PANSIES

Pansies 211 Celeste Dr.

After they took down the wrought iron fence that surrounded the yard on 10th Avenue, the yard looked bare. They also removed the cattle guard on the drive because new town laws prohibited cows from grazing on residential lots… except for the milk cow grazing on an empty lot that I avoided when I walked up the street to visit my Aunt Kathryn. The barrenness of the front yard and drive troubled my Grandmother Nell. So she decided to put in pansies in front of the tall steps leading to the front porch. She didn’t turn the ground herself, but Ernest, the yardman, dug a large round bed that covered half the front yard, and she put in pansies using a trowel with a splintered handle and adding a small amount of Vigoro and water.

“Frost won’t kill them,” she said to my aunt. “They can weather as low as 25 degrees. I’ll put in purple ones for sure. They’re symbols of love. My granddaughter will like them.” I was only three years old when she began her landscaping project, but  to her I seemed old enough to appreciate the beauty of flowers. I also knew what love was because she told me often how much she loved me.

Era Leader Clipping

She sent brief messages to the society column of the Era Leader, the town of Franklinton's newspaper of note: “Little Miss Diane Marquart of Baton Rouge is spending the week with her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. P.E Greenlaw.” She felt that the message distinguished our family living in a provincial southeastern Louisiana town of 1,000 or more inhabitants. After all, little Miss was the granddaughter of a Greenlaw, a descendant of the Scots clan among the Humes, although I’m sure no one in that small redneck town knew or cared about the lineage of the Greenlaws. Or about my frequent visits to that community.

However, Grandmother Nell clipped and pasted these society mentions in a scrapbook that is now stored in a sideboard of my living room in New Iberia, Louisiana. I was three when she showed me the circular bed of purple pansies. “Puppy dog noses,” I promptly said, and she clapped her hands as if I’d vocalized the most precocious statement of any three-year old in the world.

Those colorful symbols of her affection became my favorite flower — and remain my favorite flower, planted every fall, sometimes in the spring, by friends who know this story about the language of love that flowers impart.

 

Photography by Victoria Sullivan

 

 

FROM MY WINDOW OVERLOOKING THE BACKYARD

 

Don’t know whether a bird in hand is worth two in the bird bath or not, but we don’t have any problems with our stone bath in the backyard inviting in even one feathered friend because it’s always empty — on purpose. I mean, most Louisiana bird baths should be re-composed as planters, backyard decor, or something other than hold a place where immodest birds flock to bathe naked daily. In reality, if water is left in these stone bowls, they draw in Louisiana mosquitoes the size of horseflies, and mosquitoes draw in rats and snakes. Right?

Half the time, the bowl of our bird bath in the New Iberia back yard lies upended on the ground, but a hurricane isn’t the cause of its upending. Judging from the population of raccoons, an armadillo, marauding dogs and cats around us, I think that the bath is a target for some animal game called “tip the tub.” Most of the time, the bowl lies on the ground looking as if it’s anticipating becoming a planter we should fill with vegetation that will survive backyard shade.

Our smaller bird bath in the yard at Sewanee, Tennessee, isn’t often visited unless it’s filled with purified water, and I think the birds have taken on some of the “entitled” aspects of the clergy/scholars who live in that rarefied Sewanee atmosphere. They turn up their beaks at ordinary rainwater. Most of the time, in both locales, New Iberia and Sewanee, we don’t fill the bowls of the baths because squirrels come calling if they see the water. We’ve caught Squirrel Nutkin swishing his tail in the Sewanee bath several times — and we won’t comment on pesky squirrels that inhabit both Louisiana and Tennessee yards... but I’ve been known to threaten to order a b-b rifle similar to the one I gave my brother Harold on his 7th birthday and …

Well, hummingbirds don’t drink water, and I’m partial to that species of bird life, so I’m thinking of planting coral bells, columbine, or coreopsis in the upturned mouth of the empty bird bath at planting time. The red blooms will look great against the background of the new cedar fence at which the hounds next door bark despite the wall’s impassive, uninviting stance.

 

Photograph by Victoria Sullivan

 

 

FENCES

In “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost concludes a short poem with the often-quoted line, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Today, I thought of Frost’s poem as I looked out at our new cedar fence that divides our yard and the backyard of a new neighbor who lives on one side of our home in New Iberia, Louisiana. On the opposite side of our yard, I look out at a sagging, gray-colored, older fence, one that leans toward our drive, and which I prefer because it reminds me of the neighbor who planted satsuma trees on his side of the fence and from which we have always plucked overhanging fruit.

