Protest Gumbo and Chanky Chank Music

My husband asks me why, almost every time we put on a party at our house, I insist on making gumbo. I always cite several reasons, but the biggest one is "It's my heritage". I am a Cajun girl, and always will be. Even though I live in North Carolina, I miss the live oaks with Spanish moss dripping from their heavy, ponderous branches, the lively Cajun music pouring out of the old clapboard buildings that serve as bars and dancing halls, the lovely, soothing patios of the Cajun dialect, and of course, the spicy, mouth-watering food that is uniquely Cajun.

Also, having grown up in the South during the homogenization of American culture, I missed out on a lot of what it meant to be Cajun. For whatever reason, it was labeled as old fashioned and outdated starting after World War II, when the politically correct thing to do was to speak English and act like an American. My mother who spoke French at home during her childhood and only learned English after starting school, tried to keep our heritage alive in small ways in the 60's and 70's - teaching us French words and making gumbo for us, but after being uprooted from family and home by my father, after awhile, gave up entirely. To this day, I still long for the rhythms, the ebb and flows of family and familiarity. I miss seeing people, as my sister once said with a catch in her throat, that look like me. After visiting Louisiana in 2010 for the first time in 30 years, I understood what she meant. More than once, while hanging out with my cousins, I had to "go outside to get some air", so overwhelmed with emotion just by being with family again after so many years.

So that is why when I start planning a party, my heart leans toward gumbo. It reminds me of where I come from, the people who raised me, loved me, helped me through tough times when I was too young to even know what what was happening and who embraced me even after 30 years of absence. My protest is against homogenization - I don't want to be "All American". I want to be a Cajun American!!! :0)

Re: Chanky Chank Music.....I mentioned it in an earlier post. Below is a story that explains my fondness for it, and the connection it has to preserving my Cajun heritage.....Enjoy!!! Or as we say in Cajun Counrty - Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler, sha!

Excerpt from article about Dewy Balfa, a Cajun Musician that helped preserve Cajun culture.....

Cajun music was first recorded in the late 1920s—Joseph Falcon and Cleoma Breaux's 1928 "Allons a Lafayette" is believed to be the first genuine Cajun music recorded. Throughout the 1930s and '40s recordings by such Cajun artists as Amede Ardoin, Dennis McGee, Lawrence Walker and Nathan Abshire, and Mayuse LaFleur sold well regionally, although the style was largely unknown outside Louisiana.

Despite its long history and its attractiveness as a genre, by the 1950s Cajun music, as well as Cajun culture in general, were in serious decline. In the post-WWII era, Americans were urged to discard regional cultures for a more modern, albeit homogenized, national one. In an era that saw the rise of rock and roll, many Cajuns were embarrassed by the regional French they spoke and the old-fashioned "chanky-chank" music still being played in their communities.

It's a rare thing to be able to point to one event as changing the course of a culture's history, but in the case of Cajun culture, Dewey Balfa's participation in the 1964 Newport Folk Festival was pivotal. That year, in the midst of a revival of American public interest in folk and regional culture, folklorist and traditional music promoter Ralph Rinzler (who later went on to found the Smithsonian Folklife Festival) invited a Cajun group to perform at the prestigious Newport Folk Festival. Dewey actually went to the Rhode Island festival as a guitarist—a last minute replacement in an ensemble that included the great Cajun accordionists Gladius Thibodeaux and Louis "Venesse" Lejeune. To their amazement, rather than laughing at them, the largely urban audience of 17, 000 went wild. As Dewey recalled many years later:

"I had played in house dances, family gatherings, maybe a dance hall where you might have seen as many as 200 people at once. In fact, I doubt I had ever seen 200 people at once. And in Newport, there were 17,000. Seventeen thousand people who wouldn't let us get off stage."

Play On in Western North Carolina – The Return Part 2

It's Not About the Fish!

I love to fly fish! That's why I moved to Montana back in 2005, and part of the reason my husband and I

chose Asheville, North Carolina as our new home last December. How did a Cajun girl like me used to the muddy brown waters of South Louisiana get into fly fishing?

