Strawberry Fest

This past weekend I again crossed state lines in search of good friends and a good drink. Most of my weekend time is spent doing things like learning how to use a nail gun, digging through large amounts of rotting organic material and composting earthworms, rescuing turtles stranded mid-highway, cleaning trailers and RVs, and church-hopping (another effect of having no UCC congregations in Mississippi--I am forever bouncing from Missionary Baptist to Methodist to Episcopal and beyond). But somehow, it is more fun to tell stories involving line-dancing and 3am truck stop diner buffets than it is to recount the wonders of emptying the toilet holding tank on my RV.

I motored over to Louisiana in the driving rain on Saturday afternoon, stopping in Ponchatoula once the weather had cleared for that town's famous Strawberry Fest. Strawberry Fest is your typical town festival deal, only it revolves around all things Strawberry--strawberry shortcake, fresh strawberries, strawberry daiquiris and margaritas, chocolate-dipped strawberries, strawberry wine (and endless playing of that venerable country tune), strawberry pendant necklaces and earrings, strawberry plants... I sampled a strawberry margarita and a strawberry dipped in what tasted like nutty-fudgy brownie batter. Dee-vine. I also visited the Turquoise Coyote, a gem of a bead and jewelry store with a Southwestern theme. If you are at all a fan of jewelry-making, or of antiques, and you are driving through southeast Louisiana, you should visit Ponchatoula, America's Antique City.*

This was all on my way to visit a friend from school who lives on her family's farm in Tangipahoa [Tanj-ih-pa-hoe] Parish. They raise cattle and timber, and it's sort of a gathering place for all W alums in the Louisiana-Mississippi area under the age of 30--A's mother has an open-door policy and showers true Southern hospitality and cooking on all her daughters' vagabond friends.**
The reason for this weekend's gathering was a David Allan Coe concert at The Stampede, a local honkytonk. (Definition of 'honkytonk': any establishment south of the Mason-Dixon line combining a bar and a dance floor, showcasing line-dancing or the two-step; particularly, such an establishment frequented by cowboy wannabes and rednecks, hence honkytonk.)
The beautiful thing about the kind of social dancing found at such places is that it's actually social--there is a set of commonly known dance steps which allows strangers to interact with each other in a way that mercifully avoids grinding, humping, etc. This means that folks dance with all sorts of partners, and pairing up with a given individual for a song or two doesn't mean that you are confined to that person for the rest of the night or that you are going home with him/her. So we had a great time kickin' up our heels with our friends and with friends of friends, and with friends of friends of friends--even though we were 20 miles from A's house, it seemed like she knew everyone, and if she didn't know someone, she knew their uncle's cousin's grade school teacher's daughter's boyfriend. Or his dog.
There's just something satisfyingly carefree about a night of good dancing with your friends. I can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday evening, even if it does involve witnessing folks falling-off-their-chairs drunk or wearing Confederate fishing hats (you thought I made that up, didn't you??).

The next day involved sleeping in, touring the farm, and trying to get one of A's heifers back up on her feet--she'd been sick and unresponsive for the last few days, and they may end up having to shoot her. We also planted lilies at A's grandfather's grave, and took a run distributing what I like to call "cow crack"--high-protein supplemental pellets that look like gigantic guinea pig food. If you ever want to see a herd of stoic, stand-offish cows get real excited and trot after your pickup truck like you're Santa Claus with a sleigh loaded with pre-chewed cud, get a bag of these pellets and pour a trail of them out behind you. You will see those slow-footed sourpusses perk up like comatose teenagers awoken by the end-of-school bell--running as fast as they can from one pile to the next, nudging each other out of the way and gobbling up little gray cylinders like kids in a candy shop. Mm mm, good!

Despite the fact that I got a flat tire outside of town on the way back, it was a great weekend--time to relax, make new friends, eat some real home cookin', and consume a whole stack of pickles straight out of the jar. Nothing like beer munchies!

This weekend it's time for the Crawfish Festival... even though it takes me half an hour to eat half a dozen crawfish, I can't wait!



*More fun facts about Ponchatoula: Home of the Strawberry Farmers' Wall of Honor; recognized in 1936, by the federal government as the greatest shipping point of strawberries in the world. Ponchatoula derives its name from the Choctaw Indian language meaning "hair to hang" because of the abundance of Spanish moss on the trees surrounding the area. http://ci.ponchatoula.la.us/ and http://www.ponchatoula.com/
**More on Southern Hospitality, the code of which is politely but firmly etched in stone, iron-bound by honor, and festooned with food and drink:
Once I tried to pay for lunch at the local Oyster Fest (a lot of the social scene in these parts revolves around _insert regional food specialty here_ Fests)--fried oyster po boys all around, and for me, my very first slippery, uncooked bivalve. I followed our waiter over to the cash register nook, handed him cash, and explicitly instructed him not to let A and her mother pay for me, because this was my way of showing gratitude for their hosting me. He played along and my fiendishly smooth plan went swimmingly... until he asked if they needed anything more, A. and her mom asked for the check, and I said I'd taken care of it. Out came the credit card, onto the table came the "We're locals" trump card, and back came my cash (except the tip, which they actually let me get!!).