I’ll Have Some Lagnaippe with that Fish Sandwich…

The First Friday Power Breakfast this month was held on the second Friday. Art Kimbrough had an excuse for this, but I simply believe that he lost count. I take Art to lunch on occasion and he always pays me back by inviting me to the First Friday Breakfast. Meal for meal we are even. Dollar for dollar……….

The program went well. Jamie Streetman gave up the gavel with good grace and a big smile to incoming Chair Sarah Clemmons. Sarah spoke with enthusiasm about the future. Art passed on to her, surreptitiously, a note that I was never to be allowed more than three minutes to pose a question from the floor. Everything was shipshape and 4.0.

And then the Sue Harrison of the Southeast Community Blood Center made an appeal for donors. Everyone avoided looking at her, but I felt especially guilty. I had not contributed blood for over forty years. I assumed that the older I got the less likely I would be acceptable as a donor. And I have a thing against volunteering.

I came by this because my father, in his great wisdom, sent me to Florida Southern College in Lakeland when I was seventeen. I could have easily attended the newly-coed Florida State University in nearby Tallahassee, where the ratio of female to male students was about 20 to one. Florida Southern was affiliated with the Methodist Church and required each student to take courses in religion. FSU has often been acclaimed as one of the foremost party campuses in the country. The ratio at Southern was about six to one against me, and I was bashful to boot. So I was mixed in with a heap of returning ex GIs, men who had fought through the dark days of World War II. They gave me a lot of advice. The best was never volunteer for anything.

This was well received, but on occasion during my time in the U. S. Navy I went against it. I survived my initial five years, though, and returned to Chattahoochee in 1956. My father outlined his expectations. Of course I would be expected to take over his Ford dealership some day, so that he could travel with Mother to all of those places he had carefully avoided in their years of married life. He expected me to have a lot to do in and for the community: Rotary Club as soon as there was an opening for me; High School boosters club, even though I had never set foot on an sports field or basketball court; the Methodist Church.

I immediately became active in the Boosters’ Club, and when there was a classification opening I was inducted into Rotary. Then he sent me to the Church. He told me that I was to go down to see Don Padgett, the pastor, and tell him to give me a job. He said: “When he recovers from the shock, he will give you a good position“. Don did as he was expected, and I ended up as the first male chair of the local Commission on Missions.

But what is the connection between this and the Blood Center? Simply this: as I headed back to Sneads on Friday, I thought that I might check to see if I was really too old. I went in, hoping that I would be turned down. I asked if eighty was not too old. I was shocked. Age has nothing to do with it. Medication? I was good there, too. What about my time in the Navy, and all of the foreign seaports I had visited? All of this was before 1980, so I was clear. Rhonda, the nurse, hinted that if I had caught any of the diseases common to those places I would not likely be walking around today. I filled out the forms and a pretty young lady named Audrey held my hand and took my blood pressure and stuck my finger with a needle, and escorted me into THE ROOM. Comfortable couches awaited me. There was some discussion about my veins, but Jimmy, who could find a vein in a flea‘s front leg, handled that. Audrey brought me a bottle of Lagniappe. I was hoping for Wild Turkey, since I am a bird watcher, but I got orange juice. And today I learned that the Center will contribute five dollars for every pint of blood to “Doctors Without Borders” for their use in Haiti. The orange juice was good, but this is even better.

So I had volunteered, and the only bad thing that has happened since then is that my computer quit, but I don’t really think that this was due to my volunteering.

And now you need to understand Lagnaippe, pronounced something like “laun-yap”. It means “a little something extra”.

To better explain Lagnaippe, I offer this example. I go into *Suitman of Florida*, and Gene Smith fits me with one of his fine Navy blue blazers, replete with proper width lapels and gold buttons. In a fit of generosity, Gene selects a necktie from the $2.95 rack and presents it to me. That is Lagnaippe, in the truest sense of the word, as I defined it. It is “a little something extra”. Gene did not even pause in front of the $25 neckties.

I often have lunch or dinner in *Madison’s*, and Mark the Proprietor is always pleased to see me. I order a fish sandwich, and it is brought to me as I am accustomed to having it: no bread, no potatoes, no salad, and no “sides” of any kind. It is has a slice of lemon and a small container of sauce, and it is laid on the table as though it is the finest dish in the house. I pay full price, and I am pleased to do so. But on occasion the chef, or Mark, or one of the waitresses, adds a scoop of vegetables to the platter so that it won’t look so bare. This is “Lagnaippe”. It would also please my dear departed mother, who always kept after me to eat my vegetables.

Please notice a couple of things about this rather rambling article. I have introduced you to another Cajun term. I have explained that I was taught never to volunteer. And I have recently volunteered and it didn’t hurt at all. I met some nice people by doing this, people that seemed impressed with my goals for my next decade, with my newspaper column and with my repertoire of Viagra jokes.

Out in our community there are many opportunities for volunteers, opportunities for you to give some lagnaippe. Here are a few.

The Chamber has a need for Ambassadors, for volunteers to man the desk at the Russ House and a particular need for someone to assist Art in keeping track of which day is the First Friday and which is the Second.

Partners for Pets is impressive, and serves our community well. One lady that went there for years and cleaned pens and washed the inhabitants became unable to do this kind of work and I commiserated with her. “Oh, no” she said. “I still go, and I sit in a chair and I hold cats in my lap”. The organization will also take cash, old towels and cat and dog food.

I got a message from Cynthia Watkins at Seacrest Wolf Preserve informing me that work days would start in February and continue each Saturday through May. I, along with some twenty active duty Air Force personnel and civilians will be building an enclosure for another wolf couple that have need to live together in sin, and will be picking up wolf poop. I haven’t checked the weather forecast yet, but I can assure you that every other work day will be either extremely cold or extremely hot, with Force 8 storms.

So what is the connection between lagniappe and your volunteering? Just this: your community of Jackson County has given much to you. It is time for you to volunteer your services, to give Lagniappe. You will feel good, as I did (after the blood folks got the needle out of my arm). And you will probably meet some very nice people.