Since 2011, about twenty minutes southeast of Austin along state highway 71 in Cedar Creek, Ms. Pearl flags the exact spot of Berdoll's Pecan Pie and Candy store. Ms. Pearl boasts of being the tallest squirrel statue in the world at fourteen feet tall and she ought to know. She prides herself in letting people know that Berdoll's makes over 1170 pecan pies every year, AND if the store is open, there are free pecan candy samples to try. As I find my way here en route to Louisiana, the store is open, so I sample away, then buy a four pack of individual serving pecan pies for later on the road.
If it hadn't been open, whole pies, re-stocked each day, can be bought 24/7/365 from the outside vending machine. How cool is that? But Ms. Pearl already knew that. She poses for between 30 and 100 photo ops each day as folks stop to buy in store, or from the vending machine.
SOMEO Dancing…..
“Where are you guys going for lunch today?” I ask my friend B. after I arrive at his house in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, just outside of Lafayette.
“Can’t tell you. Against the rules.”
“This is your men friend group isn’t it?”
“Yep, SOMEO. Sexy old men eating out.”
“How many of you sexy old men are in the group?”
“Oh, about fifteen. Mostly we talk about the medications we’re taking these days. But, I can only take so much of that.“
I first met B. four and a half years ago when I first came through Lafayette for Festival Acadien. In this Cajun and Creole heartland, one would think all ages would be represented on the dance floor. But, like in other cultural places, the old ways get shunned for whatever is in vogue for twenty-somethings out there in the world.
Who’s left to dance with? It’s the SOMEO guys with the Zydeco moves ingrained from decades of feeling the beat. They can move when inspired, trust me on that. Because music is everywhere, people dance anywhere they can. And so we hit Joie de Vivre, a cafe and coffee shop around the corner from B.’s house, to meet up with some of the SOMEO crowd. Christine Balfa is playing some down home Cajun with her band Balfa Toujours. I dance with several of the “sexy old men” to tunes heard seeping out of the bayou for ages.
“We need to keep small local places like this alive,” one of the men tells me. “Otherwise, we’ll lose it all.” Not unlike Texas dangling its dance hall carrots in front of starry eyed tourists, Louisiana pushes out its Acadien and Creole cultures into full view. I suppose there are other places who like to make a party out of anything, but those around Lafayette sure know how.
This weekend alone, there are the Boudin Festival up in Scott (the last Boudin festival I went to on my first trip through this area only had boudin—sausage—for sale, praline candy, beer and over-sugared lemonade), and in Lafayette, the Po’Boy Festival (Po’Boy….really just a submarine sandwich.) If I had decided to go, I’d have a better chance of eating something at this festival. But, no, I’ll wait until another weekend, when for sure, there will be a festival somewhere close by.
Zydeco for Breakfast....
“The Cajun Jam”
There aren't many places I’ve been where the people have been so welcoming. Talk to any travelers stopping in Lafayette—they will all feel the same. They will say that they knew no one when they came, but had a new family as they left.
Of course, this is not my first time coming “home” to Lafayette. This is my fifth—and of course, I don’t come for just a few days. I came for a month anyway. One has to immerse in this community. One has to get past the strip malls in the sprawl and experience the gems of a culture still emerging from the bayou.
Along the back corner of the yard at this “housewarming party”—AND “Cajun jam”, since no party would be complete without the jam, a circle of musicians flow in and out of two steps and waltzes. A single triangle twangs out the percussive beat. Only one triangle is allowed at a time. Fiddles, accordians and guitars are plentiful.
The food and drink tables take up the whole of the carport, and folks have set up portable canvas chairs everywhere they can fit.
“You’ve come home,” they say to me. “If you need a place to stay, you can have the spare room, or the couch, or a place to park the truck.” “How long are you here for this time?” “When can we dance?”
There’s something special about being in the embrace here.
