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YOU’RE MOVING WHERE?

There were a goodly number of my Northern friends and relatives, who upon learning that we were relocating from the Midwest to the Deep South, called or emailed me to express varying degrees of concern.

They had seen the infamous Mardi Gras footage on television for many years, showing tourists and college students partying or vomiting in the streets, drunk as a skunk and tearing their clothes off. is where I was moving with my On purpose? No one they knew moved to such a place on Were we sure of what we were doing?

Did I know it was called the Deep South for a reason? Why didn’t we just move back up North? There were probably swamps and pits of quicksand down there! What if the people weren’t Everyone reacted as though I planned on moving with the family to the wilds of Borneo, or someplace… sheesh, its only Louisiana, people, relax. I assured everyone that we had landed in an actual jet in an actual airport, interviewed without incident, had toured the town and seen people driving cars and wearing shoes. We had seen evidence of computers, cell phones, and everyone at dinner had used a knife, fork and spoon, the same as we did.

I didn’t witness one soul getting drunk or taking off a single piece of clothing. Husband accepted the contract, we packed up the house, the kids, all the animals, said farewell to the Midwest and drove south to our new home in Looz-ee-anna or Weezy-anna, as the natives pronounced it, depending on their accent.

The local people were wonderful, you would never meet a stranger. Everyone said hello and smiled, or waved as they drove or walked by. People you met while waiting in line or riding on an elevator would strike up a conversation, discover that you were new to the area and invite you over for dinner. And mean it.

You quickly learn Southerners will say anything about another person, even if it’s not terribly polite, as long as it has the phrase, “bless his/her heart” tacked onto it.

“You’ve gained at least 30 pounds, I swear you have, baby, bless your heart.”

“I declare, darlin’, that color makes you look downright jaundiced, doesn’t it? Bless your heart.”

“Miss Rose, is that fat man over there in that awful suit your husband? Bless his heart.”

Everyone, regardless of age, calls one another by their first names, with a Mister or Miss on the front. A four year old child could greet a 90 year old woman by saying, “Hey there, Miss Adeline!” and that is perfectly acceptable in the South. It threw me into Gone With the Wind mode daily, until I became accustomed to it, and even though I moved away from there many years ago, I still greet folks that way.

Food and music are both major things in Cajun Country. I’m allergic to a lot of seafood, so I never indulged in the vast number of dishes Southerners could concoct from this stuff. My boys became addicted to boudin (), gumbo, jambalaya, and learned how to eat crawdads properly…you bite the heads off and suck out the juices.

Zydeco music plays from the speakers in public parks on all the holidays, everyone dances a lot and you can buy alligator-meat-on-a-stick at the street fairs. You can carry alcohol in your car as long as it’s in plain sight, and there are drive-through daiquiri bars all over town.

We lived in Louisiana for four years. It was an adventure sometimes, and for us transplanted Northerners, it took some getting used to on many levels: the heat… the bugs… the mold… the fire ants… the heat… the pronunciation of French surnames… the food… the heat.

Would you like it if I went into greater detail on a few of these topics, if you ever decide to move there yourself, or visit someday? Hey, you never know, some of this stuff could come in handy. We will start with the heat…