French-Accented Spanish Moss - Chapter 2: Christmas

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Resigned to a quiet and solitary Christmas Day, I went to the only place in Abbeville I was I could get a meal. All the restaurants, even the fast food outlets, are closed; Abbeville hasn’t enough traffic to merit anything else open but the convenience store at the Valero gas station. Undaunted, I bought some coffee and a pre-packaged three-day old sandwich. I carried it over to the counter by the front window to enjoy my Holiday breakfast. On the third bite, someone inserted his hand in front of my face, between my mouth and my meal.
“How ya doin’! Merry Christmas!” a voice called out. What I would normally consider a hostile act, getting between me and my food, I realized was an overt gesture of courtesy. I briskly brushed the crumbs off my lap, swallowed my bite, met his hand with mine, and answered back.
“Merry Christmas to you! Everything well with you?” I had no idea what to add after that. The fifty-year old man in a button-down collared shirt and deep blue jeans had caught me off guard.
“Just fine indeed! My name’s E.J.” I gathered he spotted me as someone not from anywhere near Abbeville. Do I stick out that bad around here? I suppose so. The folks the night before at the Beehive had me figured as an outsider before I had taken my seat to order a drink.
“Rich.”
“What brings you here, Rich?”
What I would normally find intrusive and overbearing in New England is nothing of the sort in Louisiana. This guy was sincerely trying to be pleasant, so I gave E.J. a synopsis of my plans to visit to Vermilion Parish. He was immediately intrigued. I gathered from his expression that people like me do not often come through town, much less on Christmas.
“Well, Rich, tell you what I’m gonna do.” E.J. removed a business card from his wallet and handed it to me.
“Thank you.” I instinctively returned the favor; I carry personal cards on me for just this reason. He examined mine carefully and placed it where he keeps a few other dollar bills. My card joined a packet of others.
The card gave details of his check cashing business. That caught my attention because there are many small outlets for this service in Abbeville, similar to pawn shops in more densely populated areas in Connecticut. The signposts are everywhere. “If you’re ever in a bind while you’re down here, you just give me a call. OK?” My mind raced around a bit to imagine some situation that would require me to call him. But it did not matter. He was being extraordinarily friendly; I could not complain.
“Tell me, E.J.” I inquired. What kind of bind are you talking about?”
“Oh, you know, emergencies, trouble with police, tickets, that sort of stuff. I can get you out of those sorts of binds.”
“Should I have any trouble in Abbeville if I obey the law?”
E.J. firmly replied in a low tone. “No, you’re welcome down here. The card’s just in case.” Then he exited the door after a final handshake. I went back to my sandwich content that my encounter with him set a great tone and uplifted my previously dampened spirits. It also occurred to me: I had his business card and that meant I knew someone in town. In Southern Louisiana, knowing people is essential and I had made my first connection. The rest of the day would be just fine, even if I had to spend it in front of a TV screen in my hotel room. I think TNT is showing their annual Law & Order marathon.
Chewing on my sandwich once again, I heard the familiar voice behind me no more than two minutes later. I once again stood up to face E.J. Was there a problem? In his hand was another of his business cards. As he gave it to me, he flipped it over to the backside. On it was an address. “Rich, just so you know, we’re having Christmas dinner at my house today. Twelve o’clock. If you have no other offers, I expect you to be there.”
My mouth fell open, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Stories abound about how generous people are of their time and how giving they are of themselves in the South. But it is still a moment to cherish.
“E.J., thank you ever so much! I assure you that I will accept no other invitations. I’ll be there.” For the rest of the morning, I struggled as to what I would bring to the dinner. No stores were open. What would be deemed as an acceptable gift from a guest that I could buy at a Valero gas station convenience store? Should I go with the six pack of Bud Light or the twin pack of Twinkies?
Dinner at the Broussard’s was a delightful and relaxing serve-yourself assortment of roasted ham, fried turkey, rice dressing, creamed corn, potato salad, and a dangerous collection of desserts too many to mention. I asked Rita, E.J.’s wife, if her husband was in the habit of picking up out-of-town vagrants at service stations. She just smiled and didn’t really process my question, as if his bringing me here was to be expected. The introductions to all the family were short and very genteel. The gathering of sisters, in-laws, spouses, nieces, and sons carried no name tags on their shirts. E.J.’s nine-year-old grandson responded indifferently to my comment about Santa. He was engrossed in a new toy.
“Did you know Santa delivers all around Vermilion Parish and still has time to get presents to Connecticut?” I quizzed him.
Of course he does, read the look on his face. It’s Santa. He has the power. I mentioned to the boy’s mother that over ten years ago I was in Key West on Christmas Eve. Families had brought their children to the pier at sunset. The children of Key West were ignoring the throngs of tourists and street performers. Their eyes were focused on the horizon in the bay. A faint dot approached and gradually became a large man in a red suit…on a jet ski! In tow was an inflatable raft full of wrapped gifts. As Santa pulled up to the dock, the kids went berserk. No one adapts better to different environments and conditions than Santa.
E.J. and I sat at the kitchen table and exchanged more information about each other. He wasn’t prying. He was again just being a nice guy. His son-in-law, a behemoth of a man who practically crushed my metacarpals when he shook my hand, was wearing an L.S.U. t-shirt. Another family member had a purple cell phone on his belt with the University’s logo emblazoned on it. The school’s colors of purple and yellow decorate hats, banners, towels, flags, and residents’ chests all over Abbeville. After dinner, I turned to E.J. in the living room and asked, “Is it OK to be a fan of something else besides L.S.U. in Abbeville?” I was extra aware of the burnt orange University of Texas windbreaker I was wearing that my brother had just given me as a gift for Christmas.
“I suppose so. But just keep quiet about it.” E.J. paused. “How about I take you for a ride around the parish a bit?”
I jumped at the offer as if I had won a raffle. “You bet!”