This good neighbor died of pancreatic cancer several decades ago. He was an amiable man who came over, at no one’s request, and raked our entire front yard following a major Louisiana hurricane. He verged on mute because he performed the task quietly, then returned to his side of the fence as if he had tended to the grooming of his own yard. I never knew anything about this neighbor’s lineage, but when satsumas form and hang over his old fence, in my mind I see a face that looks almost Native American.

He had hair the color of the ravens that nest in a tree beside his former home, a sallow complexion (perhaps caused by his disease) but he was a handsome, lonely looking fellow (although he had a wife and three young children). When I remember this man who spontaneously performed small tasks in my yard, I think of Cherokee people I had seen near Silva, North Carolina, persons whose appearance resembled the quiet neighbor, who lived and continue to live  in harmony with nature, have kind hearts, and are known as wonder workers.


 

 

Our new cedar fence on the opposite side of our home divides us from a dog yard surrounded by a flimsy wire fence that two hounds push down if they’re roaming around outside and from which they could leap over and into our yard at one time but can no longer scale because of our newly-built tall cedar one. The cedar fence is handsome and was expensive to erect, but it isn’t a wall that inspires sentiment like the old sagging fence on the other side of our drive— one that brings up cogent memories within me — those of the kind-hearted neighbor who embodied Frost’s line, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

 

Photographs by Victoria I. Sullivan

 

THE YEAR OF YELLOW JACK

Anne L. Simon has “found her oeuvre” in historical fiction. Her recent novel, The Year of Yellow Jack, is a fascinating story about New Iberia, Louisiana — the successes and tragedies of families living in this south Louisiana town of Bayou Teche country during the 19^th century. 

The Year of Yellow Jack emerges as a regional story with a universal message and is the result of Simon’s meticulous research and lively imagination. Simon’s story is told in realistic voice about a social system that prevailed during this antebellum period in southern history and includes both wealthy and enslaved characters — the Bérard and Duperier families and their antecedents, and a Haitian woman of color named Félicité.

Both the “Foreword” and “Historical Notes” in this volume indicate the depth of research and dedication to an intriguing project Simon pursued for three years and provide a sampling of her accomplished expository style. The novel is narrated in three parts and covers the multicultural mix of south Louisiana — French, Spanish, African, English, and Attakapas who settled the towns of New Iberia and St. Martinville. In this mix, Henri Frederick Duperier and Hortense Bérard emerge as major characters who marry and build a home on the banks of Bayou Teche and are joined by Félicité, the enslaved woman of color from Saint-Domingue.

Simon’s research of colonial New Iberia and St. Martinville, Louisiana includes descriptions of the prevailing attitudes toward the enslaved during the early 1800s; e.g.,the rumination of Hortense Duperier: “When I was a small child, we had many slaves in our household. Patterning my behavior on that of my mother, I expected the slaves to do without question whatever they were asked to do, even when asked by a child. I could not recall any open discussion of their inferior status. Occasionally Maman corrected my behavior. She instructed me to be courteous at all times, not out of respect for the role the slaves played in our lives, but because courtesy was expected of people of privilege. I accepted the world I had been born into as normal. I gave little thought to the personal lives of those who lived behind the woods that separated us from them…”

Simon’s descriptions of Teche country landscape during the 19^th century are succinct and skillfully done through the device of dialogue; e.g., Grandpa Bérard’s : “It was springtime in Teche country, and beautiful. The Garden of Eden, we thought. Untouched forests, not like the worn-out land we’d left behind in France. Oak, willow, and cottonwoods lined the bayous, giant cypress and tupelo trees thrived in the wetlands. Natural meadows spread to the west…” 

The major event that tied families of privilege in New Iberia and St. Martinville and the enslaved Félicité occurs in Part III of this novel when Félicité functions as a healer during the siege of yellow fever that strikes these communities. Using non-traditional medicine in the forms of hydration and herbs (fever tea), Félicité saves many lives and helps to "wash clean New Town (New Iberia)" of this deadly disease.

Interspersed in this narrative about Hortense Duperier and Félicité is a salute to Frederick Duperier — his valuable part in incorporating the town of New Iberia. The relationship of early settlers and the Atakapa Isak Nation, or the Attakapas are also included — facts corroborated by Simon through a record in the St. Martin Parish courthouse that shows Bernard, chief of the Atakapas, granting land to Hortense Duperier’s Grandfather Bérard  Such discoveries indicate Simon’s investigative abilities as well as her persistence in ferreting out facts that enhance the narrative. 

Scholarship and vision intertwine throughout this intriguing novel. Photographs included in The Year of Yellow Jack indicate the close relationship that Félicité had with the Duperier family of New Iberia — one of them features the Duperier family plot that shows Félicité’s grave marker as she is buried alongside her appreciative and respectful family.

