The Lullaby Of Cajun French

Pierre Fontenot Thursday, April 21, 2016 Comments Off on The Lullaby Of Cajun French
The Lullaby Of Cajun French

…where the story begins with the author declaring himself a “Token”…

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In my 20’s I was a novelty. I’d moved to the big city and met young adults like me, from all over the country, and I was, to them, a Token Cajun, the only one they’d ever known. I was like an exhibit in the zoo, or an article in National Geographic, except I had a couple of Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes that were good for a hearty laugh and a free beer. I met people from Wisconsin and Illinois, from Iowa and Texas. I met people who’d gone to no college, some college, any college, even Harvard. We were all Americans, but they were More American. They weren’t ethnic like me. I used to get a hoot out of watching Jessie Jackson on TV, trying to sell black America as the minority of minorities. O, and please. I’d tell my new acquaintances about my father, born in America, by Americans, by generations of Americans…and yet he heard his first word of English on the first day of school. “Say something,” they’d say. So I’d get in my grandmother’s voice, me just a kid, out with a BB gun in the ditch by the gravel road, the gravel road where top speed was 30mph and two vehicles an hour, and I’d pitch my voice up and say, “Cher enfant, come off da road, da car gonna pass on you.” And they’d all smile, like tourists, far away from home and listening to the locals, especially when I defined cher enfant (dear child) and explain how her generation didn’t think you got “run” over by a car, only “passed” over. And here’s the deal – I said it in English. Because I was never taught French…

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This Is The Way It Was

My great-grandfather was named Jean Pierre. He’s 100% American and 100% Cajun. His wife is Estelle. Here come the kids: Todose, Farie… very French, very dated, but you can see how they felt the pressure to be a part of America’s melting pot, because by the time they got to the last kid, they just reached out, for the first time in the history of the family, and picked an “American” name, Tommy. Just Tommy. And all those other kids, they ended up going by their initials. Todose was TD, Farie was FE.

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My father, Sidney on the right, my uncle, J.D., on the left. You’re looking at pure-dee American-Cajun quality. English was their second language, but character was their first.

My father, Sidney on the right, my uncle, J.D., on the left. You’re looking at pure-dee American-Cajun quality. English was their second language, but character was their first.

It’s What Ambitious Families Do

It’s entirely natural to want better for your children. In my grandparent’s time, being a Hard Worker wasn’t a way up, because everyone was a hard worker… You needed more. You needed more education, but you needed more than that. You needed better table manners and conversational skills. You needed to talk properly, and dress with dignity. And so it was…that about the time I come into the family picture, that all the adults, who all speak French, decide that there is no point in me learning French. Our family is going to be American. Let the melting begin.

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The Secret Language Of Adults

In any given day of my childhood I was a just-a-kid, among adults, and I had no idea what they were talking about. Sometimes my name would be mentioned and I’d perk my ear, like a dog would, and would look for smiles or frowns to see if I was in favor or not. Sometimes we’d have guests, and I’d watch their faces, the confused tourist look, when the conversations were in French, and then translated. (And when I say “tourist”, I’m talking about people who lived just fifty miles away.) In the 1960’s, in Allen Parish, didn’t matter who was President, didn’t matter if man took one small step for mankind on the moon, or somebody launched the nukes, the language of adults was French. But at the school, the teachers spoke English, even among themselves, and I don’t know of any of us who were taught French in the home… …which is curious, because in the 1970’s, in school, I first heard about state programs to keep the Cajun culture alive. Somebody had realized that we were losing a good thing…

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Back Home The Phone Book Was Pages Thick With Fontenots

Away I went, out of school, out of Louisiana, off to the Big City, where I’d have to spell my name with every receptionist, because they’d never seen the name before. I worked on my accent…which means, I worked on not having one. You can’t be taken seriously, in business, with a bunch of poo yie and oo ye yi. My goal was to sound like the men doing the news for the big networks. Or Johnny Carson. Just sound American. But I’d come home, and I’d slip right into accent. Better than Maw Maw’s cooking, was sitting back, watching, listening, to the sound of my father talking to his mother in French.

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As the years passed Them That Could started dying off. I can still see my grandmother’s head, the way it moved when she was making a little small talk with Daddy. She was so quiet, he was so quiet, had no idea what they were saying, but always, gentle voices, still water sliding over pebbles. I remember getting out of the car and for the first time my goal was to be RightThere when my father greeted his brother. It might have been the lamest of small talk, Good to see you – Well it’s been too long, but it became something precious, because it was getting rare. In Dad’s last few years I could count on one hand the number of times I heard him speak French. One time it was at the Post Office, a stranger, but they sized each other up by age and accent and one did the parlez vous thing and they knocked back a few sentences and then went back to English. Aunt Rose made sure to come for Dad’s last Thanksgiving. My generation and younger, we hushed and neared them, as they sat and talked in French. No idea what they were saying, but precious, precious, their many miles walked in similar shoes, the sound of courtesy and respect, in Cajun French. Now it’s only her.

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What Once Was Annoyance Is Now A Lullaby

French was a way to separate the kids from the grownups in my childhood, but it was also the soundtrack of everyday life. It’s Mr. Murphy, the school bus driver, with his hand-rolled cigarettes, the man who sold Sugartown watermelons out of his pickup, Sister Ida, the mail lady, the man at the hardware store, the lunchroom ladies at the school, my family VIP’s…I remember, I remember, the cadence of French, how vowels danced in the air, and the way statements ended with a little Up at the end, as if they were questions… All of a sudden I am the little kid grown to man, and all the voices that I rate as Important are gone. I was taught to be a melted American, and I am. Ooooh, but what I’d give…there at the end, when the mind retreated from adult English to the safety of childhood French… …gathered around Dad’s hospice bed, being told that hearing-was-the-last-to-go, to have been able to speak French with my father…tell him, Go on Dad, we’ll be alright…

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This edition of Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, where we like our America American, but we want all the ingredients to keep their flavor. Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories can be found on Eighty-one’s Facebook page. Uncle P welcomes the occasional attaboy at 81creativity@gmail.com.

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