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Louisiana, Quizzically
Sharyn sent me this, asking me "is this accurate?" I got into One Of My Moods and started replying to each of the items separately, commenting on its truth or falsehood. I'm not defensive about my home state (no, really, I'm not - I mean, I wouldn't move back there), but I can't just let some of these misconceptions stand, now can I?
What's that? I do too have a sense of humor. I had a lot of fun writing these comments, I'll have you know. Now hush up and enjoy the ride.
You're Probably From Louisiana If ...
The crawdad mounds in your front yard have overtaken the grass.
True in some parts of the state. Not where I grew up, but we'd see them by ditches all the time. (N.B. No one in Louisiana says "crawdads," nor "crayfish." It's always "crawfish.")
You greet people with "Howzyamomma'an'em?" and hear back "Dey fine!"
True only in some parts of New Orleans.
Every so often, you have waterfront property.
Painfully true.
When giving directions you use words like "uptown", "downtown", "backatown", "riverside", "lakeside", "other side of the bayou" or "other side of the levee."
The first five are New Orleans only, where compass points are of limited use due to twisted cartography. The next is never heard (see comments about bayous below). And no one would use the last because they'd say "other side of the river" instead. Only the Mississippi has levees.
When you refer to a geographical location "way up North", you are referring to places like Shreveport, Little Rock or Memphis, "where it gets real cold"!
Untrue. We know that places like Boston and Buffalo exist, we just can't imagine why anyone would voluntarily live there. (Says the Bostonian-come-lately, who just learned on the news that the weather she was walking home in tonight was somewhere around -40 with wind chill. No wonder my ears were so cold!)
Your burial plot is six feet over rather than six feet under.
New Orleans and environs. Everywhere else in the state they bury their dead (and are smart enough to live above the water table).
You've ever had Community Coffee.
True. And boy do I miss it.
You can pronounce Tchoupitoulas but can't spell it. (Also Thibideaux, Opelousas, Ponchartrain, Ouachita, Atchafalaya.)
The person who wrote this misspelled Thibodeaux and Pontchartrain, illustrating that it's only people from outside the state who think our place names are hard to spell. On the other hand, he/she got Tchoupitoulas right, and it is hard to spell - unless you live in New Orleans.
This test is showing a common fallacy among non-Louisianians: That New Orleans is the entire state.
You don't worry when you see ships riding higher in the river than the top of your house.
True anyplace on the Mississippi.
You judge a po-boy by the number of napkins used.
True. What, you mean there's another standard?
The waitress at your local sandwich shop tells you a fried oyster po-boy "dressed" is healthier than a Caesar salad.
Wouldn't happen. We know perfectly well that our food is unhealthy, but life's short. And only chain restaurants have Caesar salads in Louisiana.
You know the definition of "dressed."
Well, duh.
You can eat Popeye's, Haydel's and Zapp's for lunch and wash it down with Barq's and several Abitas, without losing it all on your stoop.
New Orleans, New Orleans, New Orleans! The rest of us don't know Haydel's from a hole in the ground and we don't sit out passing the time of day on our front steps. In fact, we may not have any.
(Puzzled readers: Haydel's is a bakery, I believe; Popeye's is a fried chicken chain you may have seen; Zapp's is a kind of potato chip, thick-cut and heavily seasoned; Barq's is the world's best root beer next to homemade, even now that they've gone national; and Abita is a local beer.)
The four seasons in your year are: crawfish, shrimp, crab and King Cake.
Actually, shrimp is year-round and crab only has a season when it's soft-shelled ... but, okay, I'll be generous.
The smell of a crawfish boil turns you on more than HBO.
What's that prove? The smell of dirty socks turns me on more than HBO.
You "wrench" your hands in the sink with an onion bar to get the crawfish smell off.
Yup, sometimes (an "onion bar" is a little rectangle of stainless steel). Or you rub your fingers against the sides of a kitchen knife, which is what my mother always did. But most of us just don't bother getting rid of the smell. On Monday mornings during crawfish season, everyone else at the office smells like that too.
You're not afraid when someone wants to "ax you something."
New Orleans only (and considered a sign of bad schooling by some).
You go by "ya-mom-en-ems" on Good Friday for family supper.
Certain parts of New Orleans only. The phrasing, that is. Family supper on Good Friday is common in the whole Catholic part of the state (the lower half).
