My Ramblings

by Dowell Lafleur

This page could be properly be called a "Blog," but, I prefer the name above. This is the area where I post events, thoughts and notes, and maybe a few idiot remarks, with no special concern for format, topic matter or regularity, and best of all, no rules. Comments about this page may be posted on the "Comments/Guestbook Sign In Form" below.

24 March 2009 - When my son asked me about making a hog boucherie about 3 years ago, he said that he remembered these events as being "fun." My initial reaction was that, I didn't really remember them being anything but a lot work. Basically, a boucherie consists of the slaughtering of an animal, usually in our case, a calf, or most often, 1 or more hogs. In retrospect, I have to admit that they were a source of quite a bit of fun before I was old enough for the actual work involved in the boucherie. Although these boucheries served the necessary function of providing fresh meat, there was also another, and possibly unrealized, function. The activity almost always required the help of two, three, or more neighbors and friends, with their families, and thus created an assembly of people, who then "caught up" on local news and gossip of the neighborhood. Unlike the depictions of many documentary films giving the illusion that these gatherings always had music associated with it, not all did. In fact I cannot remember one instance where we had music at our boucherie. There was sometimes, but not always, a bottle of either wine, or, something a little stronger, passed around, supposedly to warm up one's body. At about midmorning, while the men were cutting meat, a large pan of rice dressing was served, with as many spoons as required for a communal snack. At noon, after most of the work was completed everyone sat down for a meal of fresh pork, usually consisting of pork rib or ham roast, with "des fraisures" (the liver), boudin, gratons, rice dressing, sweet potatoes, and, of course, rice. Most times, each family was sent home with enough fresh meat for a family meal or two.

Our fun as kids was often getting a strip of meat to cook on a stick over the fire under the boiling pot. Somehow, that piece was always better than anything else that we ate that day, except for the gratons. Our meat cutting experience usually started with cutting strips of pork fatback into roughly 1 inch squares for making gratons. I always thought that those were fun to cut. These pieces of fatback were put in large cast iron pot, which was also used to heat water for scalding the hog, and cooked to render the lard from them. The gratons were cooked and seined out of the hot lard, then salt was sprinkled on them, and sweet potatoes were usually sliced and dropped on the lard. The potatoes were said to remove the burnt taste, if any, in the lard. As soon as the potatoes were cooked, they were taken out sprinkled with sugar. These potatoes and gratons were ultimate snack of the day.

4 June 2008 - It was a bit of an eye opener, and an extremely fun trip, when Bryan and I made a visit to Texas, about 50 miles north of Houston, close to the Anderson/Carlos area, right smack dab in the middle of Polish immigrant country. On Friday, May 16th, we met with Cory McCauley, Jason Babineaux (who turns out to be a cousin I'd never met) and Brian Marshall, certified Pollock, and our host. Our initial reason for the trip was for camping and squirrel hunting, but it turned to be the biggest unplanned music jams I had ever been on, and a cultural education. No sooner had we arrived at our camping destination, which turned to be in a cow pasture with quite a few trees, when musical instruments started coming out, and set the tone of the outing for the entire week-end. From about 3 o'clock that afternoon until about 12:30 that night, it was non-stop music; Cajun, Country Swing and Polish. Neighbors started coming in, to the tune of about a dozen, or so, most, if not all, playing some type of musical instrument, and by chance, happened to have it with them. Many of them were able to play 2 to 3 different instruments. There were fiddle players, accordion players, guitar players and "Tit fer" players. Oh, we did manage a short hunt on Saturday morning, netting 3 squirrels, and all by Cory. Upon returning to camp Saturday morning, the music started once again, and lasted until about 12-1 o'clock that night.

I had always assumed that we Cajuns were the only ones targeted by language eradication attempt by the government, but I'm am finding out that all non-English languages were intended victims of this eradication. Many cultures have lost their language completely already, such as the Houma Indians of South Louisiana. The irony with the Houma is that their language was replaced by a unique Cajun French. The Polish community is experiencing an awakening, much like ours, and an effort is being made to save the culture, language and their unique and beautiful music. Our host, Brian Marshall, an accomplished fiddle player, and can also play accordion and guitar, is one of those people working to help with this preservation. He has a fairly good knowledge of the language and an excellent knowledge of the music. Jim Mazurkiewicz, another certified Pollock, and an agricultural professor at Texas A&M, who also joined us Friday night, has fluent knowledge of the language and the music, is also working for this preservation. Jim plays the Concertina accordion.

