It's so Good going Home!

We went home (down in the bayou) recently and I had the privilege of being the "Matron of Honor" in my cousin wedding. I was the oldest thing in the wedding and realized how old I really am after hanging with them youngsters. Whew, they can go!

During the reception I was able to meet up with some of my relatives and friends that I had not seen in a while. Everyone knows everyone in my little town and I am related to over 80% of the people because both of my parents are from there so this was really like a family reunion.

This picture is especially near and dear to my heart because Mrs. Lee was my High School Coach. We share so many memories and seeing her makes me proud to say she is 62 years old and still looking good as ever. Besides being the best coach a girl could ever have, Coach Lee will never know the impact she had on my life by helping to guide me to make good decisions. Like never accepting any of my boyfriends except for Beignet. She would point out every wrong thing about a guy that she even remotely thought I was interested in and would make me think twice until it just faded away. One in particular, I was totally in love with and he is now a crackhead. She always reminds me "remember when you dated him..... (lol) Oh please, I know everyone one of ya'll know at least one crackhead.

On a hair note, all of my family members that teased me about my locks were very complimentary about my updo for the wedding. I could tell many were wondering what in the world I was going to do with my hair because I was free styling the day before not knowing how I would make any style work for the wedding until I got in the mirror and started working my babies.

For all of my SDA sisters, yes I'm wearing earrings and a necklace....I compromised for my cousin! My ears are still stinging from them forcing the earrings through my virgin ears of 17 years. It was the worse thing trying to get those earrings in until another cousin suggested that I put them in from the back then go through the front. I could not beleive it, it worked!





The only thing I hated about this trip home were the "Love bugs," the dreadful, annoying bugs that come out in the fall and fly all around you, land on you, get stuck on cars and when you try to clean them off, some of the paint comes off your car too! Do you guys know what love bugs are? If not, be thankful cause I don't know how I did it growin up there.

Louisiana Pics

Skin Color?

While home for the holiday's my Aunt shared a photo with me of my Paternal Great-Grandparents and my Grandmother as a baby taken in 1912 when she was 3 yrs old. My great-grandmother carries the Haitian Creole Heritage who's grand father migrated to Louisiana and she married my great-grandfather who was a the French Creole (frenchmen born in the US). (my father and brothers inherited the ears, thank God I didn't)

I could not help but wonder the age of my great-grandmother because she looks much younger than my great-grandfather. Back then, the girls married young and I would think my great-grandfather robbed the cradle. But, no one knows their exact age here in this photo.

From what my Aunts tell me, C. Cezar-Guillory was no push over. Her father built the first school for Creoles of Color in Soileau, LA which both my Aunts attended.

We also visited the Creole National Park at the Oakland Plantation in Natchitoches, LA and found more history on Creoles. There were Creoles of color which were the descendants of the French Creoles, those from France that were born in the United States. Which leads to the issue of skin color....

Many believe that in order to be officially a Creole you must be of a light complexion...not necessarily true. The documentation from the Creole National Park proves that during intermixing of slaves and owners some were of "high yellow" and some took on the skin color of the darken skinned parent, it all boils down to genetics.

Now, there were regions in Louisiana were some Creoles would marry their cousins in order to keep the skin color of a more "white" completion so that they could enjoy more privileges . The fact of the matter is that being Creole is not about skin color, it's all about heritage.

I remember growing up and hearing about the parties that some could only attend if they could pass the paper bag test. Which means, a brown paper bag would be held up to your face and if you were darker than the paper bag then they would not be admitted into the function. This is all a result of the Big House mentality. We all know the story.

I've always hated the whole skin color thing and today we still struggle with skin color insecurities as a people. I'm sickened by the poison that some still feed their children about being light skinned or should I say "bright skinned, as some call it, as being better!" I'll try to contain myself but that ignorance really sets me off!!

I remember both sides of the spectrum because my sister who was darker received less praise and attention than I did from our maternal family. Let the truth be told, I've always believed she was more beautiful than me anyway. She shared a story with me recently where one of our Aunts offended her a child. We were all playing with our cousins at my aunts (her two grand children were our cousins) house and it was getting late so we asked if we could stay the night and she responded saying " sure ya'll can, but that dark one can't (my sister)! For the life of me I don't remember the comment but I guess it was not directed towards me so I'm not sure how I processed the whole situation.