You don't learn until high school that Mardi Gras is not a national holiday.
Usually you figure it out in elementary school because there's always one kid in your class who's Not From Louisiana and he has to have Mardi Gras explained to him.
You don't realize until high school what a "county" is.
You learn this one early on too, but you will say "parish" and then correct yourself when talking about other states for the rest of your life.
You push little old ladies out of the way to catch Mardi Gras beads.
Are you kidding? They push you out of the way. Those little old ladies are more determined than they look. Stronger, too.
You believe that purple, green and gold look good together (and you will even eat things those colors).
No indeed. It's just like with the po-boys; we know it's gaudy, but during Mardi Gras we all temporarily agree to suspend the dictates of good taste.
You go to buy a new winter coat (what most people refer to as windbreakers) and throw your arms up in the air to make sure it allows enough room to catch Mardi Gras beads.
Mardi Gras weather can get as low as twenty degrees and is usually rainy. That calls for a little more than a windbreaker. On the other hand, if you're drunk enough, you won't care. I never tested a coat to make sure I could catch beads in it, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see someone else doing it. Especially a tourist who's buying a coat at the last minute because he believed it never got cold in Louisiana.
Your last name isn't pronounced the way it's spelled.
Often true, but at least we're not snotty about it. Why, when the Hebert family had their big chain of stores, it was right there on their sign: Their logo was a big letter A over a picture of a bear. You can't get more helpful than that.
You know what a nutria is but you still pick it to represent your baseball team.
Hey, for oversized rats that live in swamps, they're pretty cute. Besides, the Crawfish, the Gators, the Mosquitoes, and the Snapping Turtles were all already taken.
You have spent a summer afternoon on the Lake Pontchartrain seawall catching blue crabs.
New Orleans-centric again. And there aren't really any crabs to speak of in the lake anymore. But it's still a nice place to spend a summer afternoon.
You describe a color as "K & B Purple."
Oh, you bet. Although that's going to die off soon - K & B closed their doors a year or so ago. Bought out by a large drugstore chain.
You like your rice and politics dirty.
Some of us insist that "dirty rice" was a term invented for the tourists. We grew up calling it rice dressing. But the usage is widespread enough that I won't quibble. Besides, the politics part is absolutely correct. It gives us something to talk about in the rainy season.
When given the choice for Governor between a KKK leader and Edwin Edwards, it's a difficult decision.
Not really. The voters have put Edwards in office, what, three or four times now? Despite a regular stream of scandals and indictments. He's just too much fun to pass up.
Duke (I get tired of telling people this, so listen up) is an amazingly, shockingly charismatic speaker. He got even people who knew how racist and bigoted he was on his side, because the rest of his words sounded so compelling. He could sell shoes to a snake, to use one of Earl Long's pet phrases. But ultimately he couldn't win - because he just wasn't entertaining enough.
You worry about a deceased family member returning in spring floods. (Scary, but true.)
I wouldn't say people actually "worry" about it, but it has been known to happen. (See also: Why they don't bury their dead in New Orleans.)
You pronounce the largest city in the state as "Nawlins."
Yes. And all other pronunciations are wrong, unless you're a songwriter.
Actually, in practice it usually comes out as noo-AR-linz, but if you say that fast enough, the elision is unavoidable.
A friend gets in trouble for roaches in his car and you wonder if it was palmettos or those little ones that go after the French Fries that fell under the seat.
Oddly enough, it's the little ones that would indicate he was being a slob about cleaning his car. The big ones would only be there if they flew in through a window he left down.
You know those big roaches can fly, but you're able to sleep at night anyway.
What're they going to do, eat you? They're too big to get stuck in your ears or nostrils.
You prefer skiing on the bayou.
Most bayous are pretty small (think "creek"). You ski on some rivers, most lakes, and False River which is a lake. I didn't try skiing on snow until moving away from the state, and now that I've tried it, I not only think it's a good way to break your neck, I don't think it's that much fun. Skiing is something you do while being pulled by a motorboat.
Um ... so I guess that'd be "true."
You assume everyone has mosquito swarms in their backyard.
Not exactly, but you assume everyone in Louisiana does for at least three months of the year. You assume rightly, too.
You realize the rainforest is less humid than Louisiana.
No, actually most of us figure they're about even.
© Columbine
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