For the last several years, on my trips to Texas for squirrel hunting, time spent at the camp ground with Bryan, and our playing together, had always been more important than the hunt. This trip was no exception. In fact, I think that the short hunt may have actually taken precious time away from the activity at the camp. Go figure! There's certainly no fun in growing old, but, the mellowing, and a change of priorities, certainly is. This week-end - with great music, good food, super camaraderie - will never be forgotten.

9 October 2007 - It has been approximately 6 months since I've written an entry in "My Ramblings," and for that I apologize - my mind has apparently been on a leave of absence (it's beginning to take quite a few of those, I'm afraid).

My wife, Pinky, and I went to the Robert's Cove Germanfest this last Saturday and enjoyed a lot of nice Alpine music and good food; foods with unfamiliar names, but, with very familiar taste. I might also add that they had a little beer there, also - 3 small "tanker trucks" of it. These descendants of German immigrants, who settled on a Spanish land grant to Benjamin Robert in 1881 that became known as Robert's Cove, are very diligent in their work to preserve the history, traditions, and culture of their ancestors. Their museum on the St. Leo church grounds where the festival is held, tells the story. The one thing that is having trouble surviving is their German language. I'm told that only some of the older folks still speak the language. Sounds familiar? It appears that the effort to eliminate all languages except English, in early 1900, all but killed the German language in Robert's Cove, also. There are many questions that I didn't ask, mostly because everyone  knowledgeable were very busy. Were their children punished for speaking German at school? How many of the older people still speak it? Is there an effort to save the language (I think that there might be)?

I did do something last week-end that I had not done in about 15 years because of my work. I went squirrel hunting on opening week-end. I usually skipped the opener because I was too tired from helping to prepare other hunters for that week-end. I've made the decision to start closing my store on Saturdays and started this last Saturday, allowing me to go in the afternoon, after the trip to the Germanfest, to meet my hunting buddy, Roland Guillory, in North Louisiana for a week-end hunt. Naturally, I didn't get many (one), but Roland got enough for both of us, so, I was able to get my fill of squirrel gravy. It was so nice to be in the woods, even though it was a little hot for the season. I am very muchlooking forward to the rest of the season.

17 April 2007 - It's time to indulge in a little reminiscing and travel to yesteryear; 1956-57 to be exact. For a short one and half years, or so, I relived a mode of transportation that my parents, and many of my ancestors, used on a daily basis - the one horse buggy. Why a desire to have a buggy at the age of fifteen or sixteen, my feeble memory will not allow me to remember. What memories it created! I traveled all over the area in my buggy, drawn by my trusty saddle mare (my best non-human friend in those days) named Beauty. The woods was my most popular haunt. That was before the age of "Posted!" My neighborhood friends and I were almost daily buggy travelers in the L'Anse Grise countryside and woods. We went visiting, fishing and camping with the buggy. Our favorite spot for fishing and camping was a place, about three quarters of a mile back in the woods, called "La Vielle Barre," which was once the site of a dam in Bayou Nezpiqué that was used to back up water for pumping into rice fields. Another one of our popular spots was a place, on the same bayou, called "Le Grand Trou." It was so called because it was the site of a few dynamite explosions in the bayou for some unknown purpose; maybe some "sport fishermen" of the day. The explosions caused a fairly large and deep hole in the bayou and was a popular place for swimming, and for fishing.

One faithful night we decided to take a midnight buggy ride at "La Veille Barre." There were five people on that ride. We entered the woods at the usual place that night, but without any light whatsoever. Being so familiar with the woods there, I was usually able to make my way very easily to the bayou, even on the darkest night, but somewhere I took a wrong turn. I only had to turn left a few feet to get back on track, so I attempted the turn and the right front wheel, being an older and weaker wheel, shattered. Not having a spare (buggy wheels were hard to find in those days), we did the only thing that we could - we unhitched the mare from the buggy and we all climbed on poor Beauty. She was a good sport and easily brought us all home. We were able to go back the next day and get a picture of the disaster, but couldn't retrieve the buggy for some reason. When I was able to get to the buggy again to pick it up, someone had apparently found it and helped themselves to the other three wheels. As I said before, wheels were hard to come by and I wasn't ever able to find any more. So ended our buggy days.

I had forgotten about the picture and just recently has it been discovered in a friends scrape book. Ruby, thanks for the picture. You've made an old man extremely happy and rekindled many, many good memories. Luckily, this page is digital, or it would have a few teardrop stains on it.