“Save me some dances,” I say as I leave one table for another. I’m part of what goes on here now and there are many I wish to connect with.
I suppose that if I were here a lot longer, I’d see more of the underbelly—every community has one. A couple of years ago, at this time of year, during a festival, there was a shooting. There are drugs, and my Breaux Bridge pal B. recommends the Pinhook Rd to Jefferson St. route downtown rather than Johnston St.: “Too close to the bad section of town.”
I get it. I skirt around that area when driving into the hub. But, I also see what lingers in the air, in the dance halls and saloons, the new and old venues side by side. I feel the people in the cafes, hear their French coating the English words dripping off their tongues. From those who have little come offerings of abundance.
“Whatever you need, let me know.” It comes from hearts beating against the rhythms of the frottoir, that zydeco rub board played with spoons. Maybe from the wheeze of the button accordian bringing smiles to bodies jostling on the dance floor. This is what I see, what I feel, what I weave myself into. Whether at a hall, or in a back yard on the grass. Because a day without dancing or music just isn't a day well lived. At least not here in Louisiana.
Whenever there are festivals converging, folks come from far away places to partake in Lafayette's celebrations...before the summer heat and humidity drive them all away. Some even winter over here, away from the northern cold and snow. K. is one, all the way from Alaska.
He's been taking lessons in Whiskey River Jitterbug, a Cajun version of six-count swing. He shows me some basic steps at the new Rock'n'bowl on Jefferson Street downtown. While bowlers knock down pins in the lanes on either side of the dance floor, Kevin Naquin's band plays from the stage, and I practice.
K. checks in with me now and then, and we "swing".
"Yeah, you're getting it," he says over Kevin's accordian. We're both getting closer to what the dance can be.
Check it out......pretty cool:
At the Bayou
“I’d say it’s at least nine or ten feet by the size of its head,” my Cajun friend Doug says.
The gator isn’t interested in us sitting along the point at Lake Martin in Breaux Bridge. It's on a different mission now that the sun is lowering behind the thick clouds.
Just above the water, its eyes and snout pull the bulk of its body like a submarine risen from the depths. Maybe it’s heading for the duck we see floating along the algae, or maybe this gator is just going home after a long day.
The feathery gray mosses sway from the cypress branches in the evening breezes and herons stealthily step through the bayou’s mud while looking for crawfish.
The gator is out of view, so we turn our attention to our picnic, but always on the lookout for other critters, like snakes.
There are other swamps and marshes in Louisiana, but Lake Martin, in its containment and protection by the Nature Conservancy as a bird refuge, feels intimate. One can walk the periphery, about five miles. But one has to stay on the path mown through the brush—gators can jump up to three feet, and snakes often stay cool in the tall grass.
This place might be protected for people to use, but it’s still wild. And just fifteen minutes outside of Lafayette, it’s an easy haven to get to.
"What were your days like growing up on the bayou?" I ask Doug.
He tells me of the houseboat they lived on, the gators they trapped, and the bear cub he brought home by offering it honey when he was seven.
"My daddy made me give it back when the mama bear came round soon thereafter. I didn't know. It was cute. But my daddy taught me to respect nature. 'It doesn't belong to us' daddy said. I remember all that. He shooed that baby bear back towards its mama."
Now is the weekend, Easter weekend, when tourists, and those of us coming "home", gather up. A friend flies in today from Canada. Others will drive, bus, or train to get here by the start of things on Wednesday. They will stay through both festivals, very different in nature. We will cross paths between several outdoor stages featuring music from all over the world. We will meet up after festival hours at any number of local dance halls and venues to dance into the wee hours, packed not like crawfish, but like sardines on tiny wooden dance floors. And downtown Lafayette with be rocking to the heated beat from the blood boil of hard dancing.
The energy is already in the air. I've already perused the schedule. Who's playing that I don't get to dance to very often? Which acts from afar would be fun to hear? Stay tuned......it's comin' soon!