Allons à Lafayette

Gumbo, Dancing, and a Salty Dog

Knute Tonga playing in our Mardi Gras style wedding entrance, 2018. Photo credit: Renee Johnson

To celebrate the fact Jason got two whole days off in a row, and to commemorate the end of his nine week training, we loaded the dogs and instruments into the car and headed to Lafayette for the weekend.

I’d never been to Louisiana before, though I’ve wanted to go for a long time. There’s a big Alaska-Lafayette crossover among our friend group, who come down yearly for a big Cajun cook-off/competition and music festival called Black Pot. When my stepmother, Laurel, who is from New Orleans, came up to Juneau for our wedding several years ago, she remarked on the similarity between the two places, noting that the music and culture were very simpatico.

I discovered the same, first hand, this weekend. The laid back vibes were just what we needed after spending so much time in uptight Houston.

Driving I-10 from Houston to Lafayette and back, the difference was stark as soon as we crossed the border. The aggressive rat race (to go where? And do what?) in Houston shifted to less dense, generic sprawl as we traveled east. I don’t remember a sign welcoming us to Louisiana, but the distinction was palpable. All at once, the scenery went from non-stop concrete and death-defying traffic on roads that seem to be in a permanent state of disrepair (kind of like one long construction zone, sans construction), to wide open rice fields populated by big, white egrets.

The sky opened up and dumped rain as we crossed over. We pulled off to let the dogs out as the electical storm raged. Mabel, our little miniature dachshund, had to swim through a river that had quickly formed in the gutter, just to get from the car to a patch of grass.

As we crossed the Calcaseiu River Bridge, we drove under the arc of a huge, bright rainbow. The bill boards shifted from ads for personal injury lawyers that looked like they had provided inspiration for Better Call Saul, to ones for boudin, shrimp and Jesus. Longhorn-this and Lone Star-that gave way to ads for Cajun food and places with French names.

The main motivation for fitting in this trip before we head to Colorado, was wanting to visit our friend Knute. He is an old friend to both of us, who’s known Jason since he was a tiny kid, and is one of the musical people Jason and I had in common before we met each other. He’s one of our beloved “geezers,” who typically splits his time between Homer, Alaska, and Lafayette, Louisiana.

Miriam Webster says this:

A GEEZER is an odd, eccentric, or unreasonable person (usually a man); especially an old man.

That’s an absolutely fitting definition, except for the old part. Knute really isn’t all that old, though he’s lived a very full life. All of us who love him (and even he) would probably agree: he exists somewhere along the spectrum between Bush Rat and Rumpelstiltskin. He’s like hard candy with a soft, juicy center. The kind of person who would just as likely inhabit a box car as a fishing boat, could be perfectly cast in a Lord of the Rings movie as a relative of Gimli, and whose music can melt your heart even as it slightly pickles in the saltiness. He’s a piece of work, but he’s also a piece of art. We love him dearly.

Knute is one of my favorite people in the world to find myself sitting around a campfire with at four in the morning. Heavy with drink and revery — as befits the ragged moment of a late, coastal Alaskan summer night, he’ll tilt his head back under the stars, and croon the most perfect hobo song. Right at the crossroads where light bleeds slowly back into the early morning and bed starts calling, his beautiful mandolin playing cuts right through the dew, perfectly conjuring old barn doors and freight trains. He makes you feel it.

Sadly, he suffered a bad stroke several months ago that has rendered his right side immobile. We hope things will improve, but for now, he’s struggling with speech aphasia which has scrambled his words, making it hard for him to communicate.

I’m happy to report that he can still play the harmonica, and can hum along in perfect harmony. Appropriately, he can still get cuss words out as clear as day, but the rest is something he will have to work hard to get back.

We were glad to be there on the day he moved from a care facility he’s been staying at, back to his own house, where he’ll be posted up with a live-in caregiver. We played lots of music and took him out for lunch. Then played more music, and took him out for dinner. After breakfast, we did it all again. Our visit felt perfectly timed to help ease his transition, and it did our hearts good to see him.

Selfie of Knute, me and Jason at Hideaway on Lee, Lafayette, Louisiana, August 2022.

We also met up with our friend Nokosee, who took us to what he said was the oldest standing Zydeco club in Lafayette, El Sido’s (Sid’s). Chris Ardoin and his band were playing, which Nokosee described as “some deep Louisiana shit.” He wasn’t lying! Sitting at the bar was an older gentleman with a fedora, who turned out to be Sid himself.

