Louisiana: They're Trying to Wash Us Away

The river rose all day
The river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away alright
The river have busted through cleard down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

--Randy Newman, "Louisiana 1927"

I finish this post in the waning hours of April 30, 2012, the 200th anniversary of the day Louisiana was admitted as a state to the United States. I regard this as a great day, worthy of celebration.

Lots of people (and by that I mean, one guy, once) have asked me just why I like Louisiana so much. After all, I was born and raised ("reared" just sounds wrong and scary) in Houston, none of my family came from Louisiana, and before I lived in Louisiana for a couple of years (1990-92) I had no real Louisiana connections. But through the years I've developed such an affinity for the state and its people that some acquaintances think I'm from Louisiana. As we celebrate the bicentennial, and as I find myself preparing to attend another New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, its worth explaining where all this "swamp love" originates.

Louisiana is not what you see on Swamp People, a show that caricatures an entire state and its people based on a few isolated examples. It would be like concluding that everyone in New Jersey is like those Jersey Shore idiots. Uh, ok, possibly a bad example.

In some ways, I am from Louisiana. You're "from" wherever people hold the same values, prize the same aesthetics, and think the way you do. That's a generalization, of course, but think of all those people from places like Detroit or Cleveland or Peoria, who get the hell out of there the first chance they get and spend the rest of their lives in places that feel like home and move their soul, like Austin or Colorado or Paris. No one not running for office ever said "Plano moves my soul." Except people for whom "soul" means a trip to Home Depot followed by a hearty dinner at Olive Garden.

And so it is with Louisiana. Something about that battered, impoverished cultural crossroads moves me, and millions of others who flock there or enjoy its rich legacy of music, food, dance, art, and natural beauty renowned everywhere. Louisiana gave the world jazz and New Orleans. It invented gumbo and zydeco. Mississippi River steam boats and crawfish. The Long boys and Edwin Edwards. People all over the world have heard of New Orleans. No one has ever heard of Omaha.

 That's not to say the place doesn't often get a bad rap, and sometimes deservedly so. Alongside all those incredible things are mosquitoes, bad roads, reduced life expectancy and high cancer and heart disease, high crime and low educational achievement, killer storms, and rotting infrastructure. Ever poor, Louisianans have almost from the beginning tolerated rampant corruption on a Latin American scale. The state's oil and gas wealth, supplemented with fisheries, maritime commerce and forest resources, should have been sufficient to transform the state into a robust, economically vibrant society boasting high employment, oustanding educational institutions and thriving towns and cities. Instead, Louisianans have generally viewed government as a source of entertainment, resulting in officials at all levels treating the public treasury as their personal checking account and doling out favors to a parade of oil companies, paper mills, and cousins who have shipped unprecedented wealth out of the state. The resulting public service deficiencies historically have left Louisiana near the bottom in nearly every measure of social progress.

But they keep on dancing.

All these facts shape the world of Louisiana. People feel their legacy every day, both good and bad. And they have made Louisiana both a remarkable oasis and a stubborn outlier.

Louisiana represents a fascinating crossroads. So many different cultures have mixed and mingled that they've produced countless unique expressions. Good cajun and creole cooking ranks among the finest cuisines in the world. Take a bite of a debris po-boy from Mother's in New Orleans, or the crawfish etouffee at Poche's in Breaux Bridge, and tell me they're not among the best dishes you've ever had. Listen to Louis Armstrong's Hot Five or Hot Seven recordings, or the Funky Meters, or Ernie K-Doe, or Professor Longhair, and try not to dance.

Louisiana is a natural crossroads as well. To the north, near Natchitoches and Alexandria, one finds beautiful rolling pine forests. Further south one finds the Cajun prairies and the swamps and bayous of the Atchafalya and Mississippi basins. Towards the east lies the rich Mississippi delta, and north of Lake Pontchartrain, a rich forest provides a different kind of natural beauty. Louisianians love the outdoors and flock to state parks or other places like Avery Island or Hodge's Gardens.

Thanks in large part to the Cajuns, Louisiana perhaps more than anywhere else is filled with incredibly friendly people. You will not find a stranger in Lafayette. Nor can you talk to a Cajun for under a minute. It simply cannot be done. If they like you, they're a friend for life, and you have to work hard for them not to like you. Though Texas is famed for Texan hospitality, Louisiana has us beat by a bunch.  Despite hard times and often hard lives, Louisianians just seem to have an unmatched joy of living. This manifests itself in countless local fairs and festivals, dances, parades, concerts, and parties. Then of course, there's Mardi Gras, second lines, jazz funerals, and on and on. If you're in Eunice on a weekend and you can't find some good music, its your own fault. And if its a weekend, there's a festival going on somewhere in Louisiana. See photo above.

And though I hesititate to mention this last consideration, it is a powerful one. In all my travels, I've never found a place with more beautiful women. Not California, not Texas, not Florida, not Ireland, not Argentina, not anywhere. The most enjoyable walk one can take is across either the LSU or the University of Louisiana at Lafayette campuses around noon during the school year. Sorry, its just true. This of course will strike many of you as incredibly shallow, but  let's not be so quick to overlook what Mr. Darcy called "the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow."


So I relish every chance I get to return to Louisiana. Whether for an LSU home football game weekend, or a local festival, or Mardi Gras, or to get away and enjoy some incredible food and music, or to while away a lazy afternoon on Royal Street then taking the streetcar out St. Charles Avenue to enjoy a drink on the patio at the Columns Hotel, or enjoying a drive up to Natchitoches and see the old buildings near the Cane River downtown or down to Abbeville to see the historic square and the lovely homes along the Bayou Vermilion, or hitting Fred's Lounge in Mamou for the Cajun dancing and radio broadcast early on a Saturday morning, there's hardly a time when I've had a wasted Louisiana trip. Hopefully I'll continue enjoying opportunities to do so. 


Hey, it beats Florida. Signed, every episode of Cops.


Oh...and...STELLA!!!!


Next-the 2012 Jazz Festival Preview.