To add insult to injury, I have friends from many different places and once, one of my Nigerian male friends told me that I should thank him for selling off our people because that was the reason for my skin color. (he was joking of course) But that comment started a nasty debate, needless to say, I was the Matron of Honor in his wedding after I worked him over.

Additionally, my buddies from some of the islands are so proud to not be call Black American that they make it a point to say the are anything but Black American. We've often debated the fact that many of the Africans were dropped off at those islands ports (including Haiti) and hence their heritage? This has always been a debate within my circle if friends and I beat that drum to death because of their arrogance of not being a black from the US. Does it really matter, no because the world sees us all as Black Americans, regardless of our accent or skin color.

Yes, I'm very proud of my Creole heritage but when people ask me where I am from I tell them Louisiana and my last name is the only thing that raises any questions. The bottom line is I am Black and love talking about my Creole heritage. I can tell you I am often not given the chance to show who I really am when introducted for the first time because too many times people tell me "I thought you were "stuck up" or my all time favorite "bougie" until I got to know you." I pride myself on "keeping it real" so I know I'm not either. If you feel otherwise, please share.

As I think back, I remember the prejudices within our own family race and now that I know how to deal with...I have little patience for any of it. When the rubber meets the road, we should be happy with who we are and not feeling as though we are better than anyone for any reason. If we treat each other with respect and dignity regardless of our differences, this world would be a better place!

Ok, I went all over the place with this post, it's out now!

The Wild Cousins

Roux and Praline with their 1st cousins! The funny thing is all three of my sisters had our daughters the same year! Is that wild??? And no, we certainly did not plan it that way but it worked out for the best, now they can really relate to one another.

Update on Pralines 8th month old locks coming soon!

It was a family affair!

I was able to get together with my sister & brother in Lake Charles, LA for some family fun at the local bowling alley.

Yes, I'm the oldest of the bunch and very opinionated with each of my siblings. Well, we all are for that matter, it's in the blood line and we just can't help ourselves.

Had a great competative time hanging with my people!! Ohhh I'm getting homesick again!

My "Blood" Sister is Locked!!

First, can you guess what these two are???

They are two of my favorite Louisiana treats and since I went home for the holidays I ate like a fat pig!!

Yep, I said it and had a jolly good time doing it.

Picture on the left is Turkey Boudin and the pic to the right is my Mom's homemade Pralines (pecan candy). I can't blog about all of my favorites but I wanted to share these two with my blog family. Talk about good!

Also, good lock news, while home I locked my blood sister Mrs Dee using the Nappy tool. I know some people say we look nothing alike but guess what that's ok we are still sisters and I love her dearly. Why don't we favor each other? Let me explain, I am the only child from my mother's first marriage and later my Mom remarried and had three children with her second husband who also raised me. I always say I got the best of both worlds mom, dad's family and my step-father's family. We blend very well.

It took us 13 hours over a two day period and she was excited the entire time. MrsDee (my sister) has been waiting for a year to get her locks, she cut off all of her perm and grew out her natural hair. She also has Lupus so the medication sometime takes a toll on her but she was determined to do her thing. She has 309 locks and her gray hair shines through nicely.

Right now she is working on creating her blog so I'll be informing you all as soon as she is ready to publish it.

Hey, did I mention how much I love Louisiana and my Locks????

Festival of Lights

I'm just now recovering from our fun filled weekend in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Last weekend opened the 80th Christmas Festival, my sister and her family met us there to celebrate the occasion.

If you've never heard of or been to Natchitoches, LA, (pronounced Nak-a-tish) it is the oldest French Settlement in Louisiana and the town where my great-grandfather was born and raised. It is also famous for the filming of Steel Magnolia as discussed in my previous post on my Louisiana heritage.

After the fabulous firework showcase the entire streets and town along Cane River lights up with all kinds of creative lighting. There are over 250,000 people everywhere, live band, dancing, live alligators (kids take pictures with them like they are Santa), food, food and more food! And, the best Bed and Breakfast you ever want to experience! Some Bed & Breakfast and hotels are booked in advance up to seven years. Yes, it's that exciting and something I wish everyone could experience before leaving this earth.