The Year of Yellow Jack will intrigue south Louisiana residents, but its range is far-reaching in that it corroborates a major contribution made by an enslaved Haitian woman during the colonial period of American history. It also shows the bravado and competence of a widow who overcomes financial reverses and takes her place in history as an enlightened woman who refuses to be deterred by social mores. As I said, Simon has found her oeuvre in historical fiction, and The Year of Yellow Jack celebrates her place in this genre. Just as we celebrate Anne’s contribution — Brava, Anne!

Anne L.Simon was educated at Wellesley College, Yale, and LSU Law School. She was elected as a general jurisdiction trial court judge, and after mandatory retirement served in ad hoc and pro tempore appointments by the Louisiana Supreme Court, as an Appellate Court Judge for three Indian tribes in Louisiana, and was the Louisiana Court Improvement Fellow for the Pelican Center for Children and Families. She has authored three crime novels, entitled Blood in the Cane Field, Blood in the Lake, and Blood of the Believers "loosely based on her experiences."

Published by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press.

Note:  I am familiar with stories about the scourge of yellow fever through the Anglican Sisters of the Community of St. Mary at Sewanee who, every year, relate the legend of “The Martyrs of Memphis,” the story of  Anglican Sisters who nursed yellow fever victims in Memphis, Tennessee during the siege of 1878. I was drawn to Simon’s story because of historical similarities. However, my initial interest in Félicité began with a strange telephone call from a psychic named John Russel in San Angelo, Texas who called me one evening during the 1980s and asked if I knew why he was receiving psychic messages including my name and someone named Felicity in New Iberia. I told him I didn’t know anyone named Felicity, but I later remembered the marker honoring Félicité’s work with yellow fever located near the New Iberia Library. I never heard from this caller again. However, he had piqued my interest in the enslaved healer, and, later, I included Félicité as a character in a young adult novel entitled Flood on the Rio Teche that was more imagination and less factual than Anne Simon’s meticulously researched work of historical fiction.

IN THE TIME OF MISSION AND MIGHT

Yesterday, I went down to A & E Gallery here in New Iberia, Louisiana, to a reception and book signing for Margaret Simon of New Iberia, whose Sunshine, a notable middle-grade fiction book published by Border Press, just appeared on the market. (See the review of Sunshine on my blog, A Word's Worth).

However, when I walked over to the payment counter, I discovered more treasure from New Iberia’s growing body of artists/writers: In the Time of Mission and Might, the newest member of Paul Schexnayder’s children’s trilogy about Legacy Acorns. If I had found a beautifully illustrated children’s book like this one when my mother dropped me off to spend the day at the old Claitor’s Bookstore in Baton Rouge, Louisiana so many eons ago, I’d have been ecstatic, for to live within the imagination of Paul Schexnayder is to occupy enchanted space. 

The vibrant acrylic paintings, accompanied by his fanciful tale about animals, birds, and vegetation indigenous to Louisiana, had to be read aloud at my breakfast table. It is children’s fictionalization and visualization at its finest. Whimsical and dreamlike figures interplay throughout the story, and the informational, as well as playful text takes readers into a fantastical realm.

The illustrations alone in In The Time of Mission and Might will transport young readers into an adventuresome place where Lilla Cornflake (I love Schexnayder’s namings), a care-taking doe, makes a startling discovery when she unlocks the front door of the Live Oak Museum. Legacy Acorns that were produced by only one Live Oak tree in nine coastal states had become museum pieces, and they’ve been stolen from their glass case within the museum. Professor Morton Sterling Flynn, an eminent archaeologist, is brought in to investigate and solve the case, but, of course, he encounters a formidable obstacle. I’ll only hint at one of any reader’s worst nightmares: critters that slither and hiss! 

As Schexnayder does in the two former books of his trilogy, the problem of stolen treasure is resolved in a just and charitable conclusion within the walls of the Joy and Wonder Orphanage sans Schexnayder conveying overpowering moralism, but he communicates the kind of ethic Johnny Gruelle once showed in his children’s stories about the iconic Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy (shades of a former era). Schexnayder concludes with his legacy statement that reflects his compassion and vision: “The heart of home lives inside of you all; may you plant this in a safe place to produce a legacy worthy of your own dreams.”

Paul Schexnayder is an artist, author/illustrator, and art teacher. He is also a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and has illustrated over half a dozen children’s books. He’s known throughout Acadiana as an Ambassador for the Arts and sponsors readings, signings, and cheerful support for writers and artists throughout the South.

