By Ken Wells
I
was 1,800 miles away from my spiritual home on the day Hurricane Ida churned in the Gulf on its way to assault the southeast Louisiana coast.
I was obviously in no danger, but I had reason to be fidgety. I have two brothers in
Houma, one in Chauvin, and one in Baton Rouge. My nephew has a fishing camp in Cocodrie, my cousin one in Grand Isle. I have assorted relatives and many of my truest lifelong friends spread out all along the Gumbo Belt — Houma, Thibodaux, Matthews, New Orleans, LaPlace, Lafayette.
ida hits home
BLUES BAYOU
Plenty of phone calls, texts and Messenger chats later, I knew everyone had made reasonable sheltering plans. But, still, Ida was a monster, and it was clear that Houma, my birthplace, was in for a rough shucking. Also, I was homesick. In a typical year, I visit three to four times, often for weeks at a time — to catch up with the bros and friends, fish reds and specks in Lake Decade and Oyster Bayou or sac-a’-lait in the Atchafalaya Basin. I make my non-negotiable dining stops: gumbo at A-Bear’s Café, boiled crabs or crawfish at 1921 Seafood, an oyster po’boy at Big Al’s. I sneak off to New Orleans to have dinner with my foodie friends at the latest hip Creole restaurant. My brother Pershing has a music studio in Houma and is active in the local music scene. I love going out to listen to local bands where you can find everything from Cajun to Zydeco to Swamp Pop to R&B, and even localized hip-hop, if you want it. All this is my of way steeping myself in the sense of place that has informed a great deal of my writing career and is at the core of every novel and non-fiction book I’ve written. With the emergence of the Delta variant, this dreaded elongated pandemic has kept me away for almost two years now, vaccinated though I am. Air travel is a hectic, claustrophobic drag. Rental cars are non-existent or so expensive it’s cheaper to buy one. People are both wary and careless, gracious and cranky. This all sucks a great deal of pleasure out of going anywhere long distance.
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Photos by Amanda Kennedy, Terrebonne Parish resident & Rouses Senior Manager of Brand & Marketing Strategy
The bayou country in Terrebonne Parish is unique and beautiful: the wildlife, the sunsets over the marsh, boats everywhere…but it’s the bald cypress trees that mean the bayou to me. I love their knees that branch out everywhere, so strong and hardy, just like the people of the bayou. -Amanda Kennedy
Still, I often think of my homeplace as an indispensable friend, the place where my roots run deep and where I always feel welcomed, the place that recharges my inspiration. I’ve been lucky enough to travel all over the world, and I still conclude that there’s no place like it. But what if Ida ripped apart the very fabric of it? So, from my dodgy backwoods internet connection in Maine, where I live from July through October, I spent part of the day of Ida’s approach streaming my friend Martin Folse’s essential local TV broadcast. I W W W. R O U S E S . C O M 5 5