9 March 2007 - As of the last two months, or so, I have been working on learning to play the fiddle. Not an easy task for old man, even for someone who has been playing music (guitar) for about 54 years. I received the fiddle as a gift from Bryan who acquired it from one his friends, who found it in a flea market, in bad need of repair. Bryan restored it to perfect condition, which was an accomplishment considering that it is about 100 years old. I hasten to say that the unexpected gift brought forth quite a few tears to eyes. Having acquired it this way put a little more pressure to validate the gift by learning to play at least a few songs on it. I have come a long way with it since I first put it in my hands for Christmas. The fiddle is one of the three or four instruments that I have always wanted to learn, but, for one reason or another, never did; mostly because of the cost of experimentation.

I can almost play about a dozen songs, that is, with many mistakes. The first of two things that are the hardest for me, is holding the fiddle under the chin so that my hand can go back and forth on the neck of the fiddle. I find myself catching the fiddle periodically to pull it back in position. Holding the fiddle with the chin also causes an old man's neck to hurt after a while. The second thing that is causing me problems, and is probably the worst one, is the action of the bow. It must be kept at right angles with the strings for a good sound, at the right distance between the bridge and butt of neck, and must be kept at such an angle that prevents it from touching more than one string. Not an easy feat when concentrating on the song being played and all of these other factors. I tend to ride the bow up to far up the neck or back up on the bridge, both producing very unappealing sounds. In spite of the obstacles, nothing beats the fun of trying to learn to play an instrument, and the excitement that I get when I get something right. I'm pretty sure I'll never master the fiddle, but if I can get good enough to play with a group, then I'll be happy. I hope that by next Mardi Gras I'll be playing well enough to furnish some the music that day. On va 'oir.

23 February 2007 - Our 2007 L'Anse Grise Children's Mardi Gras Run has been great success again this year. I think everyone, including the grown-ups, had fun. My chickens performed surprisingly well in eluding the little chasers for quite a while before getting caught. Lucky for the chickens, after all of the their effort, they were spared from the gumbo pot - for now. The kids, I think, all had a good time and some were not ready to quit when we did. Some more planning is needed, I think, to elaborate some on the chicken chases.

As well as the neighborhood run went, I was a little disappointed that the yard party afterwards was a little lethargic, maybe because of having eaten upon returning after the run - not sure.

It was pleasure to have everyone who participated in run at our home to partake in the gumbo that was prepared and visit with us during our yard party. I was also very excited to have as visitors musicians Cory McCauley, Bobby Michot and his family, and Anthropologist Rocky Sexton. One of the highlights of the my day was having son Bryan coming up to join us on the bandstand and playing his accordion for the first time with a live band and doing extremely well. He only started playing the accordion about 8 months ago.

8 November 2006 - North Texas and L'Anse Grise is coming together to form new musical group! Bryan has been learning to play the accordion at a fairly rapid pace and is now able to play a few songs well enough for me to accompany him with a rhythm guitar, which is really exciting for me. Since the music is being played acoustically and I had no acoustic guitar, I purchased a Fender acoustic box this last week-end. Every chance we get, Bryan and I are hopefully going to enjoy "getting down" on French music.

Earlier this year, I appointed myself as Bryan's future booking manager for his accordion and I have already booked him for Sunday, February 18th 2007, when it is projected that our Children's Mardi Gras Run will take place. I have faith that he will be ready to produce danceable music by then. We should be able to go "on tour" within another year, right after his first major recording session. Bryan has already come up with a name for the group - "Les Couillons" - I like it! Reste avec, Bryan!

2 October 2006 - I  thought it was time for an update on my chicken project. I have bought small chicks in the spring of this year and also bought some in early September. All are doing very well. In the spring I bought Rhode Island Red chickens because that was all that was available, but this fall I bought two breeds, Buff Orpington (orange color) and Barred Rock (Jinga for you French speakers). The Rhode Islands have already provided a few good meals.

My reason for buying the "Jingas" is because of a version of the Mardi Gras song recorded by Austin Pitre. In the song he says "Donnez-moi, quand même, une 'tite poule jinga pour un gumbo...," "give us, anyway a small jinga chicken for a gumbo..." I decided that I just had to have a few for Mardi Gras.Here is a picture of my jinga:

Hopefully these chickens will have enough speed to give the little Mardi Gras a good chase. More importantly,  they had better be good in a gumbo. We shall see - come February 20th, 2007.

