help of his parents and friends. Bryan is an artist who makes incredibly beautiful Cajun Accordions (check out L'Anse Grise Accordions) and is also fluent in Franglais, Cajun French and Korean. Who knew?! Bryan is a fireman in the Dallas metroplex, and, he says, is lovin' it. (via Facebook)

The author with some another catchs, in Lanse Grise 1980 (via B. Lafleur, Facebook)

Prairie des Femmes Compass Rose

Rob Perillo is the Balm

Rob touches the comet Pan-Starrs without getting burned.

Rob Perillo is our Chief Weatherman on KATC TV 3 in Lafayette, Louisiana. People around here really love to know about the weather. They live close to the land, and Rob is always a reliable, even jovial source of weather news and lore. Not only that, Rob always has some trivia or something creative to say and tells you about comets, meteors, blue moons, hurricanes, local folklore, as well as the exact time and direction of the passing of the space shuttle at night. Sometimes I hear these little quips and put them out on my Prairie Femme Twitter account...and I usually tag +Rob Perillo, too, or otherwise troll him on his social media... so he knows how much we appreciate his wordsmithing and weathermaning! 

Like this one time I commented on his status update about his use of the word "balmy", he "liked" it on Facebook (!!), then later on the news, I heard him emphasize the word- "Ladies and Gentlemen it's going to be a BALMY evening..." Just sayin.


I love when it rains and Rob says that it's "good sleeping weather". 

"A smokey haze tonight. You can smell the sugarcane burning."
  
"The fragrance of ligustrum in the air..."

Rob says he's not just going to "overtly forecast fog for tonight." That's why we love you Rob!

Rob says that tonight's lows will be in the "sultry low mid-70s"


I love when Rob says "Let's kick it upstairs and put the radar-satellite composite in motion, baby" (I added the baby, but hey! He might have said it/might say it if he reads this.) (Bonjour Rob!!)

OR he might just say: 

"Let's kick it upstairs and look at the radar satellite composite! "

"Moisture lurks in the Gulf"  yes it does.

"Nice looking cumulonimbus canopy shrouding Acadiana this afternoon. System already raining itself out...slowly..."

"It's gonna be rough out in the Gulf of Mexico so batten down the hatches!" 

"No pipe issues tonight."

"The air IS juicy."

"Cirrus clouds painting pretty pastels..."
  
Rob Perillo just sang, "The sun'll come out, tomorrow." Details at 10.

Rob Perillo is talking about the crescent moon and Venus in the western sky. #swoon.

@robperillo recommends that you recline on a chaise lounge chair a few minutes before 8 pm in order to see the space shuttle in the western sky.

"Do expect a sultry one tonight."

"A steamy one tonight!"

"A sultry summer night and the mosquitos are certainly in play."

"Don't say Perillo didn't warn you!"




Follow Rob on Twitter

People Love Rob! Street Art, Downtown Lafayette

(Warning: This is where the CajunNet and the Internet collide with results as accurate as Rob's eight day forecast.)

Tasse de Café Reunion Part Deux

I went to the Tasse de Cafe Radio Show Reunion in Ville Platte, where people who call in to the program get together and have a live, more raunchy version. I was at the first one last year and it's sad: people who were there are now in the hospital (Get well soon Mister Allen!) or no longer with us anymore (RIP ROGE!). I went early and set up my recorder by the speaker.

 I sat at a table between Mrs. Rose Soileau of Belaire and Mrs.Verna Fontenot of Tate Cove. They were flanked by their husbands, Mister Elvin "Soup" and Mister Gerald, famous Creole Cowboy and Godfather of the Tournoi. We were joined by Mister Don Fontenot. Miss Rose started telling me about her friend who had just passed away. Elle se couchait bien gaillarde, et le lendemain, le Bon Dieu l'a pris. Mister Don immediately told me he liked the way I spoke French, but I still needed some lessons! lol. That was true, and I was about to get a few...

But First, ROLL CALL! initiated by Floyd Soileau:





Mister Jim began with a Hail Mary in French. Click here to hear it. Mister Elvin started teaching me old words like un serpent bambara - black egg snake. He talked about the difference between a ti peu of something or a ti brin of something. Both mean a "little", but he said, and le monde agreed, that they were used at different times for different things. I always thought they could be used interchangeably. He said he used ti brin most often with cheveux, (un poil, a little bit of hair) and un ti peu with things like ice (un ti peu de la glace) ou kekchose...as his fingertips grasped his shirt, a napkin, the air. Mister Don asked me if I knew my prayers in French. I said I knew four. He said he had a packet of them and would drop it off at the station for me. How nice!

Mister Floyd Soileau, conteur des contes told a couple of great stories as well as racy contes. Click here to hear a dirty joke in French.

The best was when Mister J.D. Soileau, who always has some uncommon words, got up to talk about how he searched all everywhere on the Internet for a word:




... about what a jambit/jambee, or scarecrow was. It sounds kind of like a Hatian Creole word to me. I wonder about its origins, sounds a lot like ZOMBIE doesn't it?

