Cajun Fever

Just back from Texas and the post-storm calm that followed Hurricane Ike. Thank goodness, my family's fine. It was kind of fun to live without power for a few days and great to fly into an empty airport. During the week I visited my 96 year old grandfather and met one of his elderly neighbors from just outside Lafayette, Louisiana. A 100% authentic Cajun girl (maiden name Thibodeaux), she told me all kinds of great stories about the little villages in the back bayous of Cajun country. She also spoke in Cajun to me and sang me a refrain from the song Jolie Blonde. It was a wonderful little coda to my recent trip to Quebec and my growing interest in all things French-American.

I am now in search of more examples of recorded Cajun French (spoken, not sung). I recently found this clip from the 1948 movie, "Louisiana Story" in which a father tells his young son that he's "trop canaille" (too much of a scoundrel) before handing him his very first shotgun. Now I just gotta see this movie.