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February 9, 2018LAFOURCHE —ACCIDENT— MORE COMMON THAN PEOPLE REALIZE
February 9, 2018
I remember my life as a Cajun during the last years prior to World War II. The quality of life in Cajun Louisiana remained stable; peace but no prosperity since the Great Depression still had its grip on us as well as the Nation and the World. With the Cajuns, however, bonds of friendship between neighbors and communities existed along with the fact that we were all in the same boat, so let’s sink or swim together depression or not.
Religious, hardworking and united with old traditions, the Cajuns fared better than others. To visualize the territory, take a Louisiana map and draw a line from Marksville in the north, to the Southwest Texasl Louisiana Coastal border, to Boothville in the east, and back to Marksville. Within the mostly rural areas of that triangle resided the Cajuns of Louisiana, ancestors of a people forcefully deported from their Acadian homeland generations ago. For this we are eternally grateful. SUBMITIED In this week’s piece, historical colunmist Leroy Martin remembers the good, old days-life in Louisiana during the times of World War II. Mr. Leroy looks back at some old Cajun boucheries he’s lived through during his days – some of the best parties he’.~ seen.
Although generally believed, President Roosevelt did not single handedly end the Great Depression. World War II did, and at a great cost to all.
F.D.R., however, was a great leader and just who we needed in those dark times. He united the country in a common cause as never before or since. He probably saved democracy as we know it, and should be fondly remembered for that. Three pictures hung on most Cajun walls, including ours, Jesus, FDR and Huey P. Long.
As for the Cajuns, most every family had a cow, and sometimes a goat, for milk and ice cream, chickens for eggs and Sunday dinner, a garden patch for vegetables and pigs for boucheries.
To illustrate the era, I quote from an old Jimmie Rodgers’ blues song: “We got pigs at the trough, tators in the patch, corn in the crib and hens about to hatch. A bull and a cow and a mule and a plow, and there ain’t no hard times here.”
Maybe we didn’t have all that, but his songs spoke for the masses. It was said that a typical store order at that time was “a sack of flour, a gallon of coal oil and the latest Jimmie Rodgers record.”
I read that quote in over a dozen books, so there had to be some truth in it because he sure was popular, selling millions of records during hard times. As a singing star, he was then what Elvis later became. He died of tuberculosis in 1933 and I later became good friends with his widow … butthat’s another story.
As for our quality of life, we had no electricity, phone, water, gas or auto repair bills because we read by kerosene lamps (we called it coal oil that sold for 15 cents a gallon), cooked on a wood stove, communicated by rural free delivery, had 3 cent stamps, used our roof to collect water in our cistern (the mosquito larval were lagniappe), and who had a car?
The doctor would make house calls at $3.00 a visit and accepted eggs for payment. We had a 5-cent block of ice delivered daily for the icebox. Seafood was plentiful because everyone had at least one fisherman in the family, and we shared, not Facebook sharing either. Like the hit song of the times said, “who could ask for anything more?”
And the boucheries … Ah! The boucheries … creme de la creme! In a future column I’ll describe this joyful event in graphic details with a warning, not for the squeamish!
Some years ago while attending an assessor forum in St. Louis, Missouri, an oil company representative asked me, not derogatively, but in casual conversation, “How did you Cajuns fare out during the Great Depression?”
“Not too good”, I answered. “Sometimes all we had to eat was broiled jumbo shrimp, tenderloin trout, boiled crabs and crawfish, oysters on the half shell, jambalaya, gumbo, fried chicken, boudin and ham steaks, all chased down with home brewed beer wine, and product from a nearby still and … “
“Stop, enough!” he said. “I feel so sorry seeing how you all must have suffered.”
We had a good laugh and ordered another round. Bye now.
‘As for the Cajuns, most every family had a cow, and sometimes a goat for milk and ice cream … ‘
In this week’s piece, historical colunmist Leroy Martin remembers the good, old days-life in Louisiana during the times of World War II. Mr. Leroy looks back at some old Cajun boucheries he’s lived through during his days – some of the best parties he’.~ seen.