Mark, Jim and Charlie

Nick's on Main

JD talks Zombie

The Soileaus de Belaire Cove and Don Fontenot

Mister Floyd reads in English, translates into French.

white socks and black shoes are an Evangeline Parish signature style

I won the doorprize and left with a medium Evangeline Special Pizza under my arm...

Journal from the Past

I have kept pretty detailed journals my whole life. Here are a few pages from the one I was writing in ten years ago this week. It was the week I met my husband.

Dolphin Gumbo

No matter what team Louisiana sports teams play, we will make a gumbo with the opposing team's mascot. I have heard of Gator Gumbo when we play Florida, Dumbo Gumbo when we play Alabama, War Eagle Gumbo when we play Auburn, and Blue Jay Gumbo when we played Saint Edmund's Catholic in Eunice. In high school, the boys would hang a dead Blue Jay in the gym and on Friday we would chant "We want gumbo, bluejay gumbo!" *clap clap*

I have never, however, until today heard of a Dolphin Gumbo. Sounds like clean eatin'!

Here, via the Tasse de Cafe radio program, good sport Dr. Tim Fontenot cheers on the Who Dats! GO SAINTS!


But they'll say:

Ask any Who Dat

You happen to see

What makes the best gumbo?

Da Chicken of da Sea

The Dolphins!






Dolphin Gumbo Ingredients

2 lbs pounds fresh dolphin fillet, cubed
1 pound peeled medium shrimp
1 dozen medium to large oysters in their liquor, about 9 ounces
3/4 pound crabmeat
3 chopped onions
1 chopped green bell pepper
1 chopped celery stick
a few cloves of garlic

Seasoning Mix:
2 whole bay leaves
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper (preferably cayenne)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano leaves

3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup all-purpose flour

5 1/2 cups Basic Seafood Stock 



 

Traiteurs

  

Mark:

If there's anybody in our local area that still does the treating, like the old time des traiteurs.

Charlie:

Oh yes! That's a dying art!

Bonjour qui tu parles?

Madame Reed:

Hey... I know about a traiteur.

Ok.

I went to- I had- Ma- The top of ma foot was hurtin', so I went to de foot docta. I had a spur right on the top of ma foot, so he says, you mustn't lace ya shoes right dere. He says, I can cut if off for you. I said, but I'm on blood-thinners, he said well, we can't do surgery. So I found out about dis man in Opelousas, I went over dere, he treated me and until today the spur don't bother me one bit. And you know we had an old man in Ville Platte, Mister Alcide Gallo, he treated for anything. He treated me for high blood pressure...

Is he still alive?

No, he died, he was 102 years old. He was in the nursing home the last time he treated me for high blood pressure. 

-wow and he helped, huh...

...another man in Port Barre that treats, too. I was treated a lot, me. You know what? I talked to my doctor about dat because he's from, outa state, Watemale ou quek-chose. I told, I said hey, Dr. Alverez, did you ever hear of a... I had forgot how to say it in English...he said, I said, did you ever hear of a traiteur? Yeah, he said, I know what's a traiteur! He said I know exactly what's dat- dey have dat where I'm from! 


Dr. Tim:

And about the traiteurs...Dr. Alverez said is right...Nobody has the gift to heal unless it's given to 'em from above whether it be a doctor, therapist, or a traiteur. To some extent we all traiteurs.  So even if he denies it or not, the gift comes from God. 

No money- if you wanna make a donation, fine, but-

They don't ask for anything. It's a gift freely given to them, so they give that gift freely, too. I've never known a traiteur to accept any money, other than someone reaching in their pockets and say, here, lemme...

...yeah, yeah.. if they give... they don't ask for no payments...they don't... that's right...they'll accept a donation just like you accept the healing, you know?

Pour la Paix dans Syria

Aussite dans les nouvelles de Vatican le Pape Francis après demander au monde de le join pour des prières, là. La fin de semaine qui vient, un jour pour être en jeun et pis prier pour la paix dans le pays de Syria. Le Pape avait invité le monde de tout religion de le join samedi au soir, samedi après-midi, à Saint Peter's Square pour prier pour la paix dans Syria et dans tout le monde. Il a declaré "p'us de guerre s'il vous plaît". Il a parlé à des milles et des milles des persones dans le Saint Peter's Square dimanche et que il dit le monde a besoin de 'oir des efforts pour conduire de la paix dans tout le monde.

