Lake Charles was a strange place and culture. I didn’t know it. I didn’t care. I was happy cuz my folks were happy people. Lake Charles was on the water. There were so many different types of people there you couldn’t even know who was who; French, white folks, Indians, Cajuns, Negroes (descendants of slaves), Black folks from Haiti, Creole stuff, voodoo, and Redbones. Louisiana has always been known as an interesting place at best. People there just seemed to be … well … different.
Redbones were a mixture of about everything you could think of. They had French blood, pirate blood, Indian blood, Negro blood, slave blood and people from Haiti with their strange voodoo religion …; whatever it was, it was supposed to be bad. Nobody, I mean, nobody went into Redbone town. Not even the Negroes wanted to go into Redbone town. People thought they were the meanest of the mean.
There were no garbage trucks back then. A Negro man had a wagon pulled by two horses and he came around and dumped our garbage into the back. Mama said I could run along ‘side the wagon for two blocks, but I had to come home. I liked the Negro garbage man because I liked horses. No African-American people lived in “Luzeeanna” at that time … and no black people, either. Those names came along later. Continue reading “Sinking Sand/Solid Rock – Lake Charles # 4”
Write It On My Heart 