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Each year Dianne makes a pilgrimage to Louisiana to visit her family at
Thanksgiving. Well things happened differently this year. The
trip was postponed until late December and both Nancy and Dianne went.
A very special event was happening then and neither one of us wanted
to miss it. Daughter-in-law Kim graduated from LSU! It was the
culmination of a long arduous journey. In addition to being a student,
Kim was wife, mother, homemaker, chauffer, and part-time employee at a number of
area businesses over the years. Plans for the new graduate and family are to begin a job search, focusing on Colorado. YEAH! That means they will be closer to Oregon (and in a really scenic place to visit). This visit then held a new set of underlying possibilities - trips to Louisiana could become rare. Patrick asked us if there were any special things we wanted to do while visiting. Both of us said, "Bonfires on the levee!" Those of you who are not from south Louisiana may not know about or understand this request. Here's the story in a nutshell. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Way way back, on Christmas Eve, a great fog settled over da swamp. It was so tick you could hardly see across da bayou. Cloteel and Pierre Boudreaux, dey run to dey daddy and axe if Gran'pere Noel can find dair house in all dis fog. De chilren wuz worried yeah. Dey afeard dey won't have no Christmas presents on Christmas day. Dair fadder understands dair worry. So he decide to build a huge big fire in front of da house. It so big and bright, nobody can pass dat way and not see it. Da neighbors see da big fire and come running to help put it out. Dey don't want nobody should have der house burn down. Ole Boudreaux, he explain dat he done set dat fire so Gran'pere Noel can find der house. All da other little chilren begin a hollerin', dey don't wanna be left out eeder. Soon da whole bayou is aglowin' wit' big fires in da front yards of everbody's house. Da mommas want to be a part of saving Christmas too, so dey cook up some floatin' isle and cookies for everbody to eat while dey be workin' on da fires. Cher, dat huge big fog be glowing yeah. Lader dat night, once all da chilren go do-do, dem mommas and pappas dey have demselves a real party. Right den and der, dey decide dey gonna do dis again next year fo sho. And dat's da story of how da bonfires on da levee got started. An' ev'ry year, da party get bigger an' bigger. Gran'pere Noel, he ain't never got lost once. Dem good lil Cajun boys and girls always have dem a wonderful Christmas! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The first event of the trip was Ashleigh's middle school basketball game. She did her grandmother and godmother proud. Ashleigh hit a three pointer during the game. The photographer was so excited that the only photo showed just a blurry basketball court floor. Suffice it to say, it was a wonderful game. Bright and early the next morning was graduation.   Graduation was followed by a day and a half of family-and-friends parties. Once that event was behind us, we started getting ready for the bonfires. A trip down River Road during the daytime let us see what the structures looked like before being set ablaze. 
The structure at the extreme left of the photo (the one by the pickup
truck.) is covered with bamboo canes. Note, the truck helps give
the structure scale. When this one is lighted, it will pop and pow for
a long time as the individual chambers inside the cane heat up and the
air expands until it explodes.
A winter sport in Louisiana is being practiced by the kid in the middle of the photo - cardboarding down the side of the levee. Since they have no snow, no one has sleds, and they creatively improvise. Kids (of all ages) perfect the art of sliding down the slope hanging on to the cardboard and stopping without ending up in the road. Louisianans go for simple and inexpensive entertainment. To insure the public safety, the Lutcher Fire Department supervises the entire bonfire process. Permits must be purchased prior to constructing your bonfire, and it must be inspected and approved before it can be ignited. Not wanting to be outdone, the firemen really get into spirit of the event. They construct very intricate and complicated bonfires. This years was a bulldozer. The last time we attended, the fire department's entry was a military tank.  And never to be outdone, football enthusiasts jumped right in with their school's letters.  Below is what the regular bonfire structure looks like. They may vary in height and width, but they are all pretty much pyramids. They are actually nailed together to insure that they do not fall apart and roll down the levee onto unsuspecting passersby. They are then soaked in kerosene or diesel the evening they are to be ignited.  Christmas Eve, we arrived early, so we could wander around checking out the pyramids and doing some people-watching. We discovered something new that had been added, probably that afternoon. A couple of the pyramids were covered from top to bottom with LONG strings of firecrackers. We're talking about chains of small firecrackers starting at the top of the pyramid extending to the ground, all around the entire thing. That's a lot of POW power. When it was time to light them off, we made a point of claiming a front-row spot directly opposite the firecracker-covered ones. Here is what it looked like with just the firecrackers exploding. Too bad you can't hear the scene -- it was deafening!!  The smoke barrage was so intense, it was hard to see very well. Shortly the firecrackers ignited the diesel soaked logs and it turned into a real fire. Eventually, when the firecrackers stopped exploding, we all could uncover our ears.  
