Crawfish Report

The news that Crawfish Nation wants

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If you live in Louisiana, you've probably seen a crawfish house. A crawfish house is a pile of dried mud erupting from the ground. It resembles a chimney.

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(via Crawfish speed eating)

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Breaux Bridge native Sam Irwin's book, Louisiana Crawfish: A Succulent History of the Cajun Crustacean, tells you everything you need to know about how the

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Pat Conroy and Linda Ronstadt

Pat Conroy and Linda Ronstadt

Coach J. C. “Dutch” Reinhardt

I truly loved Steve Oney’s tribute to novelist Pat Conroy, Old Men and Young Bucks. I read the piece in The Bitter Southerner. Conroy, the author of Conrack, The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides, died March 4, 2016.

The story evoked a memory of my mission to organize an intramural basketball team of English and history majors at the old University of…

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Calvin Borel and the Bush Tracks of Louisiana

Calvin Borel and the Bush Tracks of Louisiana

Cuatro’s Son, trainer Dale Dupont’s winner. The jockeys on the horses were under ten years old. That’s why Louisiana is home to the best jockeys in the world.

St. Martin Parish professional jockey Calvin Borel retired today. He’s got 5,146 winners under his belt and won more races at Churchill Downs than anyone except one guy.

You can read all about Borel’s career in the story “Derby-winning…

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Pâquer, anyone? South Louisiana Easter traditions

Pâquer, anyone? South Louisiana Easter traditions

Who has the hardest Easter egg? In Cottonport, La. folks bet a dollar for each egg to find out.

Ever wonder why we boil chicken eggs and decorate them at Easter?

Well, if you take your copy of St. Thoma Aquinas’ Summa Theologica off the shelf… what? surely you have a copy of Summa Theologica? Well, if you don’t, let me sum up. Aquinas, who lived between the years 1225-1274, wrote:

Fasting was…

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That Night in Angola

That Night in Angola

Yvette Landry

My Breaux Bridge neighbor, my pal and fellow writer and musician, the lovely and talented Yvette Landry, is featured today in the The Advocate, Louisiana’s premier newspaper.

The headline reads Songwriter Yvette Landry shares her musical experiences.She’s opening tonight (February 19, 2016) for original country outlaw, Billy Joe Shaver, at the Manship Theatre in Baton Rouge. Those…

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St. Martin Parish photographer wins national honor

St. Martin Parish photographer wins national honor

Mardi Gras in rural Louisiana. Photo by Ron J. Berard

Photographer Ron J. Berard, a native of Henderson in St. Martin Parish, La., was honored for his January 2014 Thunder in the Fields photo feature in Louisiana Life magazine.

The International and Regional Magazine Association, the only trade organization that focuses on state and regional magazine singled out Berard’s work at their October…

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The Real Mardi Gras

The Real Mardi Gras

The Tee-Mamou Women’s Courir de Mardi Gras are coming to your house!

The Mardi Gras spirit is beginning to make its presence felt in southwest Louisiana and the Tee Mamou Courir de Mardi Gras had their first organizational meeting of the year January 22 at the Knights of Columbus Hall on Evangeline Highway just south of Garber Farms.

Breaux Bridge author Sam Irwin was invited to speak to the Tee…

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You need Dee on that wall!

You need Dee on that wall!

Dee as a puppy

I love my dog. Dee, Defender of the Wall, Slayer of Squirrels, Scourge of the Yard and Licker of Faces loves me back.

She is a 10-year-old Jack Russel terrier. I got her from a breeder in Church Point in October of 2005. When I visited the breeder, we walked out to the dog yard. We whistled for the puppies and Dee…

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How a Sleepy Bayou Saved New Orleans and How the Cajuns Adapted—Again

How a Sleepy Bayou Saved New Orleans and How the Cajuns Adapted—Again

The illustration above and excerpt below are from the chapter “Atchafalaya: How a Sleepy Bayou Saved New Orleans and How the Cajuns Adapted—Again” from Sam Irwin’s “It Happens in Louisiana: Peculiar Tales, Traditions and Recipes from the Bayou.”

Throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, people lived along the Atchafalaya River, many of them French-speaking Cajuns. French was…

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The Best Christmas Gift

The Best Christmas Gift

Paradise Records, Baton Rouge

I used to own a record store in Baton Rouge called Paradise Records. It was located in the University Shopping Center at LSU’s north gate in Baton Rouge. It was on West State Street across the street from Louie’s Cafe. It was started in 1987 by Dave Edwards of Houston. I came aboard in 1988 and purchased the business from Dave in 1994.

What a place to work. I road…

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Lafayette Christmas, 1927

This is a true Christmas story. My aunt, Lois Lanclos Broussard, gave me the background for this tale. It’s true that many people believed she was a traiteuse, It’s also a fact that my father was ejected from the window of a moving car when my grandmother was driving. Given those truths, then this is a true tale of wonder. –Sam Irwin

Father John

It was Thanksgiving Day, 1927 in the south…

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Les Voyageurs

Kevin Huval at the 2009 Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival

My friend Kevin Huval of Breaux Bridge and his sons, Joshua Bennett Huval and Daniel Hardy Huval, have a band called Oeuval. Oeuval is the French spelling of the Americanized family name of Huval. The family is well respected in St. Martin Parish.

When I was in the honky-tonk business (I once owned the Corner Bar, a landmark in Breaux…

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T-Galop

The runners of the 2015 Cane Field Classic

We do lots of fun things in Louisiana. I don’t find running fun, but other people do. Therefore LA Note, the lil’ ol’ blog from the bayou, brings you this short video production of The Cane Field Classic.:The race is a “t-galop” through the sugarcane fields of West Baton Rouge Parish.

What motivated more than 300 runners to get up early and run through…

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Eulogy for a Cane Cutter

Eulogy for a Cane Cutter

An ambulance waits to take a elderly retired cane field through the final passage.

I was shooting pictures along the famous oak and pine alley off Catahoula Highway in St. Martin Parish. The gravel road, two or three miles long, is flanked with sugarcane fields. The road leads back to a fairly large house, very modest by Louisiana plantation home standards. The people who live there are an old…

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The Fearless Writer

Freelancer Dan Baum

Editors terrify me. I shudder when I imagine a crusty old grump sitting at a desk piled high with submissions, grasping her “World’s Meanest Mom” coffee mug with one bony claw and crumpling my masterpiece with the other.

Are editors afraid of anything?

Professional freelancer Dan Baum says that at the center of each calloused editor is a patch of soul labeled “Fear.” Baum has…

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