One of the benefits of being in the inland barge business is the opportunity to get to know the Cajun people.
My first encounter came at the Jackson County Port in 1975. We had loaded our first two barge loads: three thousand tons of crushed cars, 1500 tons per barge, stacked high and lashed down and moored securely to the pier on the Apalachicola River. We waited for the towboat that would take them out and across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to Pinto Island near Mobile. There the cars would be shredded and eventually would wind up as steel.
Around the bend downriver we saw a small push boat, struggling against the current. As we watched she came alongside and we could make out her name. The "Delta Dawn", out of southern Louisiana, had arrived. We assisted in tying her up and Captain Callais came up our ladder. He was Cajun and his language was a mixture of English, Southern and French, with a lot of cuss words thrown in, since he had damaged a rudder on a sandbar downstream. We understood the cuss words best of all.
This began for me an association of over thirty years with the Cajuns, particularly those in the port and barge business along the Gulf coast. "Cajun" is a short version of "Acadian", the French speaking people that were run out of Nova Scotia by the British and ended up in and around what is now Lafayette. Periodically the descendants meet with each other, one year going to Nova Scotia and the next year to Lafayette.
The Cajuns are one of the few cultures in our country that enjoy a good laugh on themselves. When you get to know them well, and are accepted by them, you will hear story after story as they make fun of their own mannerisms, families and customs. When you are called "Cousin" you are being recognized as worthy of sitting at their table, sharing their food and drink and hearing their tall tales, tinged with just enough truth to give credence to them.
Soon you will feel a kinship with Boudreaux and Arseneaux and "Boud’s lovely wife Ma-rie" and you might even feel comfortable enough to eat crawfish by pinching tails and sucking heads, and washing them down with a local beer and then standing up and hollering. You don’t holler because you are hurting, but because it is time. The best is "Hooooo", but any holler will do.
Do you know the reason why many of their last names end with an "x"? When the young men were registering for the draft in the Great War (we call it World War I), many could not sign their names, so young Boudreau made his "X" after his name, and the Army added it to the spelling and he came home as "Boudreaux". They didn’t mind that one bit, and it has stayed with them.
They are proud of their names. I was sitting at a table in a bar in Lafayette with some of my good friends, and one of them I had always heard referred to as "Inner", so I called him that. But soon I found out that he had no first name, but had two initials: "N" and "R", which were combined to be pronounced as "NR" or "Inner". He introduced me to his son Bubba that night. I queried him about this name, which was certainly out of the ordinary down there, and he replied: "Cousin Homer, I din’ wan’ him to have wan of dem crazy Cajun names".
One night a group of us were having dinner in one of New Orleans’ better restaurants, and Cousin Ted selected the wine, and it was a good selection. Then he told the waiter: "put de bottle in a paper bag and put it on de flo’ by me", and the waiter did.
The best of the Cajun stories are visual, and impossible to put into print, but here are some of my favorites.
Arseneaux buys a gas station down in Cut Off, next to the Tippytoe Inn, but his sales were not so good. Boudreaux recommended that he "get a gimmick", giving something away with a fill up. The next day Boud stops and a sign says "Free Sex With Fill Up" and he gets the fill up and announces "I’m ready!". Arseneaux say he got to guess a number between wan and ten ,an’ he guess seven an his frien’ say "you miss it by wan" So de nex’ day de same thing, only Arseneaux say to guess between ten an’ twenty, and ol’ Boud guess fifteen, and he say ‘you miss it by wan’. An he gets mad an’ say: "I bet nobody ever win" an’ Arseneaux he say: "Sho’ dey do. Yo’ wife won……twice!"
The two friends found a job in New Orleans, and would drive up and back every day. An outsider named Brown moved into Cut Off and worked with them and they shared rides. "Wan day dey stop and have three or two beer an’ den three or two mo’ and den Boud ran off de rode and wrek his pickum up truck and Brown gets hisself killed. Arseneaux he say: ‘somebody got to tole Mrs. Brown, but I can’t cause I got no tack’ and den Boud he say ‘I got enough tack I ought to be a diploma’ so he go to Brown’s house an he knock, and de lady come out an he say, ‘are you de Widow Brown?’ An’ she say ‘I’m Mrs. Brown, I’m not the Widow Brown’ and ol’ Boud he say ‘lak hell you ain’t!’".
But I have some bad news. Beaudreaux and Arseneaux got a job up at the Dixie Beer plant, "an wan day Arseneaux come back to Cut Off and go see Boud’s lovely wife Ma-rie, and tole her dat her husban’ done drownd in a vat of beer. After she cry som, she say, ‘well, I hope he din’ suffer much’ and Arseneaux he say ‘I don’ think he did. He got out twice to go to de men’s room’."