I introduced myself to him and fell in love right away. He pulled me close to tell me he’d just had a heart attack, and that he shouldn't even be there, just five days fresh out of the hospital. I said I thought he’d probably die if he didn’t come out, and he winked at me as if to say “Exactly!” We talked of the healing power of music, and he showed me a picture on the wall that was him when he was younger, playing piano accordion.

I loved the ease at which people stood close and talked to outsiders like us. It was so refreshing after the sterile and stifling stiffness of people in Houston. And my God! The music was OFF THE HOOK!

From the first note, Chris tore into the accordion like a dog with a juicy steak. It was nasty! And the dancing-whew! Jason and I are pretty good dancers, but Zydeco is a whole other pot of catfish. We need to take some lessons! I was enraptured, watching the other dancers. They redefine smooth. The way they moved made it seem almost like they were gliding on rollerskates while making love with their clothes on. Incredible.

We were stunned to hear that Chris Ardoin had been shot last year during a gig. He hadn’t played out much since then, and the show was heavy on security, understandably. Chris is part of the long lineage of a Zydeco dynasty, and has been playing accordion since age two. He started his first band when he was ten. His grandfather, Alfonse “Bois Sec” Ardoin, was an early, defining, and influential fixture on the Zydeco scene, who’s legacy is a whole family of legendary musicians.

Sid’s was LOUD. After a while, we left so we could hang out in a little quieter atmosphere. We wound up at the Blue Moon Saloon, a historical place among our Alaskan contingent — a venue where many of our friends have posted up over the years, including Jason. We got there right as the band was wrapping it up, and sat under the cover of the patio while rain washed the night away. It was great to catch up with our pal, Nokosee, who seems to have become a part of all things-Lafayette. It was fun to see him in his element.

I understand the swampiness of Cajun and Zydeco music on a whole new level now that I have tasted it in person, in its own natural habitat. The groove fits with the way the place moves: joyful, with just the right amount of tension, combined with a relaxed, “fuck it” feeling. Spicy in all the right places. By the time we had danced to a few songs, I was literally soaked with sweat, no less than I would be had I just stepped out of the shower.

Condensation drips from windows like the music, where air conditioned insides abutt the warm air outside (exactly the opposite of Fairbanks in the wintertime). Little stands between any structure and a constant inclination to rot away— you can feel the bayou trying to reclaim all of it.

Stout trees hang heavy with Spanish moss, like tinsel decoration for a festival that never ends. This place seems to sweep even the trees off their feet, which stand on gnarled roots, exposed by ground long washed away. The smoky night air pulses with an unrelenting rhythm that pours from dance halls all over town. It gets inside you, and lives somewhere on the borderland between spooky and sexy.

Walking around downtown Lafayette on our last morning there, I was struck by the stark difference between it and Houston. It was nice to down-shift from polished people in business attire speeding around in flashy BMWs, and big dually trucks driven by the pinch-faced men in ten gallon hats we’ve grown accustomed to in Houston, to Lafayette’s slow roads crawling with rusty bikes pedaled in flip flops, and colorful pedestrians who stroll along at a lazy pace in no particular hurry to get anywhere. Catholic priests sat relaxing at the coffee shop in their stiff white collars amidst people who ran the gamut: from dressed in Sunday best, to looking like ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down.’

I’ve come to understand something subtle about the bible belt: With the wild places, tangled in vines as they are, untamed and thick with thorns, poisonous snakes, and all manner of things that slither and creep, man’s dominion over the Earth might have begun with the desire to sit down. I am covered in bites, just from standing in the grass while the dogs pee.

I miss laying prone in the tundra, and hearing nothing. Spending time with our good buddy gave us a dose of friendly familiarity. Music is medicine, and dancing shook loose some of the tension caused from living around nonstop jets flying low overhead, and people who won’t make eye contact with you.

Tomorrow we start our drive north and west to the mountains above Boulder, where we will exchange crab grass for cactus, swamps for red rocks, and gain some elevation. Better get the tweezers ready for the pups!

Sources: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/geezer, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Ardoin, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_%22Bois_Sec%22_Ardoin, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allons_%C3%A0_Lafayette

This piece takes its name from a traditional Cajun song called Allons à Lafayette, written by Joe Falcon and Cleoma Breaux in 1928, which is said to be the first Cajun song ever recorded. It translates to “Let’s go to Lafayette” in English.