Crawfish and Laughter

Tonight is the hardest I have laughed in a long time. The evening was full of humorous stories, small jokes on each other, and some prime Louisiana cookin'.

The afternoon started by meeting a fine gentleman by the name of Vernon. Vernon comes from a family of 8 children where he grew up on a farm in Hartford, MI. A career with the Navy brought him across the world and he would eventually land in Ponchatoula, LA. Ponchatoula is a small community about 50 miles north of New Orleans. With a population of about 5,500 it is well known as two different capitals, the strawberry capital and antique capital of the United States.

Vernon brought me to Old MacDonald’s BBQ in Hammond to meet his wife Brandy and his best friend Missy. Now if I get around to it I can make probably five blog entries about the brief backgrounds I know of them and how they all met up. So I started with some great BBQ and one of the warmest greetings. Well one needs something nice to wash down some BBQ, something like Eddie’s Frozen Custard works best. Just ask Vernon, he’ll be happy to tell you how good it was. Unfortunately the doctor told him he needs to cut back on the sugars. So Vernon had to compromise, he’ll treat himself to Eddie’s every two weeks on payday, a good rule to reward himself.

So I’m eating well today. Tonight I would try crawfish and homemade jambalaya. Crawfish, hmmm I’ve never been huge on seafood (or swamp food), but it was alright. As for the jambalaya… delicious! Yes, they have great food in Louisiana. Of course that was later washed down with some homemade peach cobbler.

With any meal there must be atmosphere and there is no better atmosphere than endless smiles and laughter. In total there were nine of us tonight. We were gathered around the kitchen sharing stories the entire night. Quite truly I’ve been needing a night just like this.

Yay! Time for a side note!
It’s a small world. So small that back home I made two connections to Louisiana. Connections of two men who used to live in Michigan. One connection comes from a friend of mine to a guy who lived in the Upper Peninsula. The other connection comes from family friends in L’Anse to a guy who lived in near South Haven. Two separate connections, both people who lived in Michigan, and they live a mile away from each other. A complete coincidence. It makes things easier when I have to find a place to stay and he lives a mile down the road.