Goodbye, Gretchen

The other day, I asked my mom whether she'd spoken to Gretchen, lately. Gretchen  Cruthirds was one of my mom's elementary school teachers in DeRidder, and a close buddy of Brother, my great uncle. The two of them used to call one another every morning to make sure the other one was okay. Brother died years ago, but Gretchen, who seemed much frailer, kept plugging along despite many health problems. My mother sent her candy at Christmas and called her occasionally.

Paul and I went down to Louisiana about six or seven years ago and stayed with her for a night. She offered to give us a tour around town--no small feat since she wasn't too spry and could barely see. No problem, though, as it turned out. She sat in the front seat and told us at what light to turn and described, from memory, and in detail, what stood or had stood on every inch of every block in DeRidder.

She'd lived in DeRidder most of her life--in fact she'd been born in the house we visited her in on Christmas Day. Her parents put a bow on her and placed her under the tree as a present for her older brother. She  had the place pretty well memorized. It was amazing to me--the idea of living that long in one place, of knowing it so well. I thought, for the eighteen thousandth time, about how rare it is for people in our country to stay in one place throughout their lifetime.

That night, we went out to dinner at a local restaurant that featured a southern buffet (which I'd love to be partaking of right now). The next day, Gretchen looked at Paul and said, "They've been talking about this big and tasty burger..." I don't know if "they" were friends of hers or ads she'd heard, but she was referring to a new burger at McDonald's. She wanted to go try one out, so we all went and she took us to lunch. (She wasn't all that impressed by the burger, as it turned out.) If the burger wasn't memorable, however, the line was. For some reason, both Paul and I occasionally pop up with that line. "They've been talking about this big and tasty burger..."

Other notable moments during our stay with Gretchen: Her recoil when we offered her boudin (I thought all Louisianans lived on the stuff, but she despised it); and a story she told us about her father being operated upon by the famous heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey in Lake Charles. Turns out DeBakey was born in Lake Charles. Gretchen's father didn't have heart disease--in fact I think it was some sort of G.I. problem. Maybe it was before DeBakey specialized. At any rate, Debakey had a reputation for being a fast and efficient surgeon even then.

When we left, Gretchen told me to have my mom come down soon--something she often said to my mom on the phone, as well. When I asked my mother about her just recently, she said she hadn't talked to her recently. "I don't even know if she's alive," she said, a little fretfully. When Gretchen's name came up, there was always a little frisson of worry....she was so frail, how did she keep going, was she still alive?

This time, I had my blackberry in my hand and typed her name into Google. Unfortunately, her obituary popped right up. She'd died only a week earlier.

I didn't know Gretchen well, but I was very fond of her--not only because I thought she was smart, kind, lovely, and tough in that genteel southern woman kind of way, but because she had been such a good friend to Brother. I will miss knowing she's down there, puttering around in the house she was born in in the same way I miss knowing that Brother is down there in the house he built, anchoring me to a place to which I am so perplexingly connected.

Treme

I'm very excited about the new HBO series, Treme, which follows several struggling residents of post-Katrina New Orleans. It premieres on Sunday, April 11th.

Louisiana rife with crime

Read it and weep: Louisiana ranks #3 in the nation in crime, according to a new article in CQ Press. Some of this might be due to the fact that New Orleans is so notoriously crime ridden...witness this report from Easter weekend (15 shot, two dead, over a single weekend). Makes me think all of us gorging ourselves on beignets and iced coffee at Cafe du Monde have no idea what's really going on behind the scenes. But is it all New Orleans?

A-Ha!

During a moment of idle Googling at Starbucks, I stumbled upon an article by a researcher on the psychology of place. I emailed him and asked him to send me a pdf of the article, which appeared in a publication called The Journal of Environmental Psychology...which turned out to be a revalation. Not only was the article interesting, but it gave me the name for the discipline I've been looking for--environmental psychology--for people who study the sense of attachment and identity we get from place. Environmental Psychology. Aha!

Here, below, is a snippet of what I've been reading today, on yet another working afternoon at Starbucks...I'm especially intrigued by the notion that place-identity can change throughout your life--though of course this makes sense, too.

