Yesterday was family day. We drove over to cousin Marlene's house and spent the day with her. She's a delightful lady (72) who is as active as any 50 year old. She was in the Air Force in 1950 something, and then was a commissioned officer in the Army in 1958. She traveled all over and saw many things and had entertaining stories to tell.
Her sister Gloria never left Hodge and took a little bit longer to warm up to, but once I made her laugh we were golden.
We drove all over the county -- er parish to different little church graveyards and took pictures of dead people. (woo hoo) After a full day of that we picked up Gloria and went out to dinner at the Catfish Cafe. We had an artery clogging plate of fried catfish, fried ocra, freedom fries (no joke) and hushpuppies (fried corn bread). Yum. Gloria had fried frogs legs and ate one little frog foot and stopped eating. Those dead frogs asses were staring at me all through my dinner.
We closed the restaraunt down (8:00pm) and headed out to "cousin" Blah-blah's house (no can remember her name) and visited with her a bit. She was very nice and had lots of things to share about Jimmie Tap (some cousin) and Nancy Faye (who knows) she lived way way the heck in the middle of no where and I was worried that Marlene and Gloria were going to kill us for the car.
Wednesday we stopped by the "town" where mom lived as a litte girl. By town I mean the intersection of hwy 77 and lousiana route 4316. It's basically where a two lane road meets a smaller wo lane road. There are many of these places and they all have names. This one was "Mt. Olive. There were two cemetaries and a run down store. Well, apparently my grandfather Milton built the store with wood from the land and they lived behind the store. Mom had me drive around back to see some tree. As we got out of the mini-van we saw the single wide back in the woods a bit. The roof had been reinforced with plywood and a porch added on. Jimmy Foodwood (or whatever) came out and started to shoo us away, but once he heard my mom's name he realized that we're kin! Jimmy wore black (nasty) pants, a camoflauge vest and no shirt. He wanted us to come in the house real bad but we excused ourselves. Yikes.
We drove back to New Orleans today and have been trying to call the first hotel we stayed at. Mom left her new coat, scarf, undies and some other things in the room. We called 4 times today and each time they said they'd call us back. We had the manager of this hotel call and he got a different answer, they didn't "find" our stuff and to call back Monday when the housekeeping manager will be in. SHE WAS IN TODAY... grr. Oh well, I'll call on Monday and speak to the General Manger and (s)he will send her stuff back on their dime.
So, all is well other than mom not having any undies - and we're ready to come home. I of course turn around and leave again on Sunday for a business trip, but that will be 5 days in one place. Easy easy.
See ya!
Pictues to come.
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