I want to die at Sacred Heart

I had often heard mamma talk about Miss Marie who took care of the church at Sacred Heart in Ville Platte. They said she was a saint. Late in life, she could barely walk, but would drag herself up the aisle to receive the sacrament of communion. To show her suffering and offer them up, they said.

                                       
Miss Marie, her maiden name was Ortego, she was Van Ortego's 'aint. And she was married to Curtis Fontenot. 
Curtis Fontenot, right!
He was a mail carrier, like Don said, and they had seven or eight children.

Woah!

They only had one boy, and the youngest child was my age, her name was Loretta, Loretta Fontenot. I graduate with her, a very good friend of mine and um, Miss Marie... Loretta was supposed to die when she was like, ten years old. Her appendix had ruptured and in those days, I mean, they didn't have- she had very very high fever when the doctor- Old Dr. Arthur Vidrine performed surgery on her on their kitchen table. He said he told Miss Marie, he says, you know, there's no chance for her to live...and she made a promise to the Virgin Mary that if Loretta lived she would just dress her in blue and white until she was ten years old- I mean til- for five years or somethin- I don't remember exactly. And that uh, she- I guess she made a promise that she would, you know, pray like she prayed and she was very devoted. And I knew her very very well personally ang I can promise you, she's a saint.

She knew the exact minute she was going to die. She was livin in Lake Charles with her daughter Anne, and her son-in-law Lee, and that mornin' Loretta told me, she says Mom wasn't any worse and she told Lee she says call Father I wanna have the last sacrament and I want communion this mornin.  And he said ohhhh he says Marie, he says, Father's too busy to come he cain't just drop everything and come. And she says I tell you, I want it now and you gonna drive me to Ville Platte cause I wanna go to Sacred Heart to die. And the priest came, he anointed her and all dat, she didn't look like she was very sick and they put her on the backseat of their van and they started drivin to Ville Platte. By the time they got to Chataignier, she started gettin really, really bad off, and she told Lee keep driging, drive faster, drive faster I wanna die at Sacred Heart. I want to die at Sacred Heart. And do you know when they got in front of that cemetery on Chataignier Road she said Lee, I don't know if I'll make it, can't you go a lil bit faster? And when they turned on the Sacred Heart parking lot she died.

Wow.

-Mmmhmm

And, that's the story...

Ok, Well, Thank you very much Miss Lena!

etc....
 

The Sacred Heart Parking Lot

  
 

Ladies of Instagram

Our Lady of the Prairie des Femmes

Notre Dame du Jardin

Black Mary of Ossun

Given Mary of Duson

Lafayette Front Yard Mary

Our Lady of the Persimmon Tree, Prairie Greig, Vermillion Parish

Our Lady of Mom and Pop's, Prairie Greig

Our Lady of Monsieur LaGrange

Our Lady of the Toy Corner, Henry

Our Lady of Christmas in Scott

Our Lady of the Spray paint, Opelousas Road at Plaisance

Our Lady of the Bathtub, Breaux Bridge

Our Lady of Jean Miller

Notre Dame de Saint Martin

Our Lady of the Teche at The Ville

Notre Dame de la Marianne

Fishing Contes by Floyd Soileau

Floyd Soileau tells two fishing tales: (English follows)

 

Bonjour! Hey, c'est un conteur des contes!

Ha! 'Coute ici, les temps comme ça-là, J'suis sur qu'y'a un tas du monde q'après préparer leur bâteau et leur ligne pour aller à la pêche.

Comment ti crois, excepte c'est- Floyd, avec un vent comme on après avoir, serait un peu rough sur le grand lac!

Mais ouais, 'coute! Ça m'a fait jongler ça là à des contes des histoires des pêcheurs longtemps passé y'avait ces deux vieux pêcheurs là qu'était après causer un... pour 'oir équel qui pouvais mentir plus que l'autre et un qui dit "woah!, il dit, me rapelle," il dit, "un fois j'ai été à la pêche avec une ligne qui tu pouvais... peux attrapper vingt livres dessus il dit tu crois pas j'ai attrappé une barboue d'cent livres, il dit! Et l'autre il dit, c'est pas rien, il dit, moi j'étais à la pêche j'attrapais une lanterne dans l'eau et l'avait toujours une flame, une lumière dans la lanterne, il dit oh no! il dit. j'vas dire quoi j'vas faire, il dit, j'vas éteindre ma lanterne si tu ôtes quarante livres sur ton p'ton... p'ton... 'sus ta barboue! 