Though they are barely dots on the map, the towns of Erath and Delcambre, which lie east on LA 14, are considered suburbs of Abbeville. Moving south, Boston (pronounced bow-STOWN) and Henry are hardly worthy of being on any map but for trucks hauling newly harvested sugar cane. Agribusiness takes no reprieve on Christmas Day. The massive trailers roar pass us with their payloads full of cane. E.J.’s tour of the lower Vermilion Parish flatland was as much a visit of bayous, drawbridges, and a natural gas refinery, as it was a window into his own past us and that of his Cajun upbringing. As with many Cajuns of my parents’ age, E.J. could not speak English went he first went to primary school. French was forbidden in the classroom and his generation is the last to be functional speakers of the language that so sharply defines his unique American identity. To this day, he cannot hide his native accent in English, one that used to bring scorn and ridicule from as he puts it, les américains, or the Louisiana Anglophone community.
His description of landmarks, homes, and geographical highlights (on what I still find to be a featureless landscape at first glance) is intertwined with which cousin’s third uncle twice removed on his daddy’s side used to own the land, and then foolishly sold it. Then the new owners, (related to E.J. in some confusing manner) saw it blown away when Hurricane Rita crashed into Southwest Louisiana and East Texas. In fact, of all family dramas of illness, relationships, and legal turmoil, Rita has left an indelible mark on Vermilion Parish. Everyone has a story. His is of a lifelong friend who saw the storm surge approach from the south in a wall of water as he sipped on a cup of coffee on his front porch. The man ran for his life to his truck, and sped off in time. When he returned home, nothing was left but the foundation of where he once lived. Nearby, shrimp boats were found three hundred yards away from their moorings after the storm surge tossed them over locks fitted with guardrails for vehicular traffic. The land has now covered the scars of the tempest just as the body eventually heals wounds and lacerations. Over time, scabs give way to a new layer of skin, but memories cannot erase the trauma the storm inflicted.
The Cajuns have established “camps” in the lower part of the parish. They serve as weekend or getaway cottages where families get together to hunt, fish, and go boating. The camps are little more than trailers that can be attached to pickup trucks and can be moved from place to place. The land is theirs by legal right and has been for generations. Cajuns are reluctant to sell land; tradition prevents them. With many families there is a fear that in the event everything is lost to whatever calamity might strike, people can always scratch out a living on the land, however rudimentary and harsh. The younger generation does not buy into the ties with the land as fervently. Yet history has shown that with land, the Cajuns survive. E.J. explains that it would be unthinkable to sell family land no matter how practical it might seem. If it pulls no profit and sits unused, so be it. Land for the Cajuns is a generational insurance policy that can be cashed in at any time.
Like oysters in the Gulf, crawfish are farmed in Vermilion’s ponds and bayous. If it were a different setting, like Southeast Massachusetts, I would call them bogs. These artificial rectangular pools, some reaching a few hundred yards in length, are home to simple sunken cages and very antiquated and pale flat-bottom boats that harvest the crustaceans. The technology is straightforward. Metal bars connect from the sides of the boat, sprout up and join to make a frame above the watercraft. Though I did not ask, I guess it is a frame to provide protection from the blistering and harmful summer sunshine.
The Henry Hub natural gas processing plant is an economic beacon for Vermilion Parish. Its futuristic-looking stacks and pipes tower over the lower plains and sugar cane fields south of Erath. Two-thirds of the country’s natural gas supply comes through this point. This gargantuan facility alone ensures Louisiana’s relevance in any national debate on energy or federal subsidies of any kind. Without it, homes up north go without heat or fuel for stoves. It is the lynchpin to the well-being of millions, almost all of whom have never heard of Henry Hub, and never will.
I point to the refinery in the distance from the passenger side of E.J.’s spiffy SUV. “Yep,” he replies, “my family owns the land they built that on.” E.J. intimated that the deal they struck with the energy company has put the family in a very comfortable position financially. “But you see, I am not a direct descendant, so I am left out of it.” I do not feel sorry for E.J.’s inconvenient misfortune of birth; between his home, other land, vehicles he drives, and connections in Abbeville, his family is among the more affluent in town.

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Photos

Crawfish Pond
Driving along the back roads...