Another banner book, Paul! C’est Magnifique!

SUNSHINE

Author Margaret Simon knows the hearts and minds of young people, as is evidenced in her forthcoming book, Sunshine, to be released by Border Press Books. She demonstrates knowledge of their feelings and behavior in her middle-grade novels about Blessen LaFleur, the heroine of the Blessen series that features a spirited and caring child who lives near the rusty Bayou Teche in southwestern Louisiana. Simon, who has been an elementary school teacher for over thirty years and who now teaches gifted children in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, possesses unusual insight into the lives of those about whom she writes. Her first book about Blessen introduced readers to a heroine who struggles to find joy within the dysfunctional family into which she was born and who proves herself to be the supreme mistress of misadventure. Darrell Bourque, former poet laureate of Louisiana, praised the novel as a “cross between a fairy tale and wisdom literature.”

Simon’s second book, Sunshine, A Blessen Novel, again features Blessen, who has taken on the responsibility of raising a hen she calls Sunshine and, simultaneously, a homeless child named Harmony. Blessen feels she needs to save Harmony from a foster home where she has been placed and neglected. When Sunshine becomes a broody hen, Blessen is forced to get help from her teacher, Ms. Fullilove, to appease the hen, but the care needed for Harmony, an enchanting child Blessen encounters, eclipses her caretaking of this pet. Harmony is a twirling seven-year-old who talks in rhyme most of the time. Of course, the two girls, who call themselves “guardians of nature,” propel themselves into an adventure, running away from home and hiding near an abandoned convent alongside the Bayou Teche, but the unwise decision Blessen makes is resolved in a surprise ending, and young readers will find themselves wanting even more exciting chapters in the life of Blessen…and now, Harmony.

Simon features characters that resonate with authenticity; e.g., Blessen’s brief narration about herself: “All this time, in my life of eleven years, I thought I was white, and come to find out, my father was black as night. My tan skin and big wide nose come from my father’s side, along with my unruly nappy hair; Momma gave me her green eyes and strong will…” Her deceased grandfather: (Pawpee) “Even in his wheelchair, Pawpee was a handyman and master gardener. He saved enough money for Momma to make a down payment on a doublewide with central air. Thanks to my sweet grandpa, I now have my own room and my own bathroom…” And Mae-Mae, her grandmother: “Mae-Mae was the rock who held us all together. She told me then and there that God saved me for a purpose. I was reborn. I was fulfilling my name, Blessen, being a blessing to them all…”

However, Harmony emerges as the primary character in this new story about Blessen, “swirling off the porch, a young black girl [who] swoops like a hawk to my side. She wears a tattered pink dress that’s too short for her long skinny legs. Her skin is as dark as a moonless night, her hair plaited in braids close to her scalp.” Harmony speaks in rhymes that reminded me of the children’s story about the “churkendoose,” a creature who dismays fellow barnyard creatures with his rhyming speech but who becomes a hero because he chases a predatory fox out of the barnyard. Harmony introduces a nonsensical element in this novel; e.g., her wordplay: “You’re pretty as a daisy in Maysy!/Daisy, Mays,/won’t you look at me/twirling like a dancing girl/ready for a partee.”

Simon’s descriptive abilities are evident in each chapter and showcase her powers of observation: “I stop talking and look out across the fields of high sugar cane. Stalks of long, green leaves sway in the wind. We pull behind a cane truck with its yellow triangle ‘Slow’ sign shining on the huge metal basket filled to overflowing with burned stalks…” She tells of the makeshift quarters that Harmony calls home: “The window near the door is open wide, no screen or curtains. I peek inside. There’s no furniture in the room. The hardwood floors are dusty. Two makeshift beds, pallets of blankets and pillows lay in the corner. A small doll sits on one blanket, naked with frazzled plastic blond hair. The doll winks at me with only one eye open…” That vivid last line captures the unkemptness of Harmony’s quarters and underlines Simon’s talents as a writer who is master of concrete detail. 

Children’s literature is Simon’s forte. In Sunshine, as in Blessen, there are no “heavy, cluttery phrases,” as E. B. White says. The language is true and clear, the characters well developed, action consistently moving the readers through suspense with a balance of humor and serious intent, and wisdom is imparted without the writing impinging on didactic. Much of our adult morality in children’s books, White says, has “a stuffiness unworthy of childhood,” but Simon’s characters don’t overpower young readers with lessons in character building. Sunshine is a delightful, spirited work about an unusual family that, despite its dysfunction, manages to convey a message of faith and love, grace and whimsy. It’s Margaret Simon at her best.