J'ai attendu meilleur que ça!

Y en a une l'autre jour qui dit, il a était à la peche 'sus l'écore du bayou, et il dit c'été comme si le poisson été fache' à force que sa voulait mordre, avant l'appât frappait l'eau sa l'attrappé. J'te dit, j'avait assez une débat, il fouler j'me cache en arrier d'un gros aubre pour mettre mon appât 'sus l'hameçon, à force il étoint fort pour mordre.

Caw! Mon j'ai jamais vu que'que chose comme ça; Lord have mercy! Ho, mes amis, c'est un bon temps pour aller pecher quand le poisson à faim comme sa, hein! ...Merci Beaucoup!


 Transcription:

Hey! It's a teller of tales!

Ha! Listen here, with weather like this here, I am sure that there are a bunch of people who are preparing their boat and their line to go fishing.

How you think, except, on the- Floyd, with wind like we are having, it would be a little rough on the big lake!

Well, yeah, listen! That made me think there of the tales of stories of fishermen long ago. There were two old fishermen who were chatting about who could tell a bigger lie than the other one. Then one, he says, "woah! I remember one time I was fishing and there was a line that you could catch twenty pounds on it, and wouldn't you believe that I caught a 100 pound catfish on it! And the other one says, that's nothing! Me I was fishing and I caught a lantern in the water that still has a flame, a light in it! He said on no! I'll tell you what I'm gonna do-  I'll put out my lantern of you take off forty pounds of your dammed catfish!

I heard better than that!
There was one the other day who says he was fishing along the bayou and it was like the fish were mad to the point where they wanted to bite you, before the bait hit the water it caught them. I am telling you I had such a hard time, I had to hide behind a big tree to put my bait on the hook, they wanted to bite so bad!

Caw! Me, I never heard something like that! Lord have mercy! Ho my friends, it's a good time to go fishing when the fish are that hungry!

Mais Jamais! A Second Good Friday Story

                                     

Ils m'ont dit, que, tu connais longtemps passé les femmes raboulait aussi, ç'après rabouler on Good Friday avec un mulet sur la charrue. Et le prète, lui il a été ride around in the country, il a vu la femme après rabouler on Good Friday, ça fait, il a arrêtté, il dit, "Madame," il dit "Vous connais pas, il dit, aujourd'hui c'est vendredi saint?" 

A dit "Aw?" "C'est aujourd'hui c'est ç'a le jour àyou Jésu Christ est mort?!" "Oh!! Bon Dieu." a dit, "Père," a dit, "Moi j'ai jamais quitté connait qu'il était malade, cher. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

They say, you know, a long time ago, that women labored in the fields also. There was one plowing on Good Friday with a mule and cart. And the priest, him, he was out riding around in the country, and he saw the woman plowing on Good Friday, so he stopped and he said "Madame," he says, "Don't you know that it's Good Friday?"

She said, "Aw?"

"Today is the day that Jesus Christ died!"

"Oh, Good God!" she said, "Father," she said, "Me I never knew that he was sick, dear."  

A Good Friday Story: Wild Mint

We had been working in the garden all of Holy Week as usual last year, but I kept on reminding my family not to dig on Good Friday. There is a belief that the ground will bleed the blood of Christ if you dig on the day he was crucified. The urge is strong as gravity to garden in the spring, but, resolved not to dig, so as not to disturb the sleeping blood of Jesus that lurks just below the surface on that day only, lest it burst forth under our toils and ruin our Easter completely, we abstained.

So, on Good Friday, we went to Pilette, a place between Lafayette and Broussard, to the newly emptied homestead of our grandparents who had just passed, both in the spring, less than a year apart. We went to see the empty house for the last time. There was certainty that the land would be sold and developed, as it was open land on a major thoroughfare in Lafayette. We did one last walk through the pasture to pick blackberries, gathering honeysuckle and dodging the other uncle's horses who were stalled at the barn. We reminisced about the drive-in theater that was on the property in the 1950's, and the Cajun bands who played there at the Bayou Jamboree. While we were walking, Nonc Dav guided us to the shady spot near the road where they used to find a wild mint growing. Mint is so hardy, it survived in rank competition of the blackberry bushes and tall goldenrod for all these years. We found it in many little patches, very small plants, a lovely spearmint. I imagined that it was in the yard of some homestead off of Pinhook Road 100 years ago, which was then open country, or else that Granny herself had planted it when she was a young bride. We decided to bring some home. So one of us ran back to the house to get a spoon and cup and we dug it up right there. It wasn't until late that night that, shocked, I realized what we had done. And though you think it would have, the ancestral land did not bleed.

