Mardi Gras Max

Anything Goes

Fat Tuesday cat in
natty suit of furry black
topped off in green
purple and gold
anything goes it's
Mardi Gras


Some music for today. Steve Riley and his Mamou Playboys. Music from the French heritage of southwestern Lousiana.

When I first began teaching I worked about 11 hours north by car from here on the Canadian border in Northern Maine. The original settlers were French speaking Acadians. They were exiled, deported and suffered terribly at the hands of the British and New Englanders. Some eventually made their way to Northern Maine and others who were exiled in the Virgin Islands headed for the southern state of Louisiana. The Cajun traditions and amazing music like the tunes I linked, harken back to those Virgin Island and French roots.

The French language patois was retained and still spoken by almost all of the children in Van Buren, Maine where I taught from 1971-1973. It was the children's first language and teachers from other parts of the States speaking only English(myself and my other young counterparts) were provided with bilingual aides. This spoken French is a very old dialect with a lost written component. Believe it or not, speaking it was outlawed in public schools there in the '50s. Thankfully it is celebrated again and much has been done to promote the heritage of this remote, cold and beautiful part of Maine.

There are very few trees, most were cut down years ago for large expanses of potato and sugar beet fields. The town where I taught and lived was in a beautiful valley at the base of a steep and treacherous hill. The Saint John River was the border with a bridge crossing to Canada. Isolated, with massive amounts of snow cold and extreme poverty, it was very different from anything I had ever experienced. Lots of government money had been pumped into the schools making them excellent, but it was a remote and snowbound two years. I am still in touch with my teaching friends from those days, it was quite a bonding experience for all us. Our favorite person in town has now died, but as school nurse she became 'mother' to all of us, young college grads, far from home. I miss you and thank you, Pat Cyr.


For the Record,
This day came in with warmer temps, ICE everywhere and sun melting away the white, exposing the mess of limbs and sticks. I'm inside today since it's broken hip conditions, everywhere.