Saturday started with a trip to Pop’s camp on the Island side of False River to visit and drop a line in the water. Getting out there was a bitch because I got an early start and there was near zero visibility fog all the way out there. When you look for speeders to hide behind on the road, you call them rabbits. I was looking for bats that could use their sonar to find the way. Managed to stay close behind some big rigs and only had to pull off once to wait for the sun to finally come up. But, well worth it. Always good talking to Pop and my brothers and I managed to pull in three catfish like this and one of the biggest chinquapin I’ve ever caught. Didn’t weigh it but I suspect it was over a pound. Yes, huge. Didn’t feel like cleaning fish so they’re all back in the lake, waiting for you.
So I stopped in at Camile’s on the way back to town to see if their boiled crawfish were as good as I remembered. Not quite, but still good if you are in the area.
Actually there’s a lot of good food up around New Roads and St Francisville. Nothing worth a special trip for now that Joe’s Dreyfus Store in Livonia is gone, but Magnolia Cafe in St. Francisville remains a favorite, and when I used to teach up there at Rosenwald I’d often stop for an early supper at Morel’s right on the river in New Roads. Now if you’re out in that area and you see anyone in a hurry, you need to get up and run too because something is going down. I’m pretty sure the saying all in good time originated in Pointe Coupee Parish. That’s one of the of the things I like about the place. Camile’s offers a lot of other staples, but I’ve only ever eaten their boiled crabs and shrimp and crawfish. It’s a very comfortable and friendly joint with some interesting decor.
When I got back to town I headed to Cinemark in Perkins Rowe for popcorn, Coke, and Captain Marvel. Not only do we get to find out what happened to Nick Fury’s eye, but this movie is even more empowering than Wonder Woman. No spoilers, but if you have a daughter or granddaughter, take her to see the movie.
Camile’s isn’t spelled the same as the hurricane, but it certainly sounds the same. I remember the family driving through Biloxi the summer after Camille hit and it seemed everything was torn up and little had been put back together yet, but when you’re a kid, you don’t really understand the tragedy involved, just grasping the reality that everything can come apart in a storm is a big enough stretch while you’re still learning the basics of the world you live in. This poem goes after that sense of awe and wonder that also accompanies the big storms.
Betsy
These gusts and scraps of rain
are like the beginnings of Betsy,
the first hurricane I remember—
My father took me outside
when the eye passed over our house,
let me hang onto the luggage rack
of the Pontiac station wagon
as the wind began to pick back up,
suck at the trees
as if they were baby teeth,
loose and ready to come out.
It was a time when the feminine
was unknowable, but intimate,
and Betsy’s name was mentioned
all week until it was easy
to think of her as an outrageous aunt
on her way for a rare visit.
Arrangements were strange—
masking tape on the windows,
stubs of white candle in every room,
the tub full of water as if the first thing
she would do was strip and bathe.
Tracking charts, radio reports,
nervous eyes to the sky
like she might parachute in
any minute now— but the truth—
the howling under the eaves,
the rain rattle on the taped windows,
the pause, the breathlessness
of a green night without a moon,
and the wind, circling, picking up,
dying down, waiting to come again,
made it easy to understand
the invention of gods and goddesses—
beings of large passions
who drank fire and wind and high seas—
and would eat only those apples
that were gold and stolen from monsters
by men desperate enough
to risk everything for love.
In the morning we made boats
from toothpicks and tin foil,
raced them down the street
to the iron storm drain—
We rode our bikes all day
looking for crews cutting trees
or stringing power lines,
and the next day would be school,
cold milk, ancient history, Pythagorus,
powdery teachers with blue hair,
and Betsy would become something
something else would remind you of—
a woman who makes you swell
with foolishness, drink fire,
hold a golden apple to the light.