I really love and enjoy the spirit of Christmas and I was all over the streets jumping and skipping like I had reverted back to childhood....some of my most awesome memories as a child are from Christmas!!! Oh and it was much colder than normal which made it more enjoyable, we got to cover up, sip on hot cocoa & coffee and snack on Funnel Cakes too!

Stay tuned for more, I'll be sharing our visit to the Cane River Creole National Historical Park, built c. 1820 along with several others. I learned even more about Creole History and we enjoyed picking pecans on the plantations. We almost didn't leave because "Beignet" (my hubby) pretty much asked the Plantation Guide 1001 questions.........you know how men can be when it comes to history! I felt like we needed to pay the poor guy, thank goodness he was up on the details.

My Roots

My roots are doing their own thing and I'm loving the way my parts are turning out.

And since I'm on the roll about my roots I wanted to respond to Bygbaby's question..."Did anyone in your family practice Voodoo with reference to your Haitian side?"

My response was, "I was trying not to go there" but then I thought it would be an interesting post. So, I'll share a couple of my experiences.

While growing up in Louisiana I was involved with almost every sport school offered and ending up on the 1982 Converse All American Basketball Team along with Cheryl Miller, a high honor in my opinion.

I had weak ankles and more than my share of injuries. Before every game our trainer had to tape my ankles as if they were mummy's. Well, down in the Bayou my mother would send me up the street to Mr. Moujean (pronounce mo-jan) instead of paying for a doctor's visit when I had an injury. To this day I'm not sure what Mr Moujean did to me.... but it worked.

He too was Creole and spoke very little English, he was a very handsome but mysterious man. As a child I never questioned my mom, I just did what she told me to do, so after injuring my ankles during practice or a game, they would be blue/black where the blood vessels had broken from sprangs. I would walk to Mr. Moujean's house and all I did was point to the injury, take off my socks and gym shoes and Mr. Moujean would do his thing.

He would first get some string and whisper words I could never figure out, do some kind of movement with his fingers over my ankels and then blow on each knot (about five or six) until he had a full anklet. He would then tie the knotted string anklet around my ankles and he would tell me to cut it off after so many days depending on the severity of the injury. This my freinds was linked to VooDoo Healing.

Marie Laveau, read more about her here, is one that I was always curious about while growing up, I remember the first time I visited her store in the French Quarters. I was 18 years old and when I walked in, there were chicken feet, snake skins, skeletons and a host of other Voodoo religious stuff, every hair on my body stood up and I felt a eeerie vibe. I immediately ran out never to return.

I often ask my mom why she would send us to Mr. Moujean and she said "because my mother told me to and I didn't question her either." Wow, wow, wow! Everybody believe in Mr. Moujean!!!

My mother now is a wife of a Baptist Minister but let me tell you...back in the day she kept a fresh Ouija Board as our family game like it was a Monopoly board. Remember that game? They took them off the shelves several years ago. We even played Ouija in college until it spelled out my husbands name when no one at the table knew I was dating him at the time. That was the last time I played the Ouija Board game.

I'm sure many of you have also heard rumors of how some Louisiana women would get their husbands by serving them red sauce in a nice Louisiana meal...well let me tell you it's no rumor. Use your imagination, I don't want to make anyone sick.

I also have a uncle that many people in my family believe a neighbor put a curse on him for disrespecting her. Today, he still jumps and twitches while he talk/cuss and the family rumor is that he started jumping and twitching the same day he disrespected the old lady. She supposedly pointed at him and said a few words and that was the curse. Personally, I believe he has Tourette Syndrome!!! He's a funny kind of guy too and his nickname is Shakey! LOL! I love my uncle.

Don't get it twisted, I profess Jesus Christ as Lord and while some Louisianian's still believe in the Voodoo practice they truly believe it is the right thing to do. I sometimes still find it hard to break old habits that I grew up believing so deeply in and it is only by faith that I do not follow my original ways. Below are some of my crazy favorite superstitions:

Don't spilt a pole while walking with a friend - bad luck
Don't spet on a crack in the floor - you break your mothers back
Don't throw away your hair without buring it because if a bird gets one string, you'll go crazy
Don't ever put your purse on the floor because you'll never have money

Beignet is from New Orleans and I could never burn my candles when his people visited us. I love candles and they always thought I was burning candles for Voodoo spells on him. Little did the know, I did not need candles to get that brother!!!! He and I were born to be together and no force could stop this love affair......yes, I said it!