Aspects of identity linked to place can be described as "place-identity." The term has been in use since the late 1970s (Proshansky, 1978), and is here, as originally, typed with a hyphen. Place-identity has been described as the individual's incorporation of place into the larger concept of self (Proshansky, Fabian & Kaminoff, 1983), defined as a "potpourri of memories, conceptions, interpretations, ideas, and related feelings about specific physical settings, as well as types of settings" (1983, p. 60). Place attachment is considered a part of place-identity, but place-identity is more than attachment. Place-identity is a substructure of self-identity, much like gender and social class, and is comprised of perceptions and comprehensions regarding the environment. These perceptions and conceptions can be organized into two types of clusters; one type consists of memories, thoughts, values and settings, and the second type consists of the relationship among different settings (home, school, and neighborhood; Proshansky & Fabian, 1987).

Identity develops as children learn to differentiate themselves from people around them, and in the same way, place-identity develops as a child learns to see her or himself as distinct from, but related to, the physical environment. Among the first identity determinants are those rooted in the child's experience with toys, clothes and rooms. The home is the environment of primary importance, followed by the neighborhood and the school. Here, social and environmental skills and relationships are learned, and the "lenses" are formed through which the child later will recognize, evaluate and create places. Place-identity changes occur throughout a person's lifetime (Proshansky & Fabian, 1987). Five central functions of place-identity have been depicted; recognition, meaning, expressive-requirement, mediating change, and anxiety and defense function. Place-identity becomes a cognitive "database" against which every physical setting is experienced (Proshansky et al., 1983).

Love Louisiana? (Me too!) Love the blues? Check this out...

It's a blog documenting the efforts of audio documentarian Richard Ziglar and reporter Barry Yeoman, a native Louisianan to chronicle their "...research and travels as we produce the one-hour radio documentary Still Singing the Blues." The actual documentary, they say, is scheduled to air in the spring of 2010.

And here's the menu at Johnson's Boucaniere!

Check out the menu at Johnson's Boucaniere here. Check out Johnson's Facebook page here.

Johnson's Grocery--Open Again!

Some of you may remember that I wrote about a place called Johnson's Grocery--home of the best boudin I've ever tasted, and one of the nicest cowboy hat wearing guys I've ever met--awhile back. You might also remember that it was unclear whether Johnson's was going to stay open. I was really sad to hear that it wasn't...but good news just arrived in the form of a note from Rhett Johnson, of the Johnson clan, informing that they'd re-opened in Lafayette as Johnson's Boucaniere (Cajun French for smokehouse). "We R proud to say that we have won the award for best boudin in the area," writes Rhett. And they ship! More on that when I get more information. Sadly we were just in Lafayette in September and had NO idea. We made do with Poche's boudin, but....Wish I had another trip to Lafayette planned soon. Meanwhile, here's one review, if you find yourself in the area.

Article in NYT Sunday Mag: A Prom Divided

More ruminations on race... The May 24th issue of the The New York Times Sunday Magazine (yes, yes, I'm way behind in my reading) featured a photo-heavy essay called "A Prom Divided," by Sara Corbett and Gillian Laub, on the fact that Montgomery County High School in Georgia has two proms for its seniors: a white one and a black one. The two are held in the same place, a night apart.

Apparently, this phenomenon is not all that unique. And, according to the article, it has more to do with the parents of these kids than the wishes of the students themselves. I had no idea...I'm always shocked by both the persistence of blatant racism, and my ignorance of it. I'm reminded, all the time, that, as a white person, I have the privilige of not having issues of race forced in my face all the time.

It's uncomfortable.

I can't help feeling, as I look at these pictures, that the white kids look happy, and the black ones look kind of depressed. Am I just projecting? I don't know. But I find the pictures haunting. For some reason, my white prom picture showed up blurry...click on the link to the article to see them more clearly.

Was Atticus Finch such a hero?

I'm catching up with New Yorkers (Paul hoards, then passes them to me in a pile, where they sit, taking up space on my dresser, until I make a desperate plunge through them.)

One article that caught my eye--especially in light of our recent trip to Louisiana, and the earlier post "Someone's in trouble..."--was a piece by Malcolm Gladwell called "The Courthouse Ring."

In it Gladwell uses the work of legal scholar Steven Lubet to bring Atticus Finch, the beloved and seemingly just character from Harper Lee's classic "To Kill a Mockingbird," down a peg on the schema of literary figures deserving of reverence.

Finch didn't represent a new, non-racist shift in the south, says Gladwell (and the scholars he's quoting). He represents "Old-style Southern liberalism--gradual and paternalistic...." Whoa. Talk about a shift in perspective.

It's an interesting piece. And probably quite right. I, like many, I suspect, had just never thought of it like that before.

What cracked me up, being rather baby-name oriented these days, is the recent trend toward Atticuses at the playground...We're still struggling with a name, but Atticus isn't on the list.

