"The Morning After"

Slowly opening my eyes, I could feel the intense rays of the morning sun burning my skin. My head ached like somebody had spent the night pounding on it with a wooden hammer.

I’ve been drunk plenty of times before, but nothing had ever made me feel this bad.

I dragged myself out of bed looking for some aspirin and water. That’s when I noticed my clothes.

Same ones I’d been wearing last night.

What the hell did I drink?

As I rummaged through the bathroom medicine cabinet, I could hear sirens in the distance. At this time of the morning, with hardly any traffic in the Quarter, the sirens echoed off the buildings and seemed to be coming from every direction.

Weird.

Whatever was happening must’ve been pretty bad to have NOPD running Code 3 through the French Quarter this early.

I started my usual morning routine and put on a fresh pot of chicory coffee. As it brewed, I became more aware of the hunger pains deep in my belly.

Except this didn’t feel like hunger.

Sharp, piercing pains shot through my midsection, almost like I’d swallowed shards of broken glass and now they were trying to claw their way back out.

While I waited for the coffee, I flipped on the television, hoping to catch the local weather.

The weatherman was just finishing his forecast when a breaking-news alert flashed across the screen.  

The reporter was standing on the corner of St. Peter and Royal Street.

“Another tourist has been reported missing from the French Quarter overnight,” she said. “This is the fifth tourist to disappear since the beginning of the year.”

Damn.

This city was getting worse every day.

Good thing I wasn’t a tourist.

By the time the coffee finished brewing, the sirens sounded like they were right below my window.

The PD sure was being awfully damned noisy for this probably being some tourist getting their car burglarized overnight or some poor panhandler, off their meds, raising hell in the street.

Then the pain in my stomach got worse.

It felt like something was trying to claw its way out of my bowels.

I walked into the kitchen and reached for a coffee mug. That’s when I noticed my hands.

There was something dark underneath my fingernails.

Dirt.

At least I thought it was dirt.

Where the hell would I have been digging around last night?

I turned on the faucet and started washing my hands. As I scraped underneath one of my fingernails, the dark crust softened and streaked red across my fingertip.

I stopped.

That wasn’t dirt.

It was dried blood.

I stared at my hands.

What the hell did I do last night?

I couldn’t remember one damned thing- yesterday was a total blackout.

Then I heard voices and commotion downstairs.

Now that was strange.

Whatever NOPD was dealing with had apparently followed me home.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and took a sip.

The second I swallowed, it felt like hot lava had hit the pit of my stomach.

My mouth filled with saliva.

I knew what was coming.

I barely had time to turn toward the sink before I started vomiting everywhere—the kitchen floor, the cabinets, the counter, and finally into the sink. 

It came out of me like somebody had opened a spigot connected straight to the pits of hell.

After what felt like forever, it finally stopped.

I stood there breathing hard, staring at the carnage.

What the hell did I eat for supper?

Then I saw something in the sink.

Mixed in with the bile and whatever else my stomach had rejected was the strangest thing I had ever seen.

Something was looking back at me.

A blue eye.

A human eyeball sat near the drain.

Beside it was a man’s gold wedding ring.

For a few seconds, I couldn’t move.

The room started spinning. My mind raced, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

I stumbled backward and dropped onto a barstool.

That’s when I noticed the clothes on the floor.

A pair of pants.

Shoes.

Neither belonged to me.

Now I was really confused.

I sat there trying to piece together the night before, but there was almost nothing.

Just fragments of memory popping up.

Drinking.

Walking.

Maybe Bourbon Street.

Then nothing.

Footsteps thundered up the stairway.

A lot of them.

Apparently my building had become the center of attention this morning.

Then again, this was New Orleans. There was always something crazy going on.

Especially after a full moon.

I was still trying to remember what happened the night before when my front door suddenly burst open.

NOPD officers poured into the apartment.

“Hands! Let me see your hands!”

Before I could even understand what was happening, they had me on the floor, my arms pulled behind my back and handcuffs around my wrists.

Four officers held me by my arms and legs, dragging me downstairs toward the waiting police cars.

My head was still pounding.

My stomach was still burning.

