Ain't America Great?

I got educated yesterday in southern Louisiana. You get in an automobile with a couple of real live Cajuns in the heart of Cajun country and you can’t help but get educated.

They call themselves Coonasses. And they are proud of it.

I spent the day yesterday with these two characters in New Iberia and St. Martinville. I was there on business but I learned some other things in the process. If you haven’t noticed yet, I always try to smell the roses along the way.

Or in this case – the gumbo.

A simple question asked always has the potential to expand your horizons. I asked my friends to explain to me the history of the Cajuns. My friend and co-worker, Bubba, would not even begin to explain until he turned on a CD with French Cajun music playing in the background.

I learned that the word “cajun” was a pronunciation of the word “cadian” which came from the word “acadian.” The Acadians were exiled by the British from Novia Scotia to southern Louisiana many years ago. During that exile, children were separated from their parents and wives were separated from their husbands.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote an epic poem about this exile that has been studied in schools for many years. I think I was out sick the day we studied in the school I attended because I sure don’t remember it. The poem, Evangeline, was about a young woman who was separated from her husband on their wedding day during the Acadian exile. Evangeline traveled from Nova Scotia to St. Martinville and waited at an oak tree on the Bayou Teche for her new husband to show up. He never did.


But the poem Longfellow created became legendary in southern Louisiana because the story is symbolic of the pain and suffering the Cajun’s suffered as a result of the exile. There is a statue of Evangeline in St. Martinville and we actually pulled up next to the famous Evangeline Oak. For some reason (smile) I happened to have my camera and got a quick picture for my blog readers.

Southern Louisiana is a special place. The Cajuns are religious but they also enjoy life much more than most folks. Almost every restaurant you go in there is a band playing French Cajun music and folks are dancing. They are not only celebrating life but they are celebrating their heritage.

And they should.

They also celebrate life with their cooking. They use a lot more spices in their food than we do where I come from. I also think they may use a lot more Charmin than we do. And all of you would have enjoyed the conversation I had with our waitress the other night when I was trying to order my food. She couldn’t understand my south Georgia dialect anymore than I could understand her Cajun dialect. Bubba who has been around me for several years served as my interpreter. He could understand both.


But I felt right at home when we had lunch yesterday at the Bon Creole Lunch Counter in New Iberia. It is the one and only Bon Creole Lunch Counter. This is definitely not a chain restaurant. I knew it was going to be good when I walked in the door and had to stand in line to order my food. I was not disappointed.

As I boarded my plane to head back to Georgia last night I was thinking about the history and heritage of the Cajun people and found myself smiling and shaking my head.

Ain’t America great?