(Note: This is dedicated to Bert Benoit, who is from Lafayette, but never gets his name pronounced the same way twice in a row here in Florida)
My first encounter came at the Jackson County Port in 1975. We had loaded our first two barge loads: three thousand tons of crushed cars, 1500 tons per barge, stacked high and lashed down and moored securely to the pier on the Apalachicola River. We waited for the towboat that would take them out and across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to Pinto Island near Mobile. There the cars would be shredded and eventually would wind up as steel.
Around the bend downriver we saw a small push boat, struggling against the current. As we watched she came alongside and we could make out her name. The "Delta Dawn", out of southern Louisiana, had arrived. We assisted in tying her up and Captain Callais came up our ladder. He was Cajun and his language was a mixture of English, Southern and French, with a lot of cuss words thrown in, since he had damaged a rudder on a sandbar downstream. We understood the cuss words best of all.
This began for me an association of over thirty years with the Cajuns, particularly those in the port and barge business along the Gulf coast. "Cajun" is a short version of "Acadian", the French speaking people that were run out of Nova Scotia by the British and ended up in and around what is now Lafayette. Periodically the descendants meet with each other, one year going to Nova Scotia and the next year to Lafayette.
The Cajuns are one of the few cultures in our country that enjoy a good laugh on themselves. When you get to know them well, and are accepted by them, you will hear story after story as they make fun of their own mannerisms, families and customs. When you are called "Cousin" you are being recognized as worthy of sitting at their table, sharing their food and drink and hearing their tall tales, tinged with just enough truth to give credence to them.
Soon you will feel a kinship with Boudreaux and Arseneaux and "Boud’s lovely wife Ma-rie" and you might even feel comfortable enough to eat crawfish by pinching tails and sucking heads, and washing them down with a local beer and then standing up and hollering. You don’t holler because you are hurting, but because it is time. The best is "Hooooo", but any holler will do.
Do you know the reason why many of their last names end with an "x"? When the young men were registering for the draft in the Great War (we call it World War I), many could not sign their names, so young Boudreau made his "X" after his name, and the Army added it to the spelling and he came home as "Boudreaux". They didn’t mind that one bit, and it has stayed with them.
They are proud of their names. I was sitting at a table in a bar in Lafayette with some of my good friends, and one of them I had always heard referred to as "Inner", so I called him that. But soon I found out that he had no first name, but had two initials: "N" and "R", which were combined to be pronounced as "NR" or "Inner". He introduced me to his son Bubba that night. I queried him about this name, which was certainly out of the ordinary down there, and he replied: "Cousin Homer, I din’ wan’ him to have wan of dem crazy Cajun names".
One night a group of us were having dinner in one of New Orleans’ better restaurants, and Cousin Ted selected the wine, and it was a good selection. Then he told the waiter: "put de bottle in a paper bag and put it on de flo’ by me", and the waiter did.
The best of the Cajun stories are visual, and impossible to put into print, but here are some of my favorites.
Arseneaux buys a gas station down in Cut Off, next to the Tippytoe Inn, but his sales were not so good. Boudreaux recommended that he "get a gimmick", giving something away with a fill up. The next day Boud stops and a sign says "Free Sex With Fill Up" and he gets the fill up and announces "I’m ready!". Arseneaux say he got to guess a number between wan and ten ,an’ he guess seven an his frien’ say "you miss it by wan" So de nex’ day de same thing, only Arseneaux say to guess between ten an’ twenty, and ol’ Boud guess fifteen, and he say ‘you miss it by wan’. An he gets mad an’ say: "I bet nobody ever win" an’ Arseneaux he say: "Sho’ dey do. Yo’ wife won……twice!"
The two friends found a job in New Orleans, and would drive up and back every day. An outsider named Brown moved into Cut Off and worked with them and they shared rides. "Wan day dey stop and have three or two beer an’ den three or two mo’ and den Boud ran off de rode and wrek his pickum up truck and Brown gets hisself killed. Arseneaux he say: ‘somebody got to tole Mrs. Brown, but I can’t cause I got no tack’ and den Boud he say ‘I got enough tack I ought to be a diploma’ so he go to Brown’s house an he knock, and de lady come out an he say, ‘are you de Widow Brown?’ An’ she say ‘I’m Mrs. Brown, I’m not the Widow Brown’ and ol’ Boud he say ‘lak hell you ain’t!’".
But I have some bad news. Beaudreaux and Arseneaux got a job up at the Dixie Beer plant, "an wan day Arseneaux come back to Cut Off and go see Boud’s lovely wife Ma-rie, and tole her dat her husban’ done drownd in a vat of beer. After she cry som, she say, ‘well, I hope he din’ suffer much’ and Arseneaux he say ‘I don’ think he did. He got out twice to go to de men’s room’."
(Note: This is dedicated to Bert Benoit, who is from Lafayette, but never gets his name pronounced the same way twice in a row here in Florida)
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