Local

Local is knowing what the locals mean when they tell you to take a left at the old Sears, even when there’s no old Sears anymore.

Local is knowing which bank they mean, when other locals name the bank it was before the 1980’s merger and the 1990’s merger after that, and the 2000’s merger after that. Around here, Calcasieu Marine is the bank, even if the signs say different.

It’s knowing where the old Borden’s was, and knowing that saying that you lived close enough to ride your bike there is almost bragging, but knowing that locals don’t brag.

Local is saying you went to a certain high school, and at a glance you know all you need to know, that they went there in the football glory years.

You can’t cheat local. You gotta be here, you gotta put in some years.

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We Always Want Change… Until There’s Change

Oooh…how to grow the economy… until the economy grows, and then it takes you thirty minutes to get from here to there, when it used to only take five.

You see a house sell and two days later your jaw is still open, wondering who was the knucklehead that paid that much.

You see a driver trying to get out of a parking lot, so you motion them in, ahead of you, and instead of nodding at you, or throwing you a little wave, like locals do, they just barge ahead, and make you regret being nice, until you look at their license plate, and there’s your answer, not-raised-around-here.

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We’re Flush With People From Elsewhere

They don’t smile when we’d have smiled, they don’t thank-you like we thank-you, and they don’t yes-Sir and yes-Ma’am like we were raised.

They’re just here for the paycheck.

Bless their hearts – because that’s how locals think – bless their hearts, they weren’t raised like us. That’s only a few words, but oooooh, what a thick book that makes.

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The Elevator Either Goes Up or Down

If you’ve got a better way, go ahead, show us, and we’ll follow you. But you’re a guest in our world, and the world our ancestors made here, so don’t pop a squat here on Monday and put your elbows out on Tuesday, like you’re running something.

As Lately goes, your name is Johnny Come. If things were so good back home you’d still be back home, but they weren’t, and now you’re in our world, so make with the eyes ‘n ears, and trim your talking to asking questions, because there’s some local knowing that you need to know.

If you come here from states where a shake of salt and a shake of pepper counts for flavor you need to present yourself bodacious humble. We make food sing here. Which means we make a lot of things sing. Six months in our restaurants and you won’t want to go home for Thanksgiving.

Don’t take our cussing on Monday as an indication that we weren’t churching on Sunday. We may have to start our prayers with “It’s been a while,” but that don’t mean we don’t know that god is spelled with a big G. It’s easy to know your place when you know that He made the place, and your place in it…

We locals talk about money, but if you make us pick, we’ll mostly pick family over the bucks. Speaking of bucks, a lot of us would pick hunting over money. Same for fishing.

But when we’re working, we’re working. That’s one of the reasons business is good. Whether in the workforce or in the local government, we’re not loafing, we’re not stealing, we’re not working the system. We get to work early, try to get along with everybody, leave the house at the house and spend the day doing the doing that needs to get done. Even then, not a one us feels like we measure up to our parents and grandparents.

We come from something. The first college degree in the family might’ve just happened, but character…that’s been bred in, for a loooong time. When locals tell you it’s raining, you don’t need to stick your arm out the window to see if it gets moist.

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One Local To Another

To say Change Is Coming is to misspeak; Change Has Already Come, and More is Coming. The question for locals is What Do We Do…

First thing I’d emphasize is don’t sell your soul for money. If money mattered you’d long ago been in Houston. There’s a reason you stayed home. That reason is the Real You.

Don’t let them run you off. They’re here ‘cause the grass is greener, but you were here when the grass was brown. Whether lush or weeds, this is your backyard, and you’ve been mowing it a long while.

Don’t let them change you. Some of these new people didn’t come from smiling places, or hugging places or what-you-see-is-what-you-get places. No sense putting a hole in your own bucket just to even out the hole in theirs.

You owe it to your gone-on-to-meet-the-Lords to hold steady. Long before now became Now, it was one generation of locals begetting another, a chain of generations, and they made this place into This Place. It’s not the geography – it’s the culture – and that culture is unique unto the world. Every generation is supposed to improve things, but we’re also supposed to respect what has always worked, and pass it along to the next generation.

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This edition of Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, where Louisiana Creativity is inspired by good ole Louisiana make-do. Uncle P can be reached at 81creativity@gmail.com.