TRAINS IN THE NIGHT

Train engine at Chattanooga Choo Choo

As we prepare for an exodus to Sewanee, Tennessee, I realize that one of the sounds I’ll miss when we leave New Iberia, Louisiana is that of the many trains that pass through the town during the night — those long, shrieking whistles that annoy light sleepers. At one time, the sound made me feel lonely, but at 83 it’s a song that tells me all is well; the trains are still running. 

When I was working on a book that called for researching a history of trains in the South, I came across a section in Railroads of the Old South about the many interest groups that tangled with railroad officials during the 19th century. These groups caused a ruckus in small southern towns because the trains ran on Sundays, and railroad workers missed church. The group called itself “The Sabbatarians,” members of which placed high value on Sunday attendance and who wanted to enforce that vision on the then-modern technology. In Richmond, Virginia, a minister complained that the private consumer “couldn’t get wares untouched by the sacrilegious hand of the Sabbath breaker.” 

Word from the pulpit was so effective that a railroad worker in North Carolina resigned his job because he felt he was sinning on Sunday. Most of the petitions to southern railroad officials were advanced by preachers who lambasted stockbrokers as well as governing bodies of railroads. Condemnation included one argument by a Protestant Episcopal Church representative at a stockholders meeting: “The trains traverse great distances (on Sundays)…attracting great attention and exciting curiosity wherever they go…” Further complaints included the “hustle and bustle of business, properly belonging only to the working days of the week…”

Twenty years passed before the Sabbatarians were able to get railroad officials to reduce their Sunday service to a bare minimum; however, officials endured the criticisms and were finally praised for offering reliable and regular transportation. For many years, the Sabbatarians demonstrated that railroad companies weren’t in control of their own time due to the moral pressure from special interest groups.

Today, railway service is available seven days of the week and offers a plethora of schedules and time tables, running through towns like New Iberia throughout the night, and are a part of the social fabric that connects all of us who appreciate their services.

In 2018, I published Destinations, a book of poetry about trains, accompanied by photographs that Victoria Sullivan snapped in various locales of the South and including one poem about the trains that rumble through New Iberia at night:

NIGHT FLYERS

I miss hearing them at night,

trains carrying grave histories,

doing ghostly runs through New Iberia,

making sounds that once brought melancholy;

As I age, they become gifts

exploring places I don’t know,

good friends holding me close

yet keeping their distance,

their thunder an escape from bad dreams,

voices saying goodbye while I lie in bed,

move toward a world away,

out there in the storm,

bell ringing in an untroubled dawn.

POO YI, PECANS AGAIN!

Marquee on New Site of Cane River Company

Six years ago, I walked into the offices of the Cane River Pecan Company here in New Iberia, Louisiana and was surprised to see, on one wall, a framed copy of a 34-year old article in the Daily Iberian entitled “Pecan Businessmen Beginning Young” with my byline. After I talked with Jady Regard about the framed article, I blogged about the  Company, acknowledging the Dan Regard family for its phenomenal progress with a small enterprise manned by three forward-looking brothers who established a home-based pecan-cracking business called “The Nutcrackers" that  mushroomed into a thriving business selling pecans as far afield as Singapore.

The Cane River Pecan Company features a product line that includes roasted and salted pecans, chocolate-covered and praline pecans, fresh-baked pecan/chocolate chunk cookies, pecan pralines, pecan praline popcorn — and, now, a dessert that CEO Jady Regard has concocted for the “Company Special”—Boudin Pie!

In the window of the Cane River Pecan Company

Jady Regard is one of New Iberia Louisiana’s entrepreneurs who gave up a job as manager of corporate sales for the Chicago Bears and for the LSU Basketball team to take over marketing products of the Cane River Pecan Company. His newest concoction, Boudin Pie, contains one pound of locally sourced, uncased pork boudin, a layer of sweet potato souffle covered with a pecan glaze in a handmade deep-dish crust. Boudin and pecan glaze? I’m told that it’s a dessert infusion that bests all homemade Cajun dishes.

I haven’t tasted this dish yet, but I visited the new headquarters of Cane River Pecan Company on Main Street two days before their scheduled tasting event. I walked around looking at products the company offers and admired the murals of the Natchitoches plantation area on one wall of the showroom — pictures and timelines concerning the pecan growing business. By adding pictures to this wall, Regard hopes to form a museum that will educate visitors about the industry, as well as advertise Louisiana’s rich resources. 

