All us boys workin' in de cotton fields of Port Barre, Louisiana, waited 'till de end of day for our entertainment. I was 'bout six years old when I'd wake at five in de mornin' an' milk cows, an' at day's end, I hand in my cotton pickin's for two-cents a pound, along side other boys an' girls an' older peoples, colored an' white-folks alike. Daddy say my big strong muscles was from milkin' dem cows, an' workin' like a man. We was all poor, but we always had lots of good food, yeah.

I found everyone was not Cajun when I started school. Dat very first day, wearin' my new feed-sack shirt Mama sewed, I got paddled hard for speakin' French, me. Mama an' Daddy always talk French with jus' some English words thrown in here an' dere. It's hard to say whether I like school or workin' in de fields better, me.

Daddy grew a five-acre vegetable garden. He raised pigs an' cows. 'Sides pork an' beef, we ate duck, geese, chickens, an' lots of other birds. Bayou Cortableau passes in de front of our home, so we fish for big ol' fifty-pound catfish an' garfish dat were even bigger den me. Could easy mistake a garfish for a 'gator, dey look almost alike from far away. In de swamps back of our house, we used Paw Paw's handmade knitted nets to snag crawfish an' hunt down turtles. Alligators, two or t'ree foot, made a good catch. De young ones taste much sweeter.

No one had TV, no, an' usually never had 'nough money for de ten-cent picture show in town. But, at day's end, with Mama cookin' supper an' Daddy on back to de barn, us boys would use a cane knife to cut down a patch of cotton plants an' make us a boxin' ring.

Now, most of us didn't really know how to box, no, an' we end up just plain fightin'. Lotsa peoples from de fields would crowd 'roun' de ring an' cheer or wanna fight us demselves.

Ol' black man Wilton Brown live down de road apiece, where him and his family ran de sugar cane mill and work in de cotton fields. Dere ol' mule make de mill work, yeah. He walk roun' an' roun' with a feed sack in front of him, breakin' up dat sugar cane to make syrup. His couple-dozen kids always like to fight us, dem.

With seven kids in our family alone, my oldest brother Shelton was definitely strongest, yeah. He kinda kept de peace an' made sure no one got hurt really bad. Nobody messed with him, no. One of my big sisters, Mercy Lee, was definitely de toughest girl. She'd punch out anyone. Even de strongest boys didn't stand a chance with her.

In fact, all our family had de strongest muscles in Port Barre, maybe even everywheres, cause no one ever beat Mercy Lee, an' since I was six years old, no one never beat me, no. Never.

 

Plenty of Cajun recipes included!

- About the Authors -

          Victoria Olsen, a native New Yorker, living in and loving North Carolina, is a Harvard graduate, psychologist, and author of several books and articles. She is the past president of The Gulf Coast Writers Association and former editor of The Magnolia Quarterly, a new magazine forum for Southern creative writers.

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