Well, several years ago I was living in Northern Michigan and went to a book signing. Long story short, I befriended the author who was a writer (the author of Snowfly) and a fly fisherman. He offered to take me fishing and introduced me to Robert Travers' stomping grounds - well, his habitat anyways - the trout streams of northern Michigan. Joe taught me to fly fish and introduced me to the beauty and grace of small streams where electric blue damsel flies hovered over babbling waters and delicate, enchanting wildflowers  nodded in the breeze.

I learned from him that fishing was a side bar to the enjoyment of the day. The real thrill was standing in a cool stream with fly rod in hand, listening to the birds and the water's warbles and trills - eating take out food and drinking exceptional wine, soaking in the sunshine, just happy to be alive and outdoors.

It was after one particularly good day on a trout stream, when I looked up at him and announced with a smile, "I'm an outdoors girl that's been indoors too long." I felt ready to burst - overflowing with contentment from head to toe. In fact, that's the way I feel ANY day I manage to get outdoors and stand in a river. Not that I ever catch much fish, mind you. But then again, it's not about the fish.

A River Runs Through My Heart

From one of my recent Facebook Posts:

The feeling that sweeps over me when I first hear the sound of a river in the distance is almost indescribable. My pulse quickens, and I hurry along the trail. stumbling, sliding down the steep slope until finally the roar of the river makes my heart swell with emotion. Suddenly, the river is before me---tumbling, flashing, dancing in the sunlight. My throat tightens, and my breath catches in my chest. I am at once awed and humbled in its presence.

Life is Good!

I do believe we picked the right place to live!

Just moved to Asheville, North Carolina a few months ago, and we are finally getting ready to enjoy our first spring in the Blue Ridge Mountains area. I, for one, cannot wait to get outside and go for a hike! Asheville is a great place to live from all I have heard and all I have experienced so far.

Food!
Tons of GREAT restaurants, great natural foods grocery stores - Earthfare, Greenlife, Trader Joes, and on top of that there are farmer's markets (think lots of local organic foods!) all over the city, and all year round!

Music!
The music scene is not to be missed either - it is no coincidence that Caleb Johnson, one of the finalists (and one of the top 3 in my opinion) on this season's American Idol, hails from Asheville. Whatever your tastes in music, you can find it here - there's even the occasional Cajun/Zydeco band that rockets through town on their way to one major fest or another! Laissez Les Bon Temps anyone?

Outdoors!
Lots of hiking to be had here, as well as plenty of small stream trout fishing. Probably some udder kinda fishing, too, but all I care about is the trout! Can't wait to explore this beautiful place. Only one thing missing - YOU! I miss all my friends and family that I moved away from or haven't seen yet. Hey, when are y'all gonna come see me, sha?!!!

 

If you don't like the weather in Montana, wait 5 minutes....

Yeah, Yeah, Everybody says that no matter where you live. But after almost 8 years of living here, I think I finally believe it. Today was beautiful, sunny, and hot - almost 90 degrees - not a single dark cloud anywhere to be seen and only a 20 percent chance of rain. My hubby and I had been working hard at various chores and around 3pm I walked out to the shop where he was working and talked him into taking a break from the project he'd been working on for a few hours. He'd just finished putting together one of those canvas tent/carports from Costco and was planning on staking it down when I showed up with promises of mexican food at Rio Sabinas and a trip to the river to splash around with our two dogs, Jake and Kenzie.

He looked up at the sky, then looked at me and shrugged. "Sure. Why not. I'll tie the carport down when we get back." Soon we were all piled in the truck, and after running a short errand, headed for Rio Sabinas. By the time we got to Belgrade, the skies had darkened considerably, but no rain yet. Hmmm. Maybe it will blow over, I thought.

We parked in the shade, and Jim put the windows down a little. The temperature had already dropped 10 degrees, but I was worried it would still be too hot in the truck for the dogs. "Lower," I told my hubby, "put the windows down more. Don't want the dogs to get overheated."

 Not 10 minutes after entering Rio's,  Jim glanced over and looked out the the window towards our truck. "Look outside," he said.

"OH,...MY,....GOD!"
Not only was it raining, it was raining sideways and blowing pretty hard.

"GREAT!" I sighed and shook my head. 

