10/08/2020
During the winter of 1973, a break in our teaching schedules at Columbia College allowed us to escape the Windy City and take a road trip south along the Great River Road that follows the Mississippi River. Somewhere outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after driving along a remarkably green levee, we saw the landscape turn swampy. In a local diner, we struck up a conversation about things to see and eat and music to hear. Someone suggested we drive across the expanse of the Atchafalaya Basin on the newly opened Interstate 10, to Lafayette and into Acadiana, commonly known as Cajun country. “Cajun” was a word we had heard attached to music, but we had no concept of its meaning in regard to the unique cultural heritage found in southern Louisiana. -Excerpt from our book, “Cajun Document: Acadiana 1973-74”
📸: “Nathan Abshire (foreground), courier de Mardi Gras, Mamou” by Douglas Baz () & Charles Traub ()
