Saturday, May 14, 2011

Bayou Woman

These past couple of days, Blogger, my blog istrument of choice has been down. Like Doc Holliday in the movie Tombstone so famously said, I had to find my entertainment elsewhere. I stumbled across a little blog written by a woman in the deep bayou country and she mentions Bayou DuLarge, a small community at the very end of the road.

I've got a good friend who lives in Bayou DuLarge. Cholly (Charles) Matherne. His kids and mine grew up together and Cholly and I became close hosting each other's kids. We have drank much whiskey together. After raising kids, we moved away from Natchitoches, LA, me to the Alexandria area, Cholly back to his roots on the bayou. Just south of Cholly's house on the bayou, there is a large (huge) pile of oyster shells at the end of the road. A barrier to further auto travel. Beyond that is the marsh. The people of south Louisiana use oyster shells like the rest of us use gravel. It's a paving material and a damned fine one.

We went to visit Cholly one day, down on the bayou and when we got out of the car in his front yard, I hollered, "Hey, Cholly! What's for supper?" Cholly laughed and said "I don't know, lets see!" He walked across the road to his dock on the bayou, tugged on a rope and pulled up a crab trap. It had about a dozen big blue crabs. "Looks like we're having crab for supper."

Pray for those folks. The Mississippi might get them in the next couple of days.

3 comments:

Hobie said...

You know we are praying for all those good people.

Old NFO said...

Thoughts and prayers for all of em...

Anonymous said...

I just stumbled upon this post and ashamed to say I did not see it sooner! Glad you stumbled upon a little blog called Bayou Woman and determined that we have a common thread named Cholly! I see his gray pickup almost every day as I drive up to tend to Camp Dularge. His house is only about three houses down from there. Boiled crab for supper indeed!! When ya coming back "down the bayou"?