The Cane River Pecan Company was sourced by Jady Regard’s father, Dan Regard (now deceased), who owned a pecan grove on the plantation “Alcock Place” in Natchitoches, Louisiana. He employed his sons to spend their after-school hours and holidays cracking up to 400 pounds of pecans a week, using a large nut-cracking machine he ordered from San Antonio, Texas. Jady and his brothers sold pecans from a shop adjoining the Regard home on Darby Lane and advertised their product on signs placed in store windows of New Iberia and in the local newspaper, The Daily Iberian. From that small beginning, with their parent’s backing, and, later, with Jady’s talent for marketing, The Cane River Pecan Company burgeoned into a worldwide product distributer now equal to other Teche Country products such as hot sauce and rice.

Colorful tins with lids featuring paintings by Louisiana artist Clementine Hunter and, now, lids of tins with pictures of New Orleans streetcars, contain the company's pecan products and line the shelves of the new showroom. In addition, corporations can order custom gift tins of pecan products that show their own logos and personal messages.  

Mais, when the weather clears — if the weather clears — I’m going downtown and get my satisfied from a boudin pie so I can brag about it to my Sewanee, Tennessee friends who often wonder what Cajuns will eat next!

IN THE TIME OF SHIMMER AND LIGHT

In this time of anxiety and darkness in our broken world, we can count on Paul Schexnayder, New Iberia, Louisiana artist, to gift us with his playful illustrations that always lift our spirits. In The Time of Shimmer and Light, the second book in a three-part series just released by University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press, will delight both young and adult readers. The story takes us to the happy island home of Sir Galatoire Gator, Tin Toy Hare and Queen Ida Peacock where the three critters vie for a dazzling doodad the Queen has found bobbing up and down on the water near their island home.

Schexnayder’s vivid acrylic paintings mesmerize readers, glowing with imaginative figures that “bumble, mumble, and grumble” until the Queen shows her critter friends the object she has discovered and placed in a brilliant red boat to dispel the disharmony developing amongst the friends. I won’t reveal the object or the end of the imaginative fable Schexnayder has created, but readers won’t be disappointed to find more serendipity in the work he offers.

A visit to Schexnayder’s gallery is an occasion of “joy and wonder, shimmer and light,” and visitors usually come away with an art object in hand. Lately, a visit reveals paintings of moss-covered kings who people one wall. The paintings depict mystical-looking beings who are a departure from his “Girth Series,” those kings with tiny heads and billowing robes that he initiated in 2016. “It takes awhile for patrons to get used to a new series,” Schexnayder explains. However, I've found favorable reviews of the new work on facebook and know that his followers will soon add them to their Schexnayder home galleries.

Schexnayder, who always discovers treasures to paint, has made memorable a simple red rowboat that provokes thoughts of optimism, and the word “joy” is frequently reflected in his books, as well as in his art. The mysterious factor in his paintings is that he’s color blind; however, his purples, reds, yellows, and blues leap from the walls and pages of his work after their birth in the colors of his imagination.

This notable New Iberia artist has created illustrations for at least three of my own books, and I often re-use them in blogs. The whimsy that Schexnayder conveys is infectious and his mission, a simple one — to recreate the Fruits of the Spirit, specially the one at the top of St. Paul’s List — JOY. His creations also emerge as acts of love, another outpouring of the Spirit.

Paul Schexnayder has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Louisiana State University, has worked as an art teacher, serves as a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and owns an art gallery in New Iberia that he generously shares with regional artists and writers. Recently, he painted a mural depicting his “Girth Series” for the City of New Iberia. The mural emphasizes the idea that New Iberia is not only the “Queen City of the Teche”, as it is often called, it’s also the King City of Bayou Country.

Bravo, Paul, thank you for spreading joy and wonder, shimmer and light! 

TURTLE SOUP

Art work by Paul Schexnayder

Yesterday, while riding along Hwy. 182 en route to New Iberia from Broussard, Louisiana, we whizzed past a ditch filled with water where a police car was parked. The police officer seemed to be arguing with a man holding a rope to which a turtle was tied. I only caught a glimpse of the turtle but could see the spiked shell and thick scaled tail of a huge alligator turtle. If I had satisfied my curiosity, I’d have asked the driver to stop, but thought I might get embroiled in some kind of endangered species argument. I’ve read that alligator turtles aren’t labeled as “endangered” in Louisiana right now, but they are over harvested for their meat. For all I know, the man holding the rope could have just caught his supper and was being chastised for fishing in a highway ditch. 

I’ve been interested in these primitive-looking turtles since I read that they were plentiful on Last Island during the 19th century and that their weight was reported to top 200-400 pounds. They also lived to be 50-100 years old. Several years ago, when I was writing The Kajun Kween, a young adult book, the alligator turtle became a challenge for Petite Marie Melancon, the heroine of a comic strip who caught one in a hoop net, and New Iberia’s famous local illustrator, Paul Schexnayder, painted a picture of her holding the critter by its tail.