19 September 2006 - I apologize for not being more active on the website lately, especially on "My Ramblings" section. There are two reasons for that; one is that extra time has been a little hard to come by lately because of preparations in the store for the hunting seasons, which have now started. The second reason is simply because I had really nothing to say, and I have always preached to myself that, when I have nothing to say it is best say nothing. There are too many people who talk when they have nothing to say, I wouldn't like to be one of them.

We are beginning to think about next year's Children's L'Anse Grise Mardi Gras run for 2007. Mardi Gras with be on the 20th of February next year, and I presume (because we have not discussed it, yet) that our run will be on the 18th - Sunday before Mardi Gras. We're hoping and planning to have a better and more organized celebration this coming February. We will probably start planning in earnest in another couple of months. Our small boucherie, which has not been scheduled yet, will more than likely start the planning process. More later.

30 June 2006 - By guest "Rambler"  Bryan Lafleur

2 June 2006 - As somewhat of a footnote to the previous article, see this article on the French in Maine.

New York Times Article

It appears that the French in Maine had almost the identical problem with French in schools that we had.

2 June 2006 - My topic today has more of serious note to it. The future of our local and colloquial French language is in danger of disappearing forever. Our so-called Cajun language has been in Louisiana, in some form, for over 300 years. Although it has evolved much, mainly due to lack of formal teaching, it has, none-the-less, served south Louisiana's French speaking people well. The different dialects found here is a result of this non-teaching and, also, because of the location in France that our ancestors were from before coming to Louisiana. France probably has just as many dialects, or more, than Louisiana does. The result of not having any formal teaching of French in Louisiana has forced many people to learn the language by ear, and that has caused us to learn many words and phrases incorrectly. So, now, not only do we have the many dialects that were brought over by our ancestors, we also have these "mistakes" that have been introduced. The biggest cause of the many differences in our language, which is even evident from community to community, has been the lack of formal education.

Until the early 1950s, French was the principle language in most households of Louisiana's French descendants. I personally did not learn my first word of English until I started school in 1947, and I was not the only one. Sometime in the early 1930s, or maybe even before, our all-knowing government decided that speaking French made us all look "stupid" and "unintelligent" and decreed that there would be no more French spoken or taught in schools. The use of French was to be discouraged at every opportunity. They did not succeed at the time in keeping us from speaking the language among ourselves or at home, mostly because we were more comfortable with it than English. It was not immediately killed in the schools, but it ended up going "underground." When we spoke it, we made sure that no one in authority could hear us; there were sometimes harsh consequences for getting "caught." Although, it didn't stop us from using the language, it did have the affect of keeping many of the younger generation from learning to speak French, and even more sadly, many of us from that generation bought into the notion of looking "stupid" and "unintelligent" and subconsciously kept our own children from learning French. After all, who wants their children to grow up to be, or look, "stupid and unintelligent," and have all the problems that we had? Although we didn't expressly discourage it, to our discredit we didn't teach our children the French language. Although my wife and I both knew the French language well, we hardly ever communicated in French at home. I cannot think a reason why, except for convenience. I spoke French with my parents because they had a problem with speaking English and my wife spoke mostly English with her parents. I think our situation was a rather typical one. Luckily some of these children, my three children included, heard enough French to retain some of the words that they heard in memory. My children didn't learn the language at home, but one did learn the language 22 or 23 years after leaving home, and my oldest daughter reminded me this morning that, although they didn't learn the language at home, they were still rich in the culture that comes with the language, without having learned it. For that I am pleased.

The Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL) was created in 1968 by the Louisiana state legislature, to try to preserve a language that they, the legislature, apparently initially tried to destroy. A noble plan! Teachers from France were brought over to teach our young children French in our schools, but the French the kids were learning didn't sound anything like the French "Memere" and "Pepere" were used to hearing, and so, in many cases, was not useable. The problem was, and still is, that we have not enough qualified local French speakers to teach local French. Even if local teachers are available, it then becomes a problem of which dialect to teach, Vermillion Parish or Evangeline Parish? A consensus on which dialect to teach has, so far, eluded us, although great strides have been made. Some perfectionists say that we should not teach a language with so many mistakes in it, or that these mistakes should be corrected. Luckily, much more people want to keep the language with the imperfections. To these perfectionists I ask, if you inherited an heirloom piece of furniture, that one of your eighteenth-century ancestors made by hand, but it was not made with preciseness, had imperfections and not made with elegant wood, would you throw it away, or, tear it apart and rebuild it because of that? The obvious answer is no. It is to be documented and preserved in its present condition. It's the same with our language. It should be documented and preserved, with all of its so-called inequities and not allowed to erode further. Although CODOFIL has not been a total success, in my judgment, it should be commended for its efforts to preserve our French, and for helping to re-instill pride in our French language. We are very fortunate to have a hand full of professional educators, and a growing group of citizens, young and old, who are working diligently to bring life back to our language, and our culture, and are attempting to preserve and promote it. More power to them!

