The Lost Summer of 2021: August 30: The Penultimate Day

A receipt stuck into a bag stuck into a backpack told me part of the story of the lost summer's penultimate day.

Time: 

17:23. Also known as 5:23 p.m.

Monday, August 30, 2021.

Location: 

A grocery store in Monroe, Louisiana. Well north of the Boudin Curtain, sha. More like Mississippi than Louisiana.

What I bought: 

• Cream cheese spread
• Something "fresh, no sugar"
• Some watermelon. Probably a quarter of a whole or a container of chunks.
  

I stayed the night at the Budget Inn in Monroe, which was my go-to lodging in the Lost Summer of 2021. I paid $70. 

I have no photographic evidence of this day, so I will insert a photo from a past life, rooted, which I'd titled: "Lost my head and it's all a blur," which seems apropos. 

Lost my head and it's all a blur. Missouri. Christmas 2007. Credit: Mzuriana.

I might'nt have devoted a whole post to this day, but for the damn receipt. Faded, worn, the paper softened, after sitting in that backpack for so long, my hand rubbing past it untold number of times when I rummaged through the bag for something. 

Related posts to Lost Summer of 2021 here.

Bonita, Louisiana: Holy Ghost Disturbed Church

Holy Ghost Disturbed Church, Bonita, Louisiana.

Not to make light of the name, but it disturbs me there is a church called "Holy Ghost Disturbed Church." Hopefully, someone can reassure me that the reality of this church is different, but I can only think that this little church envelops its flock in sadness and despair.

Another passerby conjectured the name might be related to the waters of the river Siloam (aka Shiloah), but I don't have the Biblical literacy to suss out the connection, despite my research. Maybe someone can enlighten me.

To tell you the truth, the church's name reflects somewhat how I feel when I take trips North and South. Doesn't matter if I go through Missouri to Arkansas to Mississippi to Louisiana, through Missouri to Tennessee to Mississippi to Louisiana, or through Missouri to Arkansas to Louisiana. There's a lot of poverty to be driven past. It just doesn't seem like we, as a country, really get the extent of our poverty.

Holy Ghost Disturbed Church, Bonita, Louisiana.

The village of Bonita (population 335) is a satellite of Bastrop (population 11,000), which is about 20 miles south of Bonita. Bastrop, by the way, was founded at the end of the 1700s by a Dutch con man.

Bonita and Bastrop are in North Louisiana. Which is not like South Louisiana at all.

North Louisiana: Columbia

 

Columbia, Louisiana

On my way back to Missouri from Louisiana for my annual interregnum, I passed through Columbia, Louisiana.

Cemetery Hill,  Columbia, Louisiana

It was the first time I'd been in North Louisiana since I knew there was a North Louisiana, as opposed to South Louisiana.

Columbia, Louisiana

My buddy, Dave Robicheaux, doesn't seem to like North Louisianans much, but it seems impolite to go into the details when I'm actually in North Louisiana in this post. Maybe we'll chat later.

Louisiana: What They Do in North Louisiana For Fun

Heretofore, my primary cultural informant on northern Louisianans has been Dave Robicheaux, and he's a fictional character. Dave doesn't think much of northern Louisianans.

An actual North Louisianan recently offered me some information about his homeland.

While it may be true that not much drinkin,' dancin,' music-makin' or boudin-eatin' may be going on (and y'all know these are sure-fire fun), let it not be said that North Louisianans don't know how to have a good time.

Three Things North Louisianans Like to Do for Fun: 

1. Poke a wasp nest with a stick and then run like H- E - Double Hockey Sticks

This was a favorite, childhood past-time of my informant. As noted above, my informant is of the male persuasion, information that is probably redundant considering the nature of the activity.


2. Tie a string to a june bug's leg and fly him like a kite.

When the same North Louisianan told me that when he was a child, he and his friends would tie a string around a june bug's leg and walk behind it while it flew, it sounded fantastical, but, damn, it's true! Not just in North Louisiana, but elsewhere. 

Below is a story about this very thing from a North Carolinian. The story is called June Bugs, a page from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Story, administered by the library of the same name.  I wouldn't normally post an entire story from another source, but this well-told story seems to be on an archive page, and I'd hate for it to be lost in the ethernet. Wish I knew the author's name.

I REMEMBER THE FUN we had during June bug time. These big green bugs appeared from nowhere just about the season that our peaches got ripe.

We would get up early in the morning to hunt June bugs. The only equipment needed was a jar to put them in and string to tie on their legs. We had to be very particular about the kind of string we used because a piece that was too heavy would cut down on their ability to "june," and a piece that was too fine and sharp would cut off their hind legs.

An overripe peach was an excellent place to find June bugs since they like to eat soft fruit. Whenever we spied a cluster of them on a peach, we crept up on them as quietly as a cat stalks a mouse. The poor unsuspecting bugs would be poised with their heads down in the fruit and their fat green bodies sticking up, enjoying a luscious meal when our hands would close over them like a vise. They scrambled madly in our hands. Sometimes the tickling of their tiny feet was too much, and we’d have to let go. Usually, we held on until one or two were deposited in the jar.

After a good number were caught, we selected a big strong-looking bug and tied a string on his hind leg. Then we were ready for him to "june." When we threw him out in the air he would fly frantically in an arc making a buzzing sound. Sometimes one would be stubborn and wouldn’t begin to fly quickly enough to suit us, so we would give him a few hard swings around in the air to stir him up and start him buzzing.