Alligator turtles hardly ever come on land, except when the females want to lay their eggs, and November is the wrong season for egg laying, so I’m wondering why the turtle I saw ventured into a roadside ditch, unless the world was “too much with [her]” and she was near the 100-year old mark. After all, some hardy alligator turtles live to be several hundred years old, especially in southwest Louisiana.

According to Petite Marie, who read extensively before going on an adventure to catch an alligator turtle, in the 1800’s, a man named James Cathcart was sent to Last Island, Louisiana to survey timber suitable for making U.S. vessels, and he found fishermen catching 300-lb. turtles at the rate of five alligator turtles a day. They were selling them for $7 apiece and kept them in pens until buyers showed up. Petite Marie figured she’d be lucky if she caught a 50 pounder. However, she managed to net a huge one, and her fishing companions severed its head, placed it in a bucket of water, stuck a twig in its mouth, and the head clamped down on the twig. Petite tells us that the movement of the head was only a reflex but it must have been a frightening sight.

Of course, this is only a replay of a fictional account, but as we zoomed past the snapping turtle on a rope, I admit to being spooked enough not to turn my head for a backward glance. My mother often made turtle soup for her family of five children, but I think the turtle was probably a soft shell turtle my intrepid father had caught in the Bogue Chitto River and beheaded before he brought it home sans head for my mother to cook.

DUCK—CHICKEN SOUP?

I was eating a baked Cornish hen today, and the scent of it caused a Proustian event — the smell tugged at my memory of another poultry event I experienced while sojourning in Iran back when… My reminiscence involved Isabel, a tiny Portuguese woman who lived next door to me in Melli Rah subdivision — a woman who helped me overcome the first stages of culture shock. Her remedy for all forms of culture shock: paint walls. Five layers of white paint appeared over sickly green walls that an Iranian decorator had thought would please U.S. expatriates suffering from culture shock.

Isabel, the Portuguese neighbor, helped me paint away this condition of culture shock, and when I told her I wanted to repay the favor, she just shook her head and said in her enchanting  voice: “By George, just bring me the chicken soup if I ever get sick.”

A few weeks later, Isabel began to suffer from symptoms similar to a flu bug traveling through Melli Rah subdivision and telephoned me: “Go to the Ahwaz Super and bring back a big chicken,” she instructed. 

I hadn’t learned how to drive a shift auto and had to borrow my daughter’s six-speed bicycle to make the necessary trip to the grocery. I had no idea about the speed at which the bike should be set, but it must have been “quick, the chicken soup,” because I didn’t have a chance to pedal. The super speeder flung me down the pock-marked street in 120-degree weather, and I came to an ungraceful halt, over the handlebars, and into the jube near the supermarket. Fortunately, I was unharmed and went in the market to claim a chicken.

I remember that earlier that morning I had gone to my tin desk facing the street and penned a column entitled “Persian Poultry Pretty Paltry” for the Daily Iberian, the newspaper of note in my hometown of New Iberia, Louisiana. I’d been writing an “In A Persian Market” column for several months, and when I looked in the freezer at the market, I knew why I had written the column about Iranian poultry. Chicken Little appeared to be a shriveled version of the chickens raised in America, and worse still, she was frozen solid and would take some thawing before I could cook a pot of soup and bring it to Isabel.

When I returned on the super speeder bike and delivered the bird, Isabel took one look and burst into laughter. “I might have known not to send a Louisiana Cajun to the store for a chicken,” she said. “You Cajuns think that the only kind of fowl is a duck.  That is a duck — an Iranian duck — but still a duck, you rotten neighbor.”

No, I didn’t die of embarrassment. I hired a taxi that took me to the bazaar and found a real chicken, (still a bit undersized), then made soup. By early afternoon I was able to take the requested "cure for all ills" in a large pot to Isabel’s bedside. The following day, Larry, her husband, washed and returned the pot. A week later, I became sick with a flu-like illness, and Larry asked to borrow the pot, “perfect for making chicken soup,” he said. Evidently, Isabel had no trouble finding a chicken and boiling it — she brought me a steaming pot of soup. She also returned my large, American-made vessel. However, after I recouped, Isabel fell ill again, and I made another pot of soup for her. 

In desperation, Larry cleaned and returned the pot and complained. “I know you girls have the greatest intentions to cure one another,” he said, “but I think you’re passing the germ back and forth in the pot of chicken soup. Maybe you all are really cooking sick ducks, but for good health’s sake, please don’t try to doctor one another.” 