Granny's Wild Pilette Mint

Update: After three years of encouragement, I could not get this mint to survive more than one season and it was lost in the garden.

Vendredi Saint

It is said that one must not dig in the earth on Good Friday because it will make the ground bleed the Blood of Jesus, but there is another belief around here that says that it is good to plant your parsley on Good Friday so that it will not bolt. Mister J.D. Soileau of Point Blue, Louisiana has information about how to plant anyway, and kill trees if you want to do that, too.

  Les Remarques de Vendredi Saint

Vendredi Saint tu plantais ton persil. Tu travaillais ta terre le jeudi bien et là le vendredi tu mettais la graine sur la terre et tu 'trappais un sac de peat et tu mettais ça dessus. Là ton persil té planté et j'crois ça dit il entrait pas en graine aussi vite...

Là si tu voulais tuer les arbres qui tu voulais pas, tu cernais tout le tour.
Tu cernais sur un jour special, J?
Mais sur vendredi saint!
Sur vendredi saint, alright!
Alors, tu cernais les arbres sur vendredi saint et ça ça les tué.
Ouais, mon grand-père faisait ça. C'était juste que j'voulais dire les vieux rémarques sur le vendredi saint.
Comment tu crois, hein?
Ouais.
Ça c'est beaucoup intéressant!
Ok, Thank you Jim.
Merci Beaucoup, J.
Alright.
Mister J.D. Soileau of L'anse Bleue Louisiana!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On Good Friday you planted your parsley. you worked the soil on Thursday and then on Friday, you put the seed on the ground and you got a sack of peat and you would put that on it. Then your parsley would be planted, and it would not go to seed too quickly.

Then if you wanted to kill some trees, you had some trees that you didn't want, you'd ring them.
You would ring them on a special day?
On Good Friday!
So you would ring the trees on Good Friday and that would kill them.
Yes, my grandfather did that. It's just that I wanted to say some old comments on Good Friday.
How about that, eh?
Yeah.
That is very interesting!
....      

Bonjour les Malfecteurs!

Here, Floyd Soileau calls in to the Tasse de Cafe Radio Program and greets Jim Soileau with,

"Bonjour les malfecteurs!" (Good day evil doers!)

To which Jim replies, "Oh mais gardez-donc! ça c'est un grannnnnd malfecteur!" (Oh well look at that! there's a biiiiig evildoer!)

He says that that line is from an old story called "les gamins".

Jim Soileau Spits Verses - Leroy's Cajun Meats

Jim Soileau's got flow when it comes to Cajun meats.

             http://archive.org/embed/Leroyscajunmeats

             

 

Cajun Meats! 

Oh 'Coute mes amis! 

Tu parles la bonne affaire que tu vas trouver 

avec LeRoy and Donna Fontenot au LeRoy's Cajun Meats 

ça c'est ouest Main dans la Ville Platte 

collé après le T and J Ford

et ils sont ouvert sept jours par semaine!

sept heures du matin à neuve heures du soir 

et pis un de les meilleurs assortiments de viande que tu vas trouver tout partout dans le terrritoire! 

la viande fraîche, 

la viande salée, 

la viande boucannée, 

les grillades amarinées, 

et tout les differents qualités 
de viandes boucannées, 

aussi si vous voulez

ordonner 

votre viandes speciales pour les erepas 
de jour de Pâques oublier

pas de venir 'oir LeRoy! 