Not only was the truck getting soaked inside, so were the dogs and so was our house not 10 miles away, since for the first time this summer, I'd left every window in the house open!!!

"Oh well, whaddya gonnado?"

We turned back around, looked at each other, and smiled. "No point in running out there to raise the windows now," I said.

"You brought towels for the river, so we can sit on those on the way home," Jim offered helpfully.

We laughed and turned back toward the TV, munched on chips and salsa and watched baseball for another 20 minutes or so.

Once the rain stopped and we were done eating, we payed our tab and headed out to the truck. I opened the passenger side front door and climbed in. Not too bad, I said, and grabbed a towel to put down on the seat just in case it was wet.

Then I turned and looked into the back seat and busted out laughing. Jake, our black lab-german shepherd mix, was not amused. He had a mournful look on his face, and the position of his ears telegraphed his displeasure (one was straight up, the other bent backwards in his classic I'm-not-happy-with you-right-now position). He was soaking wet (as was Kenzie). To top it all off, he was covered in sprinkles of the buds from the trees we'd parked under that had blown in throught the open window next to him, making him look as if some festive, mexican pinata had burst over the top of him.
"Oh, poor Jake," I laughed, as I took my towel and tried to dry him off with it.  Jim offered up his towel to try to dry off Kenzie.

We drove towards home, wondering what the house was going to look like on the inside. "Break out some  towels, honey - we're gonna be mopping up window sills for awhile."

We're only a few miles down the road at this point, when Jim's cell phone starts ringing. He pulls it out of his pocket, but since neither one of us recognized the number, he didn't answer it. "Wonder who that was." Then my phone starts ringing. Same number. Hmmm. Maybe we left something at Rio's and our friend Carrie, the manager is calling to let us know.

"Hello?"
"Diane?"
"Yes?"
"It's your next door neighbor, John."
"Hi John, what's up?"
"Your tent just took off."
"What????!!!! "Our tent did what???!!!"
"Your tent just went airborne and is now 3 pastures away between Pat's house and Walker Road."
"Oh, GREAT!!!!" I looked at Jim. "Our neighbor John just said our tent just went airborne."
Back to neighbor John. "I went outside to try to catch it, but before I could get to it, a gust of wind took it, and it sailed over the neighbor's barbed wire fence."
"Thanks for trying anyways."
"No problem. See you guys later."
I hung up my phone and looked at Jim.
"Guess we can turn the sprinklers off now," he said dryly.
I laughed and shook my head. "Yup. guess so."

I looked at our temperature gauge on the dashboard. It had dropped 31 degrees within an hour. Lesson learned. If you don't like the weather in Montana, wait five minutes.....but be sure to tie everything down and close your windows before you leave! :0)








 

Off the Grid or Off the Deep End?

Last night, after seven plus hours of hunching over my computer in frustration, trying to figure out why my blog wasn’t working like it was supposed  to,  I came very close to just unplugging from everything – Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, Gmail and any other form of cyber social networking.  I was so annoyed and irritated with it all, that I even contemplated giving up my Droid for a simple phone that only receives phone calls.  But, because I promised someone that I’d take care of their social media marketing needs,  I realized that there was no way I could unplug from technology and go off the grid. That rustic-cabin-with-no-electricity-Walden-experience would never happen for me. No, I am destined instead, to take the road more travelled. (Yes, I’m mixing metaphors - get used to it.) Once I get a handle on all the nuances of  Twitter and Blogger, I will jump off the deep end into the intricacies of Facebook.

That being said, I am going to take a moment, as I am poised on a metaphorical ledge, to mourn the days gone by, when people communicated face to face, or wrote epistolary letters to far off loved ones, perhaps enclosing a snapshot or two of the family. Now, everything is in an email, or a text, or on a computer screen. All but gone are the faded, handwritten declarations of love from great-grandpa, carefully tied up with ribbon, stored in great-grandma’s cedar-lined hope chest.   In the future, those trying to track their ancestry to learn of the loves, lives, hopes, dreams, sorrows and joys of their loved ones long gone, will have to resort to cyberspace research.  Is anybody out there saving their emails, I wonder, realizing that possibly the only documentation of their personal legacy is contained solely in an “inbox”? Probably not.