So, Isabel and I turned off the stove and, voila, we regained good health. And I haven’t had homemade a la Iranian/Cajun, Chicken/Duck soup since we returned to the States. Maybe we just needed a genuine Louisiana fowl from Gueydan, Louisiana — Duck Capitol of the World. 

Drawings by Diane Moore

FROM ELECTRA, TEXAS TO POTOMAC, MARYLAND

The photograph above is one that Vickie Sullivan snapped of my long-time friend, Jan Grogan, shown reading material for her new manuscript , which is set in Oklahoma, her birthplace. Jan’s last book, All of My Life With You, is a memoir of her adventures with her husband, Gene, who served at the helm of worldwide oil operations of a major U.S. oil company. Their long journey began in Electra, Texas where “at every turn on this sun-scorched plain, oil well pump jacks peck at the earth like Jurassic birds.”* I and my husband, a petroleum engineer with Texaco, happened to live across the street from the Grogans at the same time Gene launched his successful career in the oil patch.

During our recent visit with Jan in her elegant townhouse in Potomac, Maryland (a residence quite unlike the cracker box the Grogans occupied in Electra), we talked about her new manuscript and her inchoate interest in literature and writing, which began with conversations during morning breaks she and I enjoyed in Electra. “The only problem was that we’d be having an inspiring conversation about literature, and you’d get up and say you had to leave,” Jan said. “You timed our visits from 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. exactly. And you seem to have retained that same sense of urgency about time. A one night visit and you’re already leaving!”

She was spot on because I’m OCD about time. In the case of Electra, Texas, the occasions for significant happenings were scant, so I had to think hard to remember why I compartmentalized my social life into hour-long visits. I‘d had only one article published in the Morning Advocate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and my poetry was still in a box of the bedroom closet, so I wasn’t exactly a literary lion who had to hurry back to my desk to write for a deadline. However, I was revising an article I’d sent to Phoebe Adams at the Atlantic Monthly because she’d written a personal letter of encouragement about its merit after she decided that my prose about defrosting an old refrigerator was a little “contrived.” Thinking back on this rejection, I doubt if Phoebe had ever defrosted an aged refrigerator in a $60 rental located in a small Texas town…but, still, the personal letter had encouraged me. And I was trying to get writing done before the birth of the firstborn daughter I was carrying when Jan and I met. 

Jan moved to Wichita Falls within six months after our meeting when her husband entered the fast track of Cities Service Company, leaving me and my husband to a diminished social life in this West Texas town that had survived the demise of an oil boom involving the Clayco gusher in 1911. I lived on a street named after W.T. Waggoner, one of the oil magnates, whose ranch covered a half million acres in this West Texas area. Water was scarce at the time of the big boom, but W.T. Waggoner’s claim to fame had occurred when he lobbied railroad professionals to build a railroad station at the site then called Beaver Switch and later named Electra after Waggoner’s daughter. Waggoner had actually been dismayed when he drilled for water in his sprawling ranch territory and the sites yielded crude oil that polluted his water wells. He sold part of his land to a developer named Solomon Williams, and in 1911 the Clayco gusher brought in abundant oil, causing the burgeoning of the entire north Texas oil industry.

Years later, Jasper Smith III of Vivian, Louisiana worked in the oil fields of Electra and wrote about this experience as a roustabout in Dinner with Mobutu: A Chronicle of My Life and Times, and I discovered that Suzi Thornton, one of my Fortnightly Literary Club sisters in my hometown of New Iberia, Louisiana, is the sister of this chronicler. By the time Jasper had become an oil field worker in Electra, the town had mushroomed to a population of nearly 5000, and when we lived there in 1959 it had only diminished about four percent. At the time of the boom, citizens had numbered 640, and 10 years later the population had increased to 4700. Today, there are approximately 2700 citizens.

Citizens of Electra say that the town is a place of pump jacks unequaled in number in the world, and its fortunes go up and down like these jacks. Today, the W.T. Waggoner Refinery has become a place of scrap metal, but 14 oil companies still operate in the area. One of the oldest wells drilled in 1911 still pumps oil. From my spare knowledge of oil patch production, I’d say that 80 percent of area wells still producing constitutes a phenomenal record.

In this dry, dusty part of the U.S., Stephanie, my first daughter, was born, and Jan Grogan, my neighbor in Electra, Texas became a lifetime friend who now claims that I sparked her initial interest in the writing craft while we sojourned on the hot plains of the “Pump Jack Capital of Texas.”

*Bernadette Pruitt, Special Contributor to the Dallas Morning News

Photograph by Victoria I. Sullivan