While Voodoo, known to some as a good religion it is Hoodoo that is looked at as evil. I won't elaborate, check it out for yourself, a sista has got to go....the Lord is my shepard, I shall not want, he maketh me to lie down in greens pastures, he restoreth my soul.....

BTW, I can't wait to see Déjà Vu with Denzel Washington, filmed in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina.

A Tribute to My Louisiana Granny's

Just thought I'd share a bit of my Louisiana history. Because if you have not figured it out by now, I'm very proud of my native and culturally rich state of Louisiana.

This is a pic of my Maternal Grandmother as a teenager and she is still alive and well standing 5'8" at 86 years old living down in the Bayou of Louisiana. Talk about a fire cracker, with quick come backs and lots of wisdom!

Her father was a Creole from Natchitoches, Louisiana (where Steel Magnolia's was filmed) and her mother was half African American and half Blackfoot Indian from South Louisiana. My great-great grandmother was full blooded Blackfoot and lived to be 106 years old. (I've met both my great & great-great grandmothers)

Grandma went against all rules and married my grandfather a tall, humorous, proud African American man, "cool" and straight out of Hazelhurst, Mississippi. Of this union 10 children were born. Thus, my mother's blood line.

If you ever want a good read on French Louisiana heritage and culture "Cane River" would be one to start with.


Pictured here is my Paternal Granny, whom I'll never forget. I was 22 when she died and she too was a firecracker. Yep, I come from a family of firecrackers, pistols, shotguns. What ever you want to call them. They did not play!

Granny could never pronounce my name correctly, she would always say "Luchinda, com here sha ba-ba!"

A capitalist of her time, she owned a local grocery store and Juke Joint/Pool Hall and could barely speak proper English. (French Creole was her first language.) Every now and then she'd give us a cookie or two but for the most part, all of us grandchildren had to earn whatever we received.

Granny's great grandfather was from Haiti and he was known to be one of the first black families to own a phone (when others did not have one) in our small town area. He came over from Haiti via the banks of New Orleans and settled in a rural town called Soileau. Granny's mother was married to a Frenchman and my Granny married a Creole Frenchman hence my fathers Creole bloodline.

Frenchmen are non black and Creole Frenchmen are of mixed race, some also refer to Creoles as Mulatto, which I loathe because the word is derived from the word from "mulo", translated mule. Must our mixed race have such a negative connotation? Why do we have to be mules? That's a whole different subject, I digress, I'll blog about that one when my energy is up to par!

If it were not for the strength and struggles that I observed in these great women of my family I could have never become the woman I am today. These two are my Coretta Scott Kings!

"Amended"

Here are a few of my lineage Louisiana names:

Fontenot
Cezar
Guillory
Slate
Victorian

My South Louisiana Townships:
Lake Charles
Lafayette
Oberlin
Baton Rouge
New Orleans
Basile
Opelousas
Mamou
Soileau
Ville Platte
Plaisance
Eunice

My Favorite Louisiana Stuff

Festivals
Mardi Gras
Zydeco
Gumbo
Boudin
Crawfish
Any occasion (lol)

Surname of friends & relatives I grew up with:
Toussant
Thibadeaux
Boudreaux
Simeon
Fontenot
Boudreaux
Broussard
Carriere
Herbert (pronounced A-bear)
Guillory
Ledet
Leblanc

Favorite Plantation Homes
Cane River

Favorite Movies:
A Feast of All Saints-Creole History
Steel Magnolia's
Skeleton Key

Favorite Seasonings
Slap Ya Mamma
Fil'e

My new blog name has been change to "Creyole" in dedication to my dear grandmothers. A special thanks to them for passing down my strange hair type that bunches so easily and also, to my Granny for the mustache, I have to get a nice waxing every six weeks or so. LOL!!

Now, some of you can relate a why I gave my family the blog names below, here you go:

My Hubby - Beignet "French delicious doughnut sold at Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans"
Son - Roux "the base for making a gumbo"
Daughter - Praline "famous Louisiana candy"
Me - Creyole "pronounced cre-ole"

Laissez le bon temps rouler! Translated "Let the Good Times Roll"

Read here for more on French Creoles!