We always evaluated each bug’s ability to "june" because some performed much better than others. As they were put through the selection process, the strings with the best "juners" were tied to a banister or a bush while the auditions continued. Quite frequently, all of the tethered ones would decide to start buzzing and flying around at the same time. This created quite a commotion and became a serious problem.

"Oh!" we screamed as we saw what was happening and then made a dive for them, but we were often too slow. The strings would get tangled in a hopeless mass as the bugs buzzed in and out around each others before we could separate them. In desperation, we would cut them loose and let them fly away, strings dangling behind them like kite tails. Sometimes, the poor things would get caught on a limb or a bush and hang there buzzing madly. If they were not too high up in a tree, we would try to liberate them, but their fate was often to provide a bird with a delectable dinner.

I mustn’t forget the awful stink that accompanied hunting for June bugs. They had a sickening odor that made vigorous hand washing necessary before the smell could be eradicated.

We usually emptied our jar of bugs in the evening, but each morning during June bug time, we would again be on the hunt to replenish the jars with big green bugs.

3. Immigrate to South Louisiana

  

Louisiana Lit: Dave Robicheaux and Northern Louisianans

Acadian flag

A refresher on the three states of Louisiana

Back here, I talked about the three states of Louisiana (plus Baton Rouge).

In brief, there are: 

• southern Louisiana, of which Acadiana is a large part --> Cajun (by way of France and Canada), creole (by way of Mali and Senegal, perhaps Caribbean), French language, Catholic
• New Orleans - French, Afro-Caribbean, German, Italian, Catholic
• northern Louisiana - Arkansas/Mississippi/Texas orientation --> Baptist
• (Baton Rouge --> LSU and football)

Dave Robicheaux

Dave Robicheaux is the protagonist in 20 books by James Lee Burke. He's a homicide detective in New Iberia, Louisiana. Cajun. Recovering alcoholic. Viet Nam war veteran. A man who marries. A father.


Dave's views on northern Louisianans

I'll let Dave do his own talking on this issue.

From Neon Rain (1987):

 ... he had the flat green eyes and heavy facial bones of north Louisiana hill people. He smelled faintly of dried sweat, Red Man, and talcum powder.  ....

... They were big men, probably Cajuns like myself, but their powerful and sinewy bodies, their tight-fitting, powder-blue uniforms, polished gunbelts and holsters, glinting bullets and revolver butts made you think of backwoods Mississippi and north Louisiana, as though they'd had to go away to learn redneck cruelty.

From Burning Angel (1995):

... When the two guards, both of them narrow-eyed and cheerless piney woods crackers, brought him into the reception room and sat him down in front of a scarred wood table in front of us and slipped another chain around his belly and locked it behind the chair, which was bolted to the floor, I said it would be all right if they waited outside. ...


From A Stained White Radiance (1992):

Two men in suits stepped in front of me, and one of them stiff-armed me in the shoulder with the heel of his hand. ...

'Where you think you're going, buddy?' he said. His breath was rife with the smell of cigars.
'Yeah? Who's that with you? The African para-troopers?' he said.
'He's FBI, you peckerwood shithead,' I said. 'Now, you get the fuck out of my way.'
Mistake, mistake, I thought, even as the words came out of my mouth. Don't humiliate north Louisiana stump-jumpers in front of either their women or the boss man.



Heh, heh, heh, he said "peckerwood"

I'm not sure I ever heard the word peckerwood until I read a hilarious book by Percival Everett, I Am Not Sidney Poitier: A Novel. Dave Robicheaux' reference to peckerwoods reminds me of one of Not Sidney Poitier's misadventures.

Mr. Everett is ruthless in his lampooning of back-back-back-backwoods white folk in the same way some white folks like to characterize black folks. In the book, a black man named Not Sidney Poitier's life seems to roll out in vignettes of Sidney Poitier movies. In the example below, he was arrested for, more or less, driving while black in rural Georgia:

Once you leave Atlanta, you're in Georgia. 

... a flashing blue bubble atop a black and white county sheriff's patrol car. I watched as the nine-foot tall, large-headed, large-hatted, mirror-sunglassed manlike thing unfolded from his car, closed his door, and walked toward me - one hairy-knuckled suitcase of a hand resting on his insanely large and nasty-looking pistol, the knuckles of the other hand dragging on the ground.

.... Before I could whistle Dixie .... there were three more black and white patrol cars and similarly brown-shirt-clad miscreants swinging their long arms around me.* There was a lot of whooping and chattering and hoo-hahing and head-scratching about whether my license was phony, about whether my car was stolen, it was just too clean, ..... 

... I was taken to the town of Peckerwood, the county seat of the county of the same name .... We rolled through pine trees across spiderwebbed and cracked asphalt deeper into the county's colon. We stopped finally at the farm. Shacks and more shacks, rows of dusty nothing, with many trees that managed to provide no shade at all. 

"What do they grow here?" I asked no one in particular, but for some stupid reason said it aloud. 

"This here is a dirt farm, boy," a mirror-lensed set of eyes shouted at me. "Our dirt crop ain't what it used to be and it never was!" That's what I finally figured out he said. It sounded like: "Dis chere a dir farm, boi. Aw dir crop ain't wha eah yoost to be, but den tit neber wa." .... 

    

*If Dave's sidekick, Clete Purcel, had been there, he would have said they were swinging their dicks around.  

 

Getting back to Dave

I leave you to draw your own conclusions about what South Louisianan Dave Robicheaux thinks of North Louisianans.


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