Cajun French Homecoming T-shirts

At the local high school where I taught, homecoming week is passed in good cheer with theme days: pajama day, crazy day, camouflage day, nerd day, 80's day, etc. For our school, they even had Cajun day where, I saw students dressing up as the stereotype of a Cajun character they had seen portrayed on television: no teeth, barefoot, straw hat, big smile, cut offs, with a pirouge paddle, nutria rat pelt. I even found myself getting into the spirit on that day, wearing my husband's Dickies pants and boots and carrying a large wooden roux spoon. So I took the day to talk to my students about these swamp stereotypes and in response, we came up with "Cajun French" t-shirt slogans to make white t-shirts to wear our Cajun French on Cajun Day like a read Cajun would. The principal, a fellow Ville Plattian and bon vivant, agreed, so I let my students choose what they wanted to put on their shirts. Here is the list of the most crazy/nonsensical/pop-culture/Cajun French/rap/cowboy amalgam of words I have ever seen. Was I ever proud!!

Exit 11 Update

When I started exploring love of place, no one taught me more than the EXIT 11 posse from Grand Coteau and "the Set". Exit 11 is also the exit for the PDF. I ride for Exit 11.

Roun hea!

Act like you aint catch dat

Time to turn up

POOSE MANE!!!!!

Mamas Cry in the PDF

White World

MaBlog

I began the Prairie des Femmes blogspot one year ago this month, and today, on the Feast of the Assumption, I have been thinking about what the project really is.

 

I began this blog at a time when I stopped teaching to stay home with my children and needed an outlet before I caved. My husband was touring and traveling a lot for work and I was alone in the Prairie des Femmes with two young children. Then there were many family changes including the deaths of beloved patriarch and matriarch and the unraveling that can follow. Around the same time, an article about our house came out in the New York Times (Click here for the article.) Feeling a little exposed, and in desperate need of a refuge, I began this blog spot (that I jokingly called "mablog" when talking to friends) in hopes that I could organize the information that I have always kept in journals about life in Louisiana, French, and family stories/local folklore. I wanted a place where I could share my writing and possibly provide a tool for other young Louisianians to learn about the Louisiana French language/culture from a younger person's perspective. I wanted to share the story of how I learned Louisiana French and the struggles of teaching it to my children and my students, as well as the things that helped me learn: friends, funny local French, lyrics, Sainte Anne, KVPI. I began the blog also as an excuse to research the history and origins of the name Prairie des Femmes, which is a real place where we really live. 

 

I had a want to capture what it really felt like to live here, in Saint Landry Parish, Louisiana in modern times. I wanted to capture a certain juxtaposition of the richness of the land and culture of the people, and the poverty of the system and the state amid hurricane, oilspill, crime, poverty. I wanted to document the beautiful things about out culture, the good things that have not dissipated, but have lived and changed and thrived, but I wanted to not make Louisiana or the PDF look like a utopian haven of beauty and culture, which it is, but it isn't. No place is perfect, not even Louisiana (and that's the only time I'll ever admit that). I wanted to explore the things that cloche- or that are croche- what it is like to drive down a littered dirt road lined with grottos to the Blessed Mother, next to a gorgeous but polluted bayou, while booming vulgar rap music, or maybe Cajun music. I wanted to capture the way that the old intersects with the new in this wild country.

Since I began the blog, it has grown into what it wanted to. I started making crazy French memes, ECards that explain French music lyrics. I have enjoyed translating some rap into Louisiana French, or doing cards on a Louisiana French rapper. I recorded and transcribed snips from the Tasse de Cafe Radio Program. I explored the oxbow woods and the most beautiful house in there; I hope to one day help save this jewel of Louisiana architecture. I started to explore the concept of the Prairie des Femmes, The history of this place being a refuge for women at different times for different reasons, and the mystery of the story of the Women's Indian Camp found here at the Prairie.  Just down the road from me my neighbors had two grottos to the Virgin Mary in their front yard- two Femmes- in the prairie. One day,  I stopped and asked to take a picture, and began a friendship with them. Then I took pictures of all the Mary statues in the Prairie des Femmes, Grand Coteau, Leonville... La Prairie des Femmes was revealing herself as a land whose people still venerate the Virgin Mother unquestioningly. As a balance to the beauty of this divine feminine, I started taking pictures of local car decals, vulgar and tacky slogans local boys emblazon on their mud-encrusted (or clean clean) trucks. I began taking seemingly mundane pictures of what was happening in Prairie at this very moment- a bridge out, a boy on a horse or a bunch of girls on a four wheeler (la prairie des femmes!).  I took pictures of goats and cattle blocking the road, a storm coming across the prairie on les jambes de pluie, the old houses crumbling in the woods or smoke rising from nearby fields. I transcribed wisdom from the neighbor, Chat-Tigre, or recorded the neighbor yelling at his cows in French and the other neighbor just yelling. I recorded gunshots, birdsounds, and the howl of the coyotes at night. I took pictures of the moon, the sunset and foggy sunrise, my children as they grew.

I have to thank my sweet husband on this Feast of the Assumption, for dragging me out here and leaving me to fend for myself in the PDF. I have learned a lot. I also thank the Blessed Mother for always leading me ever closer to God through the wilderness of the Prairie des Femmes.