And all I could think about was that blue eye staring up at me from the kitchen sink.

Then one of the officers keyed his radio.

“One suspect in custody,” he said.

There was a short burst of static.

Then he added:

“The Rougarou has been captured.”

Fishing, not Catching

 

My grandfather, J. Berton Daigle, loved to fish. After he retired, he was on the water at least four or five days a week, and fishing was as much a part of his routine as anything else.

 I remember we had several large freezers in an outside building. One was for frozen vegetables and meats, and the other was Berton's. It was always full of fish and bait.

He would take old half-gallon milk cartons, fill them with shrimp and water, and freeze them. Whenever he went fishing, he didn't measure the trip by time. He measured it by how much shrimp he had. If he ran out of shrimp in an hour, he was done. Sometimes it would take three or four hours, depending on whether the fish were biting
or the crabs and hardheads were simply stealing his bait.

One of his favorite places to fish was an area called North Prong. To get there, he would launch his boat from a tiny ditch on Aunt Ozite's property. Aunt Ozite was Grandpa Pierre's oldest sister.

In some places the little ditch was barely wide enough for his 15-foot aluminum boat to pass through. As we made our way through it, I had to sit in the middle of the boat and duck and dodge the trees and bushes hanging over the water. Every now and then, we would have to watch for a wasp nest hidden somewhere in the branches. Just getting to the fishing spot was always an adventure unto itself.

Another place he liked to fish was Lambert Bayou, a small bayou off of Grand Bayou. It was close to the weirs going into Big Lake, and the redfish were usually biting in that area because they loved feeding on the shrimp and shad running thru l through the weirs.

One of my best memories from fishing with him was finding Native American artifacts along the banks of Grand Bayou. We would pull up to an area he called Shell Hill, and I would walk along the shoreline looking for pieces and shards of pottery. Some were pieces of bowls, with small designs and imprints still visible in the clay. I even found a few arrowheads.

I kept a whole collection of them in a box. I always thought that one day I might donate them to an anthropology or archaeological department. Sadly, when Hurricane Rita struck in 2005, those pieces were lost along with so much of southern Cameron Parish.

Looking back now, all those times I spent fishing or running the crab traps with J. Berton are some of my best memories.

J. Berton was a man of few words. We might have been in the boat for two or three hours and barely said a word to each other. But there was never any need to fill the silence. Fishing with him gave me a chance to slow down and simply be there.

I would sit and watch the water, waiting for that little nibble that might turn into a strike. For those few hours, there was nothing else to think about. No worries. No cares. Just the water, the boat, the bait, and the possibility that the next tug on the line might be a fish.

As I have gotten older, I've come to understand something I didn't realize back then. J. Berton didn't always go fishing for the catching. Sometimes, I think he went simply to get away from everything and spend a few quiet hours with his thoughts.

And whether we caught anything or not, I was lucky enough to be there with him.

Pierre Savoie (1898-1987)

Pierre Savoie

B: 7 Aug 1898 

D: 28 Oct 1987

August 7, would have been my great-grandfather Pierre Savoie's 128th birthday.

He was born in 1898 in Creole, Louisiana, the second of ten children born to Camille and Ortense Boudreaux Savoie.

I remember being in my early teens when it suddenly hit me that I actually knew someone who was born in the 1800s. Back then, that seemed almost impossible to wrap my mind around, and I thought it was pretty amazing. Even today, I find it crazy that I've known someone from the last 3 centuries.... 1800s, 1900s, and 2000s.

Grandpa Pierre's first language was Cajun French. He barely spoke English his entire life, and if I remember Granny's stories correctly, I believe he only went to school through the second grade. Somewhere along his life's journey, he lost an eye and wore a prosthetic glass eye for the rest of his life. His remaining eye slowly failed him too, and by the end of his life he was nearly blind.

Pierre lived until my 15th birthday, and I'm grateful I had those years with him.

After school, I'd often stop by his little house just to sit and drink coffee with him and Grandma Cooney. Looking back, I think that's probably where my lifelong love of coffee began.