Someone's in trouble....

Last week, Beth Humphrey, 30 and her boyfriend, Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond, Louisiana, went to get married by the local justice of the peace. But Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish's 8th Ward, refused to issue a marriage license to them because Humphrey is white and her boyfriend is black. He said he was doing it for the sake of any children who might be born of the marriage, and because, in his experience, these relationships didn't last.

It's a shocking story. I think one of my Facebook friends who noted it said something like "Helloooo 1950s!" Actually, we didn't manage to get this kind of racism off the national slate until 1967, when The U.S. Supreme Court tossed out racially based limitations on marriage in the landmark 1967 Loving v. Virginia case:

"In the unanimous decision, the court said that 'Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the state.' (From CNN)

Guess Bardwell doesn't keep up with the law.

Meanwhile, I'm kind of blown away by Republican Governor Bobby Jindal's response: "This is a clear violation of constitutional rights and federal and state law. ... Disciplinary action should be taken immediately -- including the revoking of his license," he told CNN.

I double-checked his party status after reading that quote.

I think Jindal deserves some props from Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow on this one.

Back to Louisiana

Paul and Henry touching the land.....

You wouldn't know it to look at this blog, but we (Paul, Henry and I) went down to Lousiana the first week of September. The main objective: To go look at a piece of land inherited by mother, which will, someday, be mine. I wanted to get a sense of what this whole attachment to land thing--a foreign concept to a born suburbanite, now urbanite apartment dweller--means. 

Would I just feel it? 

We started out in New Orleans, then drove to Baton Rouge, and from there, north to the outskirts of Clinton, Louisiana, where the land is. There's lots more to tell...but, for now, let's just say I'm still trying to understand the land thing. 

Meanwhile, I came across an interesting quote in the beginning of Diane McWhorter's Pulitzer Prize winning book, Carry Me Home: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. And here it is:

A landscape to be seen has to be composed,

and to be loved has to be moralized.

-George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty

What do you think it means?

Pat Boone comes to DeRidder!

Wow. Legendary crooner Pat Boone--and perhaps his white bucks--will be the headliner at The First Baptist Church of DeRidder's annual Southwest Louisiana Senior Adult Celebration on August 6th.

Here's a bit of the news report: "Boone will arrive at 10 a.m. for the two-hour gathering which will feature an hour of performance time for the award-winning crooner and then a time for him to share his Christian message, which will be followed by a short meet and greet session. Included in his performance will be several of Boone’s greatest hits such as Love Letters in the Sand, and April Love.”

According to Wikipedia, Boone is now about 75. But as my husband pointed out, it's possible that his age has been fudged along the way.

Meanwhile, do you think he'll still be wearing his white bucks?

Bad storm in DeRidder

My mother, when the whole Katrina thing hit, said DeRidder never really got hurricanes, they got tornados. So I sort of get the degree of alarm caused by this thunderstorm, last Wednesday. I was particularly amused by the last graph, which talks about a missing 6-year-old. (I'd be less amused, of course, if the child hadn't been found quickly.) Anyway, I was amused because, as a kid, my mother remembers walking home from school after a tornado had torn through town, eyeballing the desctruction. Meanwhile, her grandmother, who my mother lived with, was on the verge of a stroke wondering what had happened to her. Must have been one of those hug her? or kill her? moments when my mom finally sauntered in the door.

A note from a former resident of DeRidder....

I got an email this week from Mike, who grew up in DeRidder. Here's what he had to say about the place:

"DeRidder was an interesting place. It was and is a small, backwater town, but had a suprisingly cosmopolitan population due to the influence of Fort Polk. The Army families who lived there brought a pretty decent cultural mix to the area. I was never particularly happy as child there, and couldn't wait to get away. After high school I moved to Washington, DC for college, then on to Chicago, San Diego, and finally settling down in Knoxville, TN. It is facinating to see the various paths that people travel to a particular time and place."

I'd love to hear from anyone else who lives or has lived in DeRidder...

This is sad

Seems like the lumber industry in Louisiana is in distress....there's less call for pine and pulp these days. Sad that a state that used to boast some of the biggest pines around is now having a hard time peddling pulp for liner board, whatever that is. I can't help feeling a bit like they deserve it.

DeRidder, Louisiana--Cleanest City?