363 2231 leur numero de phone

oubliez pas dessus les dimanches c'est les plate lunch de b-b-q 

et pis ils ont tous les jours le plate lunch du jour:

du poulet frite, 
les ailes de dinde, 
fried boston butt, 
chicken tenders, 
stuffed jalapeno peppers, 
et beaucoup beaucoup d'autre! 
Oubliez-pas que ça vend les écrivisses de la Louisiane aussite-là, 

ça se fait, c'est le Leroy's Cajun Meats! 
++++++++++++

Cajun Meats! Oh listen my friends
You talk about some good stuff that you gonna find 
with LeRoy and Donna Fontenot at LeRoy's Cajun Meats
That's on West Main in Ville Platte
Attached right after T and J Ford
and they are open seven days a week!
Seven in the morning until nine at night
and then (they have) one of the best selections of meat that you will find anywhere in the area
fresh meat,
salted meat,
smoked meat,
marinated grillades
and all kinds of different kinds
of smoked meats 
If you'd also like
to order
your special meats for Easter meals
don't forget to come see LeRoy!
3632231 is their phone number
don't forget that on Sundays they have b-b-q plate lunches
and then they have a plate lunch of the day
fried chicken,
turkey wings,
fried Boston butt,
chicken tenders,
stuffed jalapeno peppers
and much much more!
Don't forget that they sell Louisiana crawfish there, too
so, it's LeRoy's Cajun Meats!

From the Journal of Miss Viola M. Marchand of Baton Rouge, Louisiana

My paternal great grandmother, Viola Marie Marchand Wilson was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the early 1900's. She was the descendant of Catalan and Acadian sugar planters who owned Marchand plantation in St James Parish until it was burned by the Yankees in the War. Viola was born in Baton Rouge and though I never knew her, I know we were a lot alike. I have her journal, from 1925, when she was 16 years old.

She went by "Vi" and like me, kept a journal, loved bottled cokes and to pick blackberries along the levee. Every Monday was a "Blue Monday", a sentiment I have inherited wholeheartedly. She wrote about her love for French class, often practicing what she learned in the journal. She talks about eating watermelon and ice cream  with friends, of visiting family and and of going to downtown Baton Rouge for violet ribbons and soda. She wrote of dates with my great-grandfather, Lee Wilson, and also of another suitor, a cat she calls "Wheeler".

Daily Reminder 1925

Viola M. Marchand 726 Spain Street Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Hark! 'tis the Striking of the calendar; Dead yesterday and unborn tomorrow.

Wheeler Dropped by for a few minutes but didn't stay long, eh? Nothing much, eh?

I Ride for Exit 11 (Prairie des Femmes)

I ride for Exit 11

Exit 11 all-black hoodie, throwin that Exit 11 sign, and Rosary #JHEN

Exit 11 wheels lookin shiny

This is where it gets real: grotto and Exit 11 Ride

Exit 11 Riders

Shout Out T-Marty aka King Bobb

"I love my hood so much, Exit 11 until I'm gone."

EXIT11

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

 

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

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...

Exit 11 Representas

Jungle Candy

                             Mister Allen Ortego is 90+ years old and calls in to the Tasse Cafe' regularly to tell his amazing stories from war times. Today, he is telling about how he made Jungle Candy (recipe follows) when things had quieted down in Guadalcanal, and how he cut it with his bayonette (to keep it shiny, Charlie says) and sent it back to his sister and friends in Ville Platte. They were happy to have it and liked it a lot.

Bonjour Qui qui parle?
C'est Allen Ortego.
Ouais Monsieur Allen, comment les affaires?
Alright, j'vas conter un autre histoire.
Alright.
J'étais à Guadalcanal. Les affaires avait quieten-down. Et j'faisais du candi coconut Je l'envoyait à mes tites sœurs à la maison.
Il était bon.

6 coconut
10 livres de sucre
8 vanilla tablets
4 can de PetMilk
2 livres de beurre
 
Là je faisais un grand plateau, et j'aurais pack quek' boëtte pour envoyer à mes sœurs les autres j'ai donné à mes amis.
Et ça aimait beaucoup ce candi là. On appellait ça du Jungle Candy.
Jungle Candy...
Coconut, écoute c'est pas méchant!
Comment tu dis coconut en français?
Uhh.. là j'connais pas...
There's a word for it, huh?
On devrait connaitre ça Mister Allen!
Ouais...
We gonna find out...
So that's the recipe for that Jungle Candy, huh Mister Allen?
Je mettais dans un grand plateau pis là je praidrais mon bayonette et on faisait squares.
Wow, You'd use your bayonette to cut the squares in the candy...Wow...
ça la gardait brillante comme ça!