One thing I'll never forget was Grandpa Pierre's hair. He was bald, but he always had one or two long, scraggly strands standing straight up. I'd sneak into the house as quietly as I could, ease up behind his chair, and give one of those hairs a little tug. Without even turning around, I'd hear him softly say my name.

Even now, nearly 40 years later, I can still hear his old Cajun voice...

"Wil-leee."

Funny how time passes, but some voices never leave you.

Homemade BEER BREAD - Making more dough.

BEER, IT'S NOT JUST FOR DRINKING...

I decided to broaden my bread making skills.

I found a recipe online for Homemade BEER BREAD.

Its simple, easy, and only has 4 ingredients.

12 oz BEER ( I used Lite beer- Any will work)
3 Cups Self Rising Flour
Sugar (To taste.-Recipe called for 1/2 Cup)
1/2 Cup Butter

Thats it. Only four ingredients..

There is no kneading of the dough or having to let it rise 2 or 3 times.

All you do is add the ingredients together, mix it in a bowl, pour it in a pan, and bake at 375* F for 55 minutes.

It came out extra crunchy on the outside and has a sweet, moist inside.

Very DELICIOUS!

Youtube video of me making the bread.

"Fading Memories"

Hurricane Audrey 
 June 27, 1957

National Weather Service picture of Audrey. NOAA

Sixty-one years ago today one of the worst hurricanes to strike the gulf coast had a direct impact not only on the landscape of Cameron Parish and southwest Louisiana, but also on its families.

Hurricane Audrey hit the Cameron Parish coast during the early morning hours of June 27, 1957.

Many people were unprepared for the storm because it arrived 2 days earlier than calculated.

With winds over 125 mph with gust up to 150 mph and waves over 20 foot, the Category 3 hurricane devastated the Cameron Parish coastal communities of Johnson Bayou, Holly Beach, Cameron, Creole, Oak Grove, and Grand Chenier.

Structures were completely destroyed. Houses, Barns, Hotels, Businesses, Schools, Libraries, and Churches.

The destruction forces from Hurricane Audrey reached from Galveston, Texas to Cocodrie, Louisiana. Many small communities like High Island, Texas to Pecan Island, Louisiana were greatly affected.

Along with the physical devastation there was something far worse. DEATH.

The official count of the death toll by Audrey was over 500 lost souls, but it is estimated over 600 perished.

My family knows first hand the force of Audrey. My grandparents Berton and Audrey, their 3 children Warner, Gerald, and Sandy, along with my great-grandfather Pierre Savoie, and my great-uncle Guidry Savoie and his wife Juanita, all rode out Hurricane Audrey from the attic of my grandparents home in Cameron.

Sandy, Audrey, Berton, Warner, and Gerald Daigle

After riding out the storm all day and night, they walked 6 miles to the town of Cameron. They waded through saltwater, mud, marsh grass, dead snakes, fish, cows, horses, alligators, nutria, muskrat, and worst of all, humans.

As they walked this heartbreaking journey, they were able to see first hand the death and destruction that mother nature can bring.

Warner Daigle ,14 years old, in white t-shirt, carrying a body. 

They passed friends, neighbors, and relatives old home sites, with no more homes.

They knew if there were no house then the family that lived there probably drowned.

My grandmother passed her Aunt Tilley's home place with no structure left.

Her Aunt and Grandmother rode out the storm until the house broke apart and floated away. Her Aunt Tilley was rescued 2 days later and 20 miles north, wrapped in barbed wire and clinging to pieces of wood from the house. Her grandmother did not survive.

There are many other stories such as this, from other families who rode out the storm. 

Some are far worse.

In one family, the only survivor was a 12 year old boy. He lost his entire family in one day. His grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters.

There may always be written records of Audrey's winds and water levels and there will be records of the death toll caused by the storm.  Let us never forget the impact the storm had on the lives of our ancestors.

61 years have passed since Audrey in 1957. There are not many first-hand survivors left who rode out the storm. As time marches on, so do the memories fade.

Hurricane Audrey 60 Years Later

Video

May the memory of Audrey's destruction never fade away.

"A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a 

tree without roots." 

~ Marcus Garvey ~