That's what they're aiming for. Yes, DeRidder, with the help of a new $50,000 grant, is entering The Cleanest City Contest. First one the agenda: Cleaning up the east side park (I don't know which one they're talking about) and putting street signs on antique posts in the historic district. I sort of make fun of the sprucifying going on in DeRidder, but the truth is...it is a historic town. A classic company town in the era of sawmills. It deserves to survive, and be proud of its past--and I hope it finds its way forward. There is certainly someone with a will pushing it in that direction. I wonder who it is?

Creel Family Motto--I think I Dig It

So I was just aimlessly googling the name "Creel," which was my great grandmother's maiden name, and struck open a site that had the Creel family crest (still working on a picture), a little history (name first appeared in England after the Norman Conquest), and the family motto: Nil Morer Ictus." Translated (are you sitting down?) that means: I do not care for blows. Hell, me neither!

What happened to the long leaf?

The longleaf pine used to be the dominant tree over 60 million acres of the Southeast. And they were the dominant tree in western Louisiana, for a time. Lawrence Earley, author of Looking for Long Leaf, describes the tree’s demise this way:

“Long leaf’s decline has been attributed to a great many things but is most easily explained in three words—need, greed, and mismanagement. People cut the forest, burned it to farm and make spaces to live, exploited its resources, and changed the natural processes that had evolved and maintained it.”

Among the culprits were farmers, industrial turpentiners, lumber companies, paper companies, foresters and others. “All of them in some way made their livings from the forest and tried to shape it for their own ends.”

Taking the trees

(This picture is of a now defunct steam engine at the Southern Forest Heritage Museum in Alexandria, Louisiana)

I’ve been reading a book called Looking for Longleaf, by Lawrence Earley.

Why write a book about one type of pine tree? Because it used to cover most of the eastern United States, before the lumbermen took them all. And by accident. Early started out researching a book on the history of turpentining. “But I soon realized that this history would be told most effectively in the context of a book on the longleaf pine ecosystem.”

I’m interested because it’s this pine tree that drew the lumber companies to my family’s part of Louisiana, and that actually built DeRidder. DeRidder was almost entirely a company town.

One of my favorite spots in the book is where Earley visits The Southern Forest Heritage Museum near Alexandria, Louisiana, which Paul and I also visited a few years back. The “museum” is a group of buildings on a 56 acre parcel of land that includes the remnants of the Crowell Long Leaf Lumber Company, established in 1892.

What you see when you go there is a nice visitors center, with a lot of information on the trees of the region (which I now wished I’d paid more attention to), along with the skeleton of a steam-powered sawmill (that must be how my great-grandfather got scalded), planer mill, dry kiln, steam skidder, tracks and a steam-powered logging locomotive.

When we went, we took the tour with three REALLY old guys, wearing overalls, who’d made the drive over from Texas. They’d actually worked in the mill as young men, and filled in the tour with their memories of the place. Among the tidbits they contributed: they used to offer to work ten minutes extra for a chunk of ice thrown in the water bucket, and that near the saws, they used to use hand signs to communicate, because the roar of the saw was so deafening.

On Earley’s visit, he interviewed the director of the museum, Don Powell. Here are some of Powell’s comments:

“You know, people don’t understand the South. They think of plantations but less than two percent of the people participated in that. I’m doing some genealogy for my family and everybody—and I mean everybody—was a farmer. They grew cotton but their land got its fertility depleted—there ain’t nothin’ that eat up land like cotton; it sucked the nutrients out of it. Now the sawmill people come in. Some of them are pretty tough business people, but they were willing to risk their capital and that says a lot. ‘I’m willing to put my capital out here, build this mill, and believe that I can hire people and buy enough timber to make it and sell it at a profit.’ And by doing so they provided the means by which southerners had their first real opportunity to participate in the Industrial Revolution. There was no industry down here, a little textile in the Carolinas, and there was a splash of it in Mississippi, but not much. You can’t really say a cotton gin was the Industrial Revolution because it only operates two months out of the year and it didn’t take that many people to do it—ten people could run it easy—wheras it took 250 to run a sawmill and logging operation."

“So here we are in just this area right here, ten mills just a few miles away from each other. That’s 2,500 jobs. The people came from all over, from all these worn-out farms. They were leaving a house where they were feeding the chickens through the cracks in the floor almost, coming to a warmer house, a tighter house, a nicer house, in a community.”

My family didn’t start out as lumbermen. They started out as farmers. But once the lumbermen brought the railroads and the lumber mills to western Louisiana, there was no question what constituted the better career choice.

Here's where DeRidder is....

I've tried to describe it (north of Baton Rouge, western part of the state, etc etc) but a picture is much more effective, isn't it?