I’ve only lived in the little town of Breaux Bridge, LA for a couple of years, so I know there’s lots of significant things I don’t know about it yet. However, it has the strongest sense of place of anywhere I’ve ever lived.
For instance, if you go into Champagne’s grocery (pronounced “Shaum PINE”) to buy your fresh boudin and andouille sausage, you’re liable to here the checker and customers speaking Cajun French.
The backyard of my house borders on the Bayou Teche (“Teche” means “snake,” describing the sinuous path of the bayou), where I can see the local Catholic Church with it’s above-ground burial vaults.
I asked my next door neighbor if he was from around here (a stupid question), and he said, “No, I’m from d’ ot’er side of d’ bayou” (“No, I’m from the other side of the bayou.” Sorry, I don’t do dialect very well).
I could go on. This is real Cajun country, and I love it.
Reading this, I’m jealous over where so many of you live. Really… the most interesting thing about Waterford is that you’re in Ireland!
Anyhoo… here, well, there’s the Rose Bowl. And the Rose Parade. And the fact that you can actually live and work here without getting in your car and sitting on the freeway for 30 minutes (a luxury in these parts, I assure you!). That movie, Real Genius is based on the hijinks that happen at that school down the street (don’t let anyone tell you differently).
My house sits on the edge of a 200 acre wood. The woods and the home that used to be on it were owned by the Curtiss Candy family.
The house was occupied by a friend of mine many years ago. He moved and then I found out my brother-in-law (who is my current husband) moved in nearby. We would walk through the woods and go into the house that I used to go to years ago. Rotten teenagers ruined everything. They graffitti’d the walls and burned stuff and left a thousand beer cans laying around.
Then the EVIL DEVELOPERS tore everything down to build a huge subdivision. My husband and I hooked up with the tree people and had it declared a forest preserve for ever and ever. YaHOO for us!
You know that movie Three Kings? They used my home town area as a stand in for war-torn Desert Storm stuff. I missed meeting George Clooney by minutes, dammit (Ice Cube and Wahlberg were nice enough, though). I think parts of Independence Day were shot here, and not too far away are the sand dunes where everybody shoots desert scenes, like in whichever Star Wars movie had the blobby monster being mean to princess Leia. I was part of the crowd in some forgettable, regretable Tom Cruise goes to Mexico movie, so my fifteen minutes of fame are over. Yep, we’re famous for uuuuugly desert.
Other than that, well, we produce one heck of a lot of veggies, cotton, wheat, alfalfa and sheep, second only to the central valley. It's hotter than hell in the summer; we scoff at any temp below 120. Somebody give me a job somewhere green!
The nice warnings USG sends round regarding the dangers for US citizens, such as assasination and other related inconveniences, the odd assasination attempt (thankfully not reported) and the occasional journo almost blowing himself up with souvenir war ordinance.