I shall now quietly dismount from my soap box.

25 May 2006 - I have thrust myself into the chicken-raising business (again). I started raising chickens when we moved to L'Anse Grise in about 1965 until about 4 or 5 years ago. I've been trying to remember lately why I quit! It'll come back to me, I'm sure. You just can't beat the taste of a good homegrown chicken, especially in a gumbo, or pot fried, in a stew...well, you get the picture. They also substantially liven up a Mardi Run and gumbo.

Actually, I think that the underlying reason that I'm raising chickens again, is to try to breed a chicken that would have more stamina, run faster and longer when being chased by Mardi Gras, and still taste good in a gumbo (a strict requirement). Although we are very grateful to Carl and Tiffany Vidrine for providing those 2 chickens for our 2006 Children's Mardi Gras Run, I remember that those 2 chickens were not able to get away from their pursuers. I have studied a few other runs, and noticed that all of the chickens get caught. I've never seen one get away. So I've figured out that the chickens are just not bred for this kind activity. My only problem is that I don't know which breed of chicken runs the fastest, or the longest. I was toying with the idea of crossing a banty chicken with a roadrunner. That should produce the just about the right results, but catching a roadrunner would be a major problem. Come to think of it, if I were to succeed in producing a chicken that could not be caught, then how would we ever get them in the pot?  I'd better scrap that idea and stick producing just a good eating chicken. They had better taste as good as I remember because, I've spent enough money renovating the old chicken pen, and for chicks and feed, to buy about 40 clean, dressed, chickens at the store, and all I have, so far is, 10, 4'-5" tall, chicks that have no chance of seeing a pot for at least another 1½ to 2 months. In the meantime, if anybody knows how to create a breed of uncatchable chickens that can somehow be brought to the pot when needed, please, let me know.

19 May 2006 - I visited the Evangeline Parish Library in Ville Platte this week in an effort to find the earliest recorded mention of the name L'Anse Grise. I started my search with the microfilm collection of the Ville Platte Gazette. The microfilm of the Ville Platte Gazette has the full copies of the Gazette starting from the year 1916 to around 2002. Researching these microfilm for one specific subject is very difficult because of all of the interesting articles and advertising. I found myself going into too many different directions and had to stop often and re-focus. I have, to date, gone through the years 1916 through May of 1923.

On the same trip, I made a stop at the Evangeline Parish Courthouse, and searched early succession papers of a few people that I knew were from L'Anse Grise, but to no avail. I am disappointed that I  was  not able to find one instance where the name was used, in the Gazette, or successions, but I have not given up and will try again at the next opportunity. I'll have to be better prepared with a list of names of people from L'Anse Grise for my next trip.

 9 May 2006 - Bryan and I took trip to heaven this last week-end - on a squirrel hunt in north-central Texas. We have been doing it twice a year, in spring and fall. We arrived there on Friday at noon, and set up camp (tent) along Catfish Creek, in Gus Engeling WMA. We made a hunt that afternoon, which is when I got my only squirrel of the week-end. That night, we cook a pot of fresh catfish in an old black pot with legs, on an open fire. That was some of the best fish I have had in a long time. That night, after midnight, we were hit a thunder storm that sent water running right through our tent.  Having bedded on the floor, some of our stuff got a little wet. We were up by 5 and most of the early morning was spent hanging our wet equipment to dry. It wasn't too bad, we were dry by that afternoon. Bryan's friend and neighbor, Mark and his two sons, Zack and Blake, joined us Saturday at noon. As usual, Bryan did most of the squirrel killing with a total count of 7, while Mark and I got each a one. Saturday evening we cooked the 9 squirrels in a brown gravy. When we finished eating, the pot was so clean that I could have almost put it up. Blake caught a 3-4 pound catfish on a set line that he had put in the creek when they arrived. He cleaned that thing and wrapped it with aluminum foil with seasoning and onions, then threw it in the campfire coals. His fish was cooked before our squirrels were, so he ate his fish for supper. He did have a little desert of squirrel and gravy after. It was a week-end to remember (good crop of ticks helped us to remember). You can find pictures of the camping area here:

Texas Camping Trip