Below is Dianne's son, daughter-in-law, and grand-daughter Meghan. That's
Dianne in the red
shirt. (Notice how everybody is dressed. Dianne's the only one in
long pants. Neither one of us brought shorts. It was 16
degrees on the drive to the airport in Oregon. Who
would pack shorts???) There is so much smoke because of
the thousands of firecrackers that exploded. There are
several men along the roped off area below the fire to make sure no
one gets too close.
  Though the photography is very poor (nighttime and no tripod) it gives you the feel for event. A Christmas Eve party, Louisiana style. The picture doesn't show River Road immediately to our right. It's bumper-to-bumper both directions with sightseers and tour buses from New Orleans. Out on the river on the other side of the levee, a couple paddlewheelers are docked, also full of tourists. Christmas Day was full of fun with family. The only really unusual part was the record-setting temperature: 82 in New Orleans. But as with all trips, they must end. The day after Christmas the two of us boarded a plane leaving New Orleans in early evening. We arrived in Eugene around midnight. We had been keeping in touch with the house/dog sitter and knew the weather had been terrible the entire time we were gone. There was probably 2 feet of snow at Long Shadows and it was really raining in Eugene. We figured that meant it was snowing like crazy on our mountain. This was not going to be a fun trip. We arrived at Susan Creek Road about 2:30 am and it was still RAINING, even though the car thermometer showed 32 degrees. Snow was everywhere and it looked really deep in the glow of the car headlights. We began the climb up our hill in 4 wheel drive high. Luckily very deep ruts had been cut in the snow from all the other cars that had gone up and down our road. WHEW! Maybe this wouldn't be bad after all. WRONG. When we turned onto the last fork of our road, the ruts disappeared. There were weak tracks from only 2 trips up and down that part of the road. The road looked solid white. Not good. Within a hundred feet the tires started spinning and the car stopped moving. Backed it, put it in 4 low, and hit it again. Still spinning tires. We started talking about what walking the last quarter mile would mean -- we had very warm jackets, but light pants and tennis shoes. And no rain gear. We changed drivers (the first one had used up all her nerve) and hit it again, this time going a little faster. Made it. Another 20 feet, then the tires started spinning again. Back up, gather nerve, hit it harder, make it through. We fishtailed and fought the rest of the way up the hill. Finally we made it home without having to abandon the car and walk through calf deep snow in a pouring rain. What a blessing that was. This is what we found the next morning.  The two feet of snow from the barn roof had fallen onto the two feet of snow on the ground. The new barn design did not take into account large quantities of snow, so the pitch of the roof dumps snow right in the tractor driveway on both sides. Not a drivable situation. We had to shovel a path for the tractor. Despite the white knuckles and hard shoveling, after record high temperatures it was kind of nice being up here where it's cold and snowy. Several days later we were blessed with some special visitors.  This herd of Roosevelt elk wandered into our front meadow. The snow had driven them down from higher elevations. They melting snow revealed beautiful green grass. In Oregon, the grass is green in the winter and brown in the summer. Big difference from Louisiana. Later that same week we saw the herd again as we were driving up our road. Only this time there were maybe 8 or 9 elk.  Now it's time to gear up for the Glide First Citizen Celebration (we're the co-chairs of that event) and the Glide Wildflower Show. Never a dull moment around here, that's for sure. By the way, Dianne is the GWS webmaster. Go check it out www.glidewildflowershow.org. |