Sweat

I smell so bad. We just crossed the Oklahoma/Louisiana border and the kids are in the Love’s desperately looking for a slushy for Piper. This is our third location looking for one, and they have struck out again. Now we are headed to Sonic.

Everything smells bad here. The air smells like hot garbage and I smell like sweaty armpits. There should be a word for this….like “hangry” except it would smash together “sweaty” and “cranky.” Too bad “swanky” is taken. And now Judah is complaining that he does not in fact want the Strawberry Shortcake popsicle that he chose from Love’s because he now wants Sonic. We are 8 hours into this travel day with no fun stops and it’s evident. “Eat that popsicle or don’t,” I tell him. “You don’t get anything else.” “It’s a hard decision, dough!” He wails. I am not very empathetic when I am so sweaty. He has now convinced Cayden to give him a bite of hers. She does not share my lack of empathy. “You have to ask mom,” Cayden warns. “I know she will say no,” he lamented. I said yes, and ended up eating half of a Strawberry Shortcake meltsicle. Now he is looking out the window pointing at a rock, convinced it’s an alligator because we are in Louisiana, after all. Welcome to our longest driving day. Thirteen hours through three states. This is the not fun part, except that a fly got in to the motor home on that last sweaty stop, so now Judah is pacified by being on “fly patrol.” As long as he doesn’t whack Bryan, it’s a win. Last night, we stayed in an “RV park” in Woodward, OK. We scraped our hitch on the driveway coming in, evidence that this car wash parking lot was not created with the intention of housing RVs. This place did, however have water and power available, so we gratefully pumped the AC because it was HOT! The other redeeming quality of this RV stop was the sno cone food truck at the entrance.

We ate some dinner and then headed over to the 91st Annual Woodward Elks Rodeo. In normal Bryan fashion, we arrived and hour and a half early for the rodeo. We parked and walked in, but Bryan had to walk back to the motor home again because we weren’t allowed to bring in our water bottles or my camera. There weren’t many people there, so we sat in the first row. Piper was very excited to be sitting in the first row, but when Judah heard he might get dirt kicked up on him, he promptly moved up three rows behind us. Piper’s joy only lasted until some people came and kicked us out of their seats, which apparently were reserved ones. Piper never recovered. From that point on, she was basically crying, hungry, thirsty, hot or all of the above. If you ask her, the rodeo was horrible. Cayden, on the other hand, had a great time! She loved cheering on the barrel racing girls and cringed in excitement at the bull riders. Judah was pretty worn out, so he just looked tired, especially by the time we got done (10:30). I loved watching the people in this small town. This was obviously the social event of the month. I’m not sure many people really watched the rodeo, most of them were milling about talking to one another, chasing a baby, eating nachos and pretzels and drinking lots and lots of Coors. Kids ran back and forth in packs, I saw a jealous 15-year-old staring down a rival, with the girl at his side pulling him away from the other guy. The teenage girls had come dressed for a night out, while there didn’t seem much required of the guys, who might be dressed in a nice button up and cowboy hat or dirty shorts and a baseball cap. I saw a 5-year-old with eyeliner, quite a few sweaty grandpas with big beards and floppy hats, and the cutest little pink-shirted 3-year-old wearing toddler Wranglers, cowboy boots and a big white cowboy hat. One of the highlights for me was the kids Calf Scramble, when the rodeo clown called to all the kids in the crowd to come down and chase baby cows. With the promise of a 5-pound chocolate bar if they captured the flag off the calves’ tails, hundreds of kids streamed into the dirt arena, being lifted down from the grandstands and jumping over the guard rails. