Monday, September 3, 2018


Monday, 3 September


The LATEST
“My own twisted look at my visible part of the world!”

Most people have graduated high school with a mixture of relief that is it is finally over, and fear and anxiety for their future.  I graduated over fifty years ago, and, although the rumors are common, there is no basis in fact for the legend that it took a SWAT team to get me out of there.  I didn’t like school the first day, I didn’t like the last day, and I didn’t like any of the days in between.  I don’t know why people have so much trouble understanding that. 

The school, from which I graduated, Simmesport High School, closed in the 1987, and the students currently enrolled were transferred to a consolidated high school in Moreauville, ten miles to the north.  Back in February of this year, Mr. Kirk Guidry, the last principal of the school, proposed a reunion of all of the graduates, teachers, workers, etc.  Included was anyone who attended, which brought in those who went for a time and transferred elsewhere, or that went to Moreauville to finish high school.  Along with Mrs. Patra Coco, Mr. Guidry planned and executed what was billed as the Simmesport High School Mega-Reunion.  It was held on 4 August of 2018, more or less thirty years after the closure of the school.  This was one of the most well organized and executed events of this type that I have ever seen.  There were over 600 attendees!  Of my class, that of 1966, there were nine of us.  There were so many people that I didn’t get a chance to greet everyone I wanted to.  This is an interview with the organizers:  http://www.kalb.com/video?vid=489525181


We were a class of 28.  Nine of my class, that of 1966: 

As I write this my truck has 199,996 miles on it.  Darling companion did not think it would make it to Simmesport from Central High, so we rented a car, a Hyundai Santa Fe, and I have to say I was pleased with it.  I drove in on Friday of that the week of the reunion and met my brother Stephen and his wife, Carol, their daughter Aimee, her husband, Sam, and their children Jerrod and Sarah, at a restaurant in Bunkie designated ‘Rocky’s Tails and Shells Dugout Grill.’  I had an exceptional crawfish etouffée.  There was on the menu, although I didn’t attempt it, a crawfish etouffée dish consisting of a layer of fried crawfish topped with a layer of rice topped with a generous serving of etouffée.  The smell of the food in that place is not to be described, but to be experienced.  It was excellent.

During my visit I stayed in Plauchéville with Stephen and Carol.   During my visit, and the following week, Carol was also hosting all but two of their grand-kids, eight of them!  They slept on a thick rug in the living room and I would have thought that it was be bedlam and pandemonium, but they were surprisingly well behaved.  I suspect that Grandma runs a pretty tight ship.  One of the older children, Bella, who I think is 11 years old, surprised us with her ability to play the guitar, which she has been studying for only several months.  She was actually showing Stephen and I chords we had never seen after playing for many decades.  Jerrod, the only little bull in the herd, wanted a blue guitar for Christmas, so last year Stephen got him a blue guitar, a really blue guitar.  While we were playing Jerrod was banging away on his guitar to the best of his four-year-old ability.  Stephen tried to show him how to make a chord, and he state unequivocally, “Papa, I know how to do this!”  While maybe it was technically ‘music,’ but there was tremendous  confidence.


When the kids went outside they donned their shoes, and when they reentered the house the abandoned them near the back door.

On Sunday, Stephen, Jerrod and I made an effort to find the Civil War Fort De Russy near Marksville.  We followed the GPS directions while Jerrod did his best Bart Simpson by asking, “Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?”  When we finally found it, it was discovered that it was closed on Sundays!  Ironically there are five Fort De Russys, including the one in Louisiana and one in Hawaii, on the beach in Honolulu, that were named for brothers.  Failing to gain entry to Fort De Russy we began to search for sustenance, unfortunately, all of the Creole restaurants in Marksville were closed, so we took victuals in a Lebanese restaurant in Marksville.  Who knew?  The food was good.  I didn’t have a clue what it was, but it was good.

While there I visited my cousin, Carole and her husband Donnel, who goes by the soubriquet, Dink, on Crockett Bayou.  Dink had knee surgery and within an hour of his surgery had a heart attack!  That is some scary stuff.  He is doing much better now.

