Funky Texas Traveler

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Breast Cancer – Think you might have it? What happens now?

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When-breast-cancer-changes-your-direction-in-life-690x400 Breast Cancer - Think you might have it? What happens now?
image by  USAG Humphreys 

Have you missed a mammogram or are ignoring a lump in your boob because you think you might have breast cancer?  Early diagnosis of breast cancer is very, very good!  I found that out in 2013 when I got to take a trip on the “breast cancer cruise.”  My diagnosis was accidental but the outcome was everything I prayed for.

If you are procrastinating, I hope this blow-by-blow story of my cancer trip makes you call or email your doctor right now.  Consider this your Breast Cancer Month obligation to everyone who loves and depends on you, including yourself.  And if you find out that you’ve joined this sisterhood, here are some steps to take immediately to help you stay strong in mind and body while you take care of this detour.

Breast cancer hits like a drive-by shooting

This Halloween, I’ll be cancer free for four years.   Of any eight women, one of us will get breast cancer.  Finding out you could have cancer when you don’t feel sick is scary, something you can’t imagine.   It’s a little like being the victim of a random drive-by shooting.  You hear the shots but surely you weren’t hit. [Read more…]

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Why Cajuns Love “Evangeline” by Longfellow

evangeline-oak-cropped-e1470177957529 Why Cajuns Love "Evangeline" by Longfellow
The Evangeline Oak

As with all things, there is controversy on who this beloved saga is about and where it took place.  The markers at the Evangeline Oak in St. Martinsville tend to favor a encounter between the American poet,  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and someone from the Louisiana Acadiana area who passed on the bones of the story.  Either way, Longfellow had memorialized the expulsion of the Acadians in his poem, “Evangeline.”  Fictional Evangeline’s undying love and torturous separation from her fiance, Gabriel continues to color historic accounts of the deportation.  The poem ends with Evangeline and Gabriel in Philadelphia, reunited just long enough for Gabriel to die in her arms.



evang1eline-movie-poster-cropped Why Cajuns Love "Evangeline" by LongfellowFelix Voorhies in Acadian Reminiscences : The True Story of Evangeline proposed that the poem was actually based on Emmeline LaBiche and Louis Arceneaux, who reunited under the Evangeline Oak on the Bayou Teche.  Emmeline’s grave in the St. Martin de Tours square and Evangeline Oak are as revered as the relics of saints on the altar of that nearby church. Evangeline was commemorated in the naming of Louisiana’s first state park and the first oil well.  There was a DVD of the 1929 Delores del Rio movie in the Old Castillo’s parlor, and Delores reportedly posed for the statue in front of the church.

 

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How Canadian Acadians became Louisiana Cajuns

La_Deportation_des_Acadiens_par_Henri_Beau-500x280 How Canadian Acadians became Louisiana Cajuns
Acadian expulsion By Henri Beau (ameriquefrancaise.org) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
St. Martinville was the site of the original landing of the Acadians fleeing the present day Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island.  This mass exodus resulted from British victory in  the French and Indian War.  A treaty signed in 1713 let the Acadians to keep their lands but some Acadians continued to pester the British by refusing to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance and aiding the French.  Without making distinctions between the Acadians who had been neutral and those who had misbehaved, the bothered Brits finally ordered the Acadian Expulsion (1755–1764) .

Bayou_sunset How Canadian Acadians became Louisiana Cajuns
Bayou Teche at Sunset by Danynuge (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0  via Wikimedia Commons

Many moved to the region of the Atakapa in present-day Louisiana after following circuitous routes through France, other French holdings and British colonies along the east coast of what is now the United States.  Led by Joseph Broussard, the first group of 200 Acadians arrived 1765 on the banks of the Bayou Teche.  Bayou Teche was the Mississippi River’s main course when it developed a delta about 2,800 to 4,500 years ago.  During the Acadian migration, the Teche was still a primary means of transportation.  Broussard became militia captain and commander of the “Acadians of the Atakapas” region in St. Martinville in Spanish Louisiana, France having transferred Louisiana to Spain a few years before the Acadians arrived.





France and Spain were having a bit of a bromance at the time, in part due to their common Catholic religion.  Under interim Spanish governor of Louisiana, Bernardo de Gálvez, the Acadians could continue to speak their language, follow Catholicism and settle in with minimal fuss. In an ironic twist, during the American Revolution just a few years later, the Acadians helped Galvez and his Spanish Regulars boot the British out of Fort Bute and Baton Rouge, thereby ending up on the winning side of that conflict.

The Acadians did not take over some uninhabited hinterland.  The titular Atakapas and Chitimacha Native American tribes had made a home in the swamps, bayous and prairie and were already sharing them with  Spanish Basques and Spanish Canary Islanders.  While Acadians eventually formed the largest ethnic group in Louisiana, they combined their French-Canadian bloodlines with the natives and earlier settlers plus those of African American slaves and freemen, Mexicans, Cubans and even some early Filipino migrants known as Manilamen.

256px-Flag_of_Acadiana.svg How Canadian Acadians became Louisiana Cajuns
Flag of Acadiana:  Lexicon [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The Acadian language and culture remained prominent and was strengthened by the influences of the people surrounding them,  strong enough to withstand the attempted suppression of  what was now called the  Cajun language and lifestyle in the enlightened 20th century.  “Cajun,” a corruption of the word “Acadian,” became a derogatory label.  After decades of Americanization, Louisiana Governor Edwards’ proud self -identification as an Acadian descendant changed the conversation.  Cajuns also earned recognition in WW2 by acting as interpreters for American forces in France, using the skill that would have earned those same Cajuns a beating in elementary school.

