S O U T H E R N L I F E

Just stumbled across this while thinking about my own heritage – I was born in Eunice and can’t remember my real early years in Louisiana, but we moved to Kansas when i was about five, raised by Cajuns who ate, drank, and spoke like they never left home. Charming to some, off-putting to others – we fit in by being good students and stayed out of trouble. Dad found work in Kansas after he left the service, one arm short and with little to no support from the VA. Still young, he was bitter and felt cheated. Four kids under five years old, the pressure to provide was enormous and he drank heavily to to forget. He forgot alright. He forgot, if he ever knew, how to love. Trips “back home” to catch crabs and craw-fish with his family were our connection to Louisiana over the years, and being kids we had as much fun as we could, and we loved the food. It would be the reason we admitted to being from the south, and nothing like it in Kansas compared. But Cajuns’ are, or can be, very manipulative having functioned as survivors with so little as a people, and Dad learned how to play the victim well. His popularity was enormous, and nobody had any idea that the same guy they loved to laugh and cry with drinking, was the same guy who would rather be anyplace than home. The years droned on, and with the constant reminder that if he could do it all over again he would have never had kids, one by one we left home after high school and never looked back, rarely called back, didn’t go back, and did everything we could to forget. Cajuns always want to go home, and in their later years the folks finally moved back to the bayou – i found out when a family friend found my number and contacted me to ask their new address. Of course i didn’t know and had to admit that we hadn’t spoken in years. “What’s wrong with you boy?”, he asked, “Your dad is a great guy, we had a lot of fun together over the years, and you should be so lucky to have a dad like that!” I told him to go fuck himself, that he didn’t know what it was like for us kids living with my dad, and because he was present reminded him of the time dad came to one of my wrestling matches so drunk and loud, belittling me to anyone in earshot as i lost match, so much so that he was asked to leave? i was defeated before the match began when i saw him weave his way into the gym. “Well”, he said, “that was a long time ago – you should get over it.” The years have come and gone, and with some remarkable counseling, a wife i adore, and kids I fawn over, I have.

Thanks for your web site and allowing me to share a little southern life experience of my own.