We moved into this house in 2007 and things are starting to wear out.  The 4-foot florescent light in the laundry room passed away, so rather than purchase a ballast, I purchased an 4-foot LED (light-emitting diode) light, the most advance product in home lighting fixtures, for almost the same price as a ballast.  I installed it in that little room and its brilliance almost ran me out of the room.  DC grumbled about it, but as long as she wears sunglasses she should be alright.  Well, the 4-foot florescent light in the walk-in closet in our bedroom went out shortly thereafter.  Forewarned this time, DC insisted that I install a shorter LED fixture in that space.  I obtained a 2-foot fixture and installed it.  Before I installed the diffuser, and when I was reasonably sure that I was not going to burn down the house, I called DC and asked her to try it.  Well, friends and neighbors, without the diffuser even that little feller is bright, really bright!  I then, with an angry wife and blue spots dancing around in my eyes, I installed the diffuser and it made a remarkable difference.  They are supposed to last ten years.  I am anxious to see what new technology will have replaced LEDs by the time I have to change the next one.

Several months back I had surgery on my hand for what is known as ‘trigger finger.’  I asked Dr. Funderburk, the surgeon, what caused this and he responded with “A lifetime of abuse.”  Well, I am certainly guilty of that.  It is still stiff and sore, but everything works now.  I am even playing my guitar again.  The good surgeon officially released me from his care.

Last year I read an article on something entitled, ‘Swedish Death Cleaning.’  It is not as morbid as it sounds.  The whole premise of this dark and gloomy title is that, in spite of our best efforts, we are all hurtling towards our own demise.  We should get important family heirlooms, documents, expensive items, and the memorabilia, that was collected for a lifetime, sorted out and placed into the hands of those who can appreciate and enjoy them.  The idea is to not burden grieving family members to dispose of your treasures, as they have no knowledge of the history or the value of the items, and will sell them all at a garage sale, donate them to Goodwill or pitch them in the trash.  Since I am approaching the age of 70, I have been giving this some serious consideration.

Toward that end I have donated my Vietnam uniform, which I certainly could never going to fit in, much less wear again, to the Field Artillery Museum, along with a number of uniform items, Vietnamese money, and my trusty, rusty P-38 C-ration can opener.  I had fabricated a rather large device resembling a safety pin, out of brazing rod to carry my church key to open beer and my P-38 to open C-rations.  I carried this on by belt so that they would be readily available in the unlikely event that they would be needed.  It occurred to me that those things were probably exposed to any and every germ, bacteria and virus available in South-East Asia and I used them to open consumables!  I sometimes marvel at the fact that I got as old as I did.

My cousin, Aline, reminded me that I owe her another story from our family, so here it is.  Back at the beginning of the 20th Century, Central Louisiana roads were nothing to brag about, indeed, other than I-49, they are still not terribly reliable.  Jules Dufour, known universally as ‘Sweet Papa’ in our family, was a partner in a very small double-ended steamboat known as ‘The Minnow,’ no, not that ‘Minnow.’  The Minnow,’ was double-ended so that it could navigate the narrow waterways without having to turn around.  The little boat was, when the roads were not passable due to rain and flooding, a lifeline to the outside world.  Sweet Papa and his partner, whose name was lost to the mists of time, delivered foodstuffs, hardware, dry goods, farm equipment, passengers and so forth, when travel was impossible by terrestrial means. 

Now, it seems that a customer ordered a wood-burning, cast-iron stove that was supposed to be delivered by ‘The Minnow.’  It was duly loaded and ‘The Minnow’ made its way up the rivers and bayous loading and unloading cargo as was its mission.  Now, these wood-burning, cast-iron stoves were shipped knocked-down and crated, weighed in north of four hundred pounds, and were not easily handled.  They also cost about $100, or about four months income for the average farm family at that time. Upon arrival at the dock of the customer, they attempted to unload the cast-iron stove.  As their burden was eased up to the dock, ‘The Minnow’ moved!  As the stove was being lifted the gap between the dock and ’The Minnow’ widened and eventually gravity overtook the limits of human muscle-power and the wood-burning, cast-iron stove plummeted to the mud in the depths of the bayou!  What is a cargo carrier to do?  The contract said that the wood-burning, cast-iron stove was to be ‘delivered,’ and the customer pointed out the fact that its resting place at the bottom of the bayou was not considered ‘delivered.’  Sweet Papa and his partner had to hire people to retrieve that wood-burning, cast-iron stove from its semi-liquid resting place and place it on the dock completing the ’delivery.’  History does not record the verbiage used, but I have a feeling that it was somewhat vulgar French.

Very few people are aware that I am very sensitive to smells, especially strong ones.  Whenever Darling Companion and I are cruising the antique shops, some of which reek of potpourri, she will turn to me and whisper, ‘Potporri Alert!’  That way I don’t enter and get a nose full of extremely strong odor and the resultant headache. 

As some of you are aware of, I work the elections at Central High for the Stephens County Election Board.  On 28 August we worked a run-off election in preparation for the November election for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General and a host of candidates for local elections.  During this last election a very nice lady came in to vote.  After voting she handed Janice, one of the other workers a small sample plastic bag of some sort of smellum’ crystals she was selling.  It seems that one is supposed to put an as yet undetermined amount of these crystals in the washing machine to freshen the laundry.  The smell was overwhelming!  As soon as the nice lady left, Janice pushed the bag towards me and said, ”I am very sensitive to smells!  Go put this in the back of your truck.  DON’T PUT IT IN THE FRONT!”   Well, I did, and now my hands smell like that stuff!  I finally got it washed down to a manageable level.  When I went to return the voting equipment and ballots to the Election Board the odor had not diminished one wit, the County prisoners that unload the stuff, and the deputy supervising them, asked about the smell and I pointed to the little plastic sack.  I told them, “Whatever you do, don’t touch that or you will smell like that all night!”  They dutifully avoided it!  I brought it home and put it in the garage for several days to prank Darling Companion and she never smelled it!  It is now in my shop making the place smell  .  .  .  like what I can’t tell, but it now smells really good!  I have a mental picture of the rats and mice holding their little black noses and asking each other, “What the Hell is that smell?!?”

On Thursday, 30 August, 2018, I went to the museum at Fort Sill to teach a class.  The Interstate in Lawton runs roughly north & south.  In the south-bound lane, a mile south of Fort Sill there is an exit to the right for traveling west on Cache Road, a major thoroughfare.  A hundred yards south of that is the exit for 2nd Street, it goes straight, and the Interstate diverges slightly to the left.  These exits are very easy to utilize and are not in the least bit confusing. 

There is construction on the Roger’s Lane exit a mile to the north.  In the middle of the Interstate, even with the Cache Road exit, is a gravel cross-over to allow the trucks and machinery from the construction project to cross the Interstate. 

As I am driving north-bound on the Interstate, there suddenly appears a huge cloud of dust in the turn-around.  It appears that Maw Maw was drifting the old Honda in the cross-over and she appeared out the cloud of dust right next to me.  She was going south-bound in the north-bound lane!  I was barely on time for my class, so I didn’t have time to go back and see the results of Maw Maw’s actions.  It scared the crap out of me!  There was nothing on the news, so I assume she rerouted herself and made it.

Kevin’s wife, Chris, enjoys fishing as much as Kevin and I do, and she is quite skilled at it.  They actually go fishing a great deal more than I do.  These are our best catches during recent excursions to Taylor Lake.

    
                 

At the left is Kevin and his best fish, I am in the center with a nice crappie, sac-a-lait to the Francophones, and at the right is Chris’ fish.  It is easy to catch the big ones that bite, but try catching a two-inch fish on a three–inch jig!  Now, that takes skill.

Until next time, I am the ex-patriot Creole,

Lynden T. Couvillion
Scribe


2 comments:

  1. I'm so glad to see these posted again its not funny. I love reading them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. From what I can tell, you are the only one that read it!

    ReplyDelete