As we climbed down to our bikes again to get some clothes, shoes, and shower items, a utility truck pulled up in the driveway. We’d seen the same truck a few minutes earlier as we stopped at another house down the road, and yet again back down at Grand Chenier. Rolling down the window, the driver began chatting with us.
Donny
We’d just met Jo Ann’s son, Donny. Having seen us on the road since Grand Chenier, he was concerned about the next stretch of road we’d be riding, and wanted to let us know it would be rough going due to road work. He suggested that we may want to backtrack and take another route.
It seems so Cajun somehow (and ‘so Donny’ as we soon discovered), that he would take the time to backtrack on his own route to let two perfect strangers know they may be facing a challenge up ahead, and to suggest an alternate plan.
We’ve spent some time with Donny over the past week or so, and we’ve really enjoyed it. He’s bright, articulate, well read, and loves south Louisiana. In our almost daily conversations, we’ve covered everything from our mutual love of the outdoors, to local personalities, hunting, motorcycle and bicycle travel, birding, rain gear, bug gear, insect repellents, and many topics in between.
He’s loaned us movies to watch (the “new” James Bond movies – Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace; and Jeremiah Johnson, from the 70s); and has loaned us some excellent photo/story books about Louisiana marshes and bayou life.
Donny rides a motorcycle as often as he can, riding the Natchez Trace Parkway (Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee) whenever possible. Of all our riding routes, that’s always been one our favorite sections of the country, so we’ve swapped a lot of memories and stories.
Though he’s also ridden a bicycle quite a bit, and has both a road bike and a mountain bike, he’s not ridden since Rita. He wants to do a ride like ours someday, perhaps on a smaller scale, and he’d be more interested in mountain biking.
In his early 40s now, Donny works for Cameron Telephone; he’s one of only two people who does what he does, and he’s the senior guy. He’s responsible for “fixing” things that go wrong on the remote installations that Cameron Parish has, which means he’s on the road a lot. Many of the installations are in really beautiful habitats in the marsh, and since Donny loves to hunt, and really enjoys nature, his job is almost tailor-made for him – he gets to work outside in the areas he loves.
Tall, good-looking, and in great shape, he’s really active – from turkey hunting, bike riding, motorcycle riding, cutting his mom’s lawn, helping her out with all the things that seem to come up in maintaining a home, to building his own home.
The second day here, we stopped by his house up closer to the Lake Charles area to check out his bicycles and see what he’s done to his ‘new’ house. A word of explanation here: Donny was one of the hundreds who lost their homes after Hurricane Rita. A photo on the front of the Lake Charles American Press (local newspaper) book about Hurricane Rita features Donny’s red wooden house, split in two and washed up on the main highway between Oak Grove and Creole.
He’s still got the land down here in Oak Grove, though the red wooden house was torn down, but the stresses of living on the front line in hurricane territory influenced a move up closer to Lake Charles. He’s now rebuilt an old home on several acres he owns. The house is absolutely beautiful – clearly a lot of time and effort and design have gone into creating what they’ve got.
The pavement into a subdivision ends in a gravel road, and Donny’s hideaway is at the very end of that gravel road. Surrounded by tall hedges and trees, there’s almost complete privacy. Outside, the house is surrounded by a huge, well-maintained green lawn inside the hedge of tall trees; inside, each indoor room has its own color scheme and feeling, with lots of cypress wood.
With his motorcycles still stored elsewhere, and his bicycles on the porch, Donny is now working towards building a barn on his two acres.
One of our big excitements with Donny was shortly after we arrived…Donny took a day off to go turkey hunting – it’s now hunting season and each hunter is allowed only two turkeys for the season.
We were all amazed when he showed up the first day of the season at his mom’s house with a thirteen-pound turkey he’d shot that day. After a photo and weighing session, he plucked the turkey, prepping it for Jo-Ann to take out the craw (we got a gift of several turkey feathers). It’s frozen now, and will await next Thanksgiving to be eaten.
Meanwhile, Donny has spent more days out in the fields hunting that elusive turkey number two.
One memorable Sunday afternoon, Donny took us on a very slow driving tour of Little Chenier and Chenier Perdue, showing us some of the marsh off the main roads, way back where the roads dead-end. We stopped to inspect an Atakapa Indian mound; stopped every hundred yards to check out more birds; followed the Mermentau River west and northward from the Gulf; and got our first decent photos of roseate spoonbills.
We learned to identify teal ducks and mottled ducks; we saw our first glossy ibis; and we saw snowy egrets, brown pelicans, stilts, purple martins, blue herons, green herons, great egrets, broad faced mallards, willets, sanderlings, red-winged blackbirds, roseate spoonbills, alligators, snakes, hawks, and meadow larks. It was quite an afternoon!
Jo-Ann
Jo-Ann is a little thing – she’s not much taller than 5’2”, and she doesn’t weigh much either. In her mid 70s and full of energy, she reminds me of the energizer bunny – she just keeps going. A nurse for some years, now retired, she’s still active in her local Baptist church (which itself is active); she’s a member of Eastern Star; a member of the Cameron Parish Ambulance Jury; and she’s a member of the Cameron Parish Tourist Bureau.
She still finds time to send flowers for the funerals of friends and neighbors and relatives; send gifts and cards for weddings; help judge her daughter’s county-wide 4-H exhibits (Ruby works for the parish 4-H department); look for and try out new recipes; feed a new stray cat that showed up recently; and cook fresh meals daily for Donny and two stray cyclists.
She’s close to her kids, grandkids, and great grandkids; has a close community of friends; knows everything about the area; and knows everyone within miles.
She too is bright, articulate and well read. Like a walking history book, she fills us in on local stories and stories from many years past; and has articles, newspapers, books, maps, and magazines for us to read. An avowed birder, she interrupts any conversation to point the possibility of a new or unusual bird.
Jo-Ann has an avid curiosity about virtually everything and loves sharing (food, ideas, knowledge, people, places; it’s all good). There’s also no “usual” with her. We’ve learned to expect the unexpected from her – we may be leaving in fifteen minutes for a trip to Lake Charles; we may be cooking something new; we may be headed out on a local shopping trip, going to bible study, or checking out a local alligator jewelry business.
At night we may watch a movie, or we may watch Dancing with the Stars, discussing who’s the best and who will make it to the end; we end most evening with a quick view of the news and weather. We attend Wednesday evening Bible study with her, and we join her for Sunday morning Bible study followed by church services.
One thing’s for sure – if Jo-Ann is involved it’ll be interesting.
Driving with Jo-Ann is quite an experience. She’s slow in residential areas or where things are a little dicey, but when she clears those ‘obstructions’, watch out. She hits the road and hits the accelerator. She’s got a heavy-duty pickup truck, and though it’s got a king cab on it, the back is always full of things she needs, so I ride shotgun and Chelsea’s got the middle.
Chelsea’s only got a waist belt for her seat belt, but I’ve got the shoulder harness, and my shoulder harness clicks into ‘emergency lock’ every time she accelerates. If something interests her, we brake to a crawl immediately. It could be a bird that catches her interest, it could be something in the marsh, it could be a patch of wildflowers.
Every time we come to a sudden halt I quickly check the rear view mirror, wondering if some vehicle is barreling down on us. Though it seems impossible, Jo-Ann must be checking it herself, because there’s never been anyone behind us!
We’ve stopped in the middle of the road to watch a turtle crossing the road, and we’ve stopped to get a photo of a great patch of newly blooming purple and yellow wildflowers. We may slow to 10 mph then be up to 60 mph immediately (with my seat belt locking in each time).
Out in the country, stop signs are merely guidelines – if she can see in all directions, and see that no one is coming, we’ll cruise through a stop sign at 30 mph. She acknowledges her predilection for speeding, and tells us the locals (meaning law enforcement in Cameron Parish) warn her, “Miss Jo-Ann, y’all got to slow down, now!”
In town she keeps up an often humorous and always good-natured running commentary, talking to herself and other drivers. “Y’all move it now, move it! We ain’t got all day now!” “Make up your mind, y’hear!” “Oh my goodness, look at this fella! What are you gonna do? Get out of my way!” “Go, go, go! I wanna go too, y’know! Not tomorruh, today!” “Ok you people, let’s move!”
Jo-Ann is the kind of person who has never met a stranger. From her length of time in the area, her husband’s job which involved meeting a variety of people, her community involvement over the years, and her lengthy years of nursing locally, Jo-Ann knows an incredible number of people.
That being said, she greets even complete strangers with a smile and a sentence or two of personal stories and compliments, or a bit of humor. Her green eyes are twinkling more often than not, and when she’s talking to you, she’ll fix those green eyes on you with a level stare. Smile lines like sets of parentheses crease her face from back to front and top to bottom.
She’s got the cell phone number of her mailwoman, so she can find out why the mail is late today; and she always gives gifts of homemade jam, cookies, or whatever’s on hand to those who help her in any way, from the mail lady to the tow truck driver. (The tow truck driver who came for the disabled truck got a jar of honey from Michigan, but it could just as well have been a jar of homemade strawberry preserves.)
She maintains an upbeat attitude, and shrugs off disappointments and discouragement. Though she lost her husband almost nine years ago after a protracted three-year battle with cancer, at the start of what was to be a wonderful joint retirement, and she lost nearly everything she owned in Rita, with much more damage after Ike, you’ll never hear her complaining.
As a youngster, from third grade to ninth grade, she grew up on a farm outside Abbeville with her French Cajun grandparents. She learned to speak Cajun French fluently, and still speaks it every day. She’s also got that wickedly funny sense of humor we’ve come to associate with the French Cajuns – she’s always got some off-the-wall, irreverent, down-to-earth comment for any situation.
Food is definitely one of Jo-Ann’s currencies in life. She cooks every day, usually at least two and often three meals a day, and that’s just for us and for Donny. She’s always got another project going, too – cookies, or cakes, or new recipes she’s trying out. The members of the various groups she belongs to are beneficiaries of her cooking largesse, as are the birds in the yard and the stray cat.
Everything she cooks is just amazing, whether it’s a new sixteen-bean soup recipe, rice and shrimp in a roux sauce, taco soup, a pork roast with potatoes, potato cheese soup, green filet gumbo, homemade cheesecake, Hello Dolly coconut fudge, spaghetti made from scratch, friendship cakes, banana pancakes, chicken and dumplings, or grits with butter.
I think it’s physically impossible for Jo-Ann to cook anything that is less than delicious.