Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Roll Tide, roll over
Saturday was a classic south Louisiana for your humble narrator. I woke up at the very crack of fuck (5 a.m.) and drove an hour and a half to Madewood Plantation in Napoleonville to meet up with a group embarking on a four-day paddling trip. Nearly 200 people signed up for the trip, organized to raise awareness for wetlands preservation by paddling en masse 50 miles down Bayou Lafourche and I volunteered to cover it for the paper.
I ended up in a canoe with an old Cajun, Simon Broussard, and his grandson, both from Houma, La. Simon is 65, bespectacled and bald and never stops telling jokes and stories. He is also one of the friendliest people I've met down here and treated me to stories in a with a thick coonass accent with endings like, "Then, the highway patrolman drove up and said I might want to be careful, cause there was a 14-foot gator in the middle of the road and he had no interest in moving."
Simon also exemplified the split personality of Louisiana and it's conservation efforts. He worked his whole life for the petrochemical industry, but blamed that industry for destroying the wetlands and degrading a way of life in south Louisiana (he came from a family of shrimpers that relied on the coastal wetlands for their livelihood). It was a little sad paddling down a beautiful bayou with Simon, hearing his grim predictions for the future of Louisiana's environment.
It was also painful and strained muscles I didn't know I had (we paddled about 12 miles). The trip ended in Labadieville (pronouned laba-dee-vill) with lunch at a little hole in the wall called Nubby's.
From there, I raced back to the office to file my story in time to head to LSU, where I tailgated with my buddies and got good and festive. Tailgating in Baton Rouge is a revered tradition. On Saturdays when LSU is at home, the campus blossoms into a tent city smelling of barbecue and beer with the LSU fight song blasting from every other speaker. It is impressive to see the dedication that goes into tailgating. The most serious participants show up as early as 6 a.m. to set up and start cooking. Many don't even have a ticket to the game - the tailgate is the event. By the afternoon the campus is awash in smoking grills, music and, unfortunately, purple and gold Confederate Flags.
By the time I arrived my buddies were pounding beers and stirring the beginnings of a delicious chicken and sausage Jumbalaya. I was so moved, I even donned an LSU hat (that no, I did not buy that day). It was an especially charged pregame atmosphere as the Fighting Tigers were playing the hated Crimson Tide of the University of Alabama. Surprisingly, my buddy was able to get three tickets scalped at less than face value and I got to go to the concrete monstrosity that is Tiger Stadium for the first time.
Seeing a sold out 100,000 seat stadium with an almost entirely purple and gold crowd is an experience. What's also amazing is the collective BAC of those 100,000 people. There is, inexplicably, no booze allowed in the stadium. This state is clearly still in the denial stage of its alcoholism. Nonetheless, nearly everyone in the stadium is plastered and drinking their smuggled in contraband.
I know I always bag on college football and I still contend it will suck until they get playoffs, but I was into this game. It was difficult not to be. I even high-fived the irritating, blitzed dude with the trache scar who kept standing up, yelling and blocking my view. We all went home happy, as the Tigers beat the Tide 26-10.
I ended up in a canoe with an old Cajun, Simon Broussard, and his grandson, both from Houma, La. Simon is 65, bespectacled and bald and never stops telling jokes and stories. He is also one of the friendliest people I've met down here and treated me to stories in a with a thick coonass accent with endings like, "Then, the highway patrolman drove up and said I might want to be careful, cause there was a 14-foot gator in the middle of the road and he had no interest in moving."
Simon also exemplified the split personality of Louisiana and it's conservation efforts. He worked his whole life for the petrochemical industry, but blamed that industry for destroying the wetlands and degrading a way of life in south Louisiana (he came from a family of shrimpers that relied on the coastal wetlands for their livelihood). It was a little sad paddling down a beautiful bayou with Simon, hearing his grim predictions for the future of Louisiana's environment.
It was also painful and strained muscles I didn't know I had (we paddled about 12 miles). The trip ended in Labadieville (pronouned laba-dee-vill) with lunch at a little hole in the wall called Nubby's.
From there, I raced back to the office to file my story in time to head to LSU, where I tailgated with my buddies and got good and festive. Tailgating in Baton Rouge is a revered tradition. On Saturdays when LSU is at home, the campus blossoms into a tent city smelling of barbecue and beer with the LSU fight song blasting from every other speaker. It is impressive to see the dedication that goes into tailgating. The most serious participants show up as early as 6 a.m. to set up and start cooking. Many don't even have a ticket to the game - the tailgate is the event. By the afternoon the campus is awash in smoking grills, music and, unfortunately, purple and gold Confederate Flags.
By the time I arrived my buddies were pounding beers and stirring the beginnings of a delicious chicken and sausage Jumbalaya. I was so moved, I even donned an LSU hat (that no, I did not buy that day). It was an especially charged pregame atmosphere as the Fighting Tigers were playing the hated Crimson Tide of the University of Alabama. Surprisingly, my buddy was able to get three tickets scalped at less than face value and I got to go to the concrete monstrosity that is Tiger Stadium for the first time.
Seeing a sold out 100,000 seat stadium with an almost entirely purple and gold crowd is an experience. What's also amazing is the collective BAC of those 100,000 people. There is, inexplicably, no booze allowed in the stadium. This state is clearly still in the denial stage of its alcoholism. Nonetheless, nearly everyone in the stadium is plastered and drinking their smuggled in contraband.
I know I always bag on college football and I still contend it will suck until they get playoffs, but I was into this game. It was difficult not to be. I even high-fived the irritating, blitzed dude with the trache scar who kept standing up, yelling and blocking my view. We all went home happy, as the Tigers beat the Tide 26-10.
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Are you people really busy these days or do I have to USA Today my blog and make my posts short and easy to read with simple declarative sentences and pie charts?
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