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Port Aransas Farley Boat Works damaged by hurricane

Port-Aransas-Farley-Boat-Works-hit-by-Hurricane-690x400 Port Aransas Farley Boat Works damaged by hurricane
Image By Drdutko (talk) (Uploads) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, 
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With Hurricane Harvey, you win a few and you lose a whole lot.  Last week, I told you that the Texas Scow Schooner, the lovely Texas Butthead, come through okay.  I found out the historic and much-loved Farley Boat works didn’t do nearly as well. 

Rick Pratt, director of the Port Aransas Museum delivered the good and not so good news in an email.  “She (the Texas Scow Schooner) did indeed ride the storm.   I was pretty sure that when I returned to the island post storm, I would have to track the boat and find it in someone’s house or in a trailer park surrounded by shredded aluminum, but there she was sitting on her cradle with a smile.”

Farley Boat Works in Bad Shape

Rick continued, “The Farley Boat Works was seriously damaged and we lost the storage barns where our small boat collection lived.  We extricated 10 boats from the wreckage and now have no place for them to live.  [Read more…]

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Surviving Hurricane Harvey flooding – 8 practical ways to cope

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8-things-to-do-when-your-house-is-flooding Surviving Hurricane Harvey flooding - 8 practical ways to copeThis post was written a few days after Houston’s historic flooding.  We made a list of items you need on-hand when your house floods.  And also some things we wish we had had while the waters rushed in.   To find out how we recovered, go to Harvey – One Year 8 88Later.

Like Cousin Eddie in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Hurricane Harvey flooding made an unwelcome visit to our Houston home this past Sunday morning.  For the next 17 hours, we sloshed around downstairs saving what we could and taking breaks up on our balcony to watch the show going on outside.  Here are some practical lessons we learned to survive Hurricane Harvey’s floods. 

8 items you need on-hand when your house floods

1. Have a working inflatable raft/boat

You’ve probably got inflatable mattresses for guests.  Get an inflatable raft too.  If things start to look like you could need it in the next 12 hours, blow it up with an electric pump while you have power.  Hell, you can throw in pillows and blankets and let the kids sleep in it, so you don’t feel stupid having a boat inside your house. 

We watched dozens of people with trash bags walking in thigh deep water to escape Hurricane Harvey flooding.  Don’t use the raft if there is rushing water,  but in the slow rising flood we had, it would have helped.  

After dark, we saw an elderly lady with a basset hound and a younger woman trudging down the street toward safety.  It wasn’t until then, we remembered we had an inflatable boat in the garage under all our crap.

2. Resist the urge to flush!




If you are sheltering in place and there is water all around, don’t go flushing after every visit to the john.  First, the only water you have may be what’s already in the pipes and secondly, where is that flush going to go?  Putting toilet tissue in the trash can would help too.

3. Have rain boots

I bought some for a NOLA Jazz Fest that turned into a mud fest.  After sloshing around in eight inches of water all morning, I remembered them.  With rain boots, you are invincible!  

Trudge out to the garage to help get the freezer up on cinder blocks?  Great!  Go downstairs to rescue some medications? Fine!  Check on the pick-up truck abandoned on the side of our house during the height of Hurricane Harvey flooding? Done!  If you don’t have rain boots, buy some.  Target has some so cute, you’ll want to find an excuse to wear them!

rain-boots-for-hurricane-harvey Surviving Hurricane Harvey flooding - 8 practical ways to cope

 

4. Dogs “gotta’ go too” – take pity on your pet

It took hours for our dog Lucy to finally give up and pee in the flooded yard.  If your dog is well trained, it may be stressful for them to pee in the house.  From now on, I’m going to have a package of puppy pads stashed in the upstairs bathroom. 

This next part is gross, but I think I’m going to follow Lucy out to pee and get a little of the urine scent on a paper towel.  The plan is to freeze it after I’ve triple bagged it.  That way, we can scent a puppy pad, so she knows it is all right to go inside.  It wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve ever found in my freezer.  That was a frozen bobcat.   

Or do what a neighbor across the street did.  He has four Bichons.  We saw him float his dogs across flooded Rice Avenue in a big red plastic tub.   He was taking them across to the high ground of the fire department.dog-looking-for-place-to-pee-e1504140306225 Surviving Hurricane Harvey flooding - 8 practical ways to cope

5. Move your coffee maker upstairs

If you usually need coffee to get started on an average day, facing a natural disaster like Hurricane Harvey flooding is no time to forego caffeine.  I braved nasty water in the kitchen to retrieve my Keurig coffee maker, a handful of  French roast coffee pods and a little carton of cream.  You won’t believe the difference it made.

6. Load up at the library

You’re going to want a variety of things to read,  especially since there is no newspaper delivery.  I’m on book two of the three I brought home just in case.  Non-stop disaster coverage of Hurricane Harvey flooding gets old,  and you need a break.

7. Live in a two-story home with a balcony if possible

It must be hell to evacuate for an extended stay with only the clothes you are wearing and a backpack.   In spite of our downstairs being flooded, I thank God we live in a two-story home with a  balcony.  

During the worst of it, we had a front row seats to what was happening.  Now we are living upstairs while we repair.   If the water had continued to rise, it would have been easy to signal help with the last thing on this list. 

8.  Have a big white sheet or towel handy

If all else fails and you must signal for rescue, this is a common sign of distress.  Don’t be without one to drape on your roof or hang on your balcony.

What would you recommend?

Hurricane experts may disagree with some of my suggestions but as our Hurricane Harvey flooding adventure unfolded, these are the things I was glad we had or wished that we could have.   Stay safe!

 

 

 

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