The Control of Nature: Atchafalaya. Three hundred miles up the Mississippi River from its mouth—many parishes above New Orleans and well north of Baton Rouge—a navigation lock in the Mississippi’s right bank allows ships to drop out of the river. In evident defiance of nature, they descend as much as thirty-three feet, then go off to the west or south. This, to say the least, bespeaks a rare relationship between a river and adjacent terrain—any river, anywhere, let alone the third-ranking river on earth.
The adjacent terrain is Cajun country, in a geographical sense the apex of the French Acadian world, which forms a triangle in southern Louisiana, with its base the Gulf Coast from the mouth of the Mississippi almost to Texas, its two sides converging up here near the lock—and including neither New Orleans nor Baton Rouge. “You are a coonass with that red handkerchief,” he said. A coonass being a Cajun, I threw him an appreciative smile. The navigation lock is not a formal place. Rabalais works for the U.S. Jennifer Byde Myers (jennyalice)
Jennyalice's Channel. Your Photostream. My BlogHer Profile: jennyalice. Jennifer Byde Myers. Jennifer Myers - Google Profile. Woulda Coulda Shoulda | Links. HOME. Jennifer Myers, Redwood City, California, United States. Guilt and fear. That's what we've got..... I talked to the staff at the hospital, and they are administering some tests to find out if FASD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder are just the tip of the iceberg. I talked with DD's staff and he told me that DD is "very hurt" by "something her dad said". I'm aware of that, and I know that while DD was in the process of hitting DH, he said, "I'm through with you! ". And DD said a whole lot more than that, but of course her words don't count--but DH's will be remembered forever. I know her penchant for untruthfulness and knowing that she's there in the hospital, I get worried that she's exaggerating or lying and that they will believe her stories.
I know that she isn't the first kid to lie though, so they've probably figured some of that out....and I worry about how our family and family dynamics will be perceived. Her staff already told me that DD is upset that we haven't come to visit yet. The hospital, though, is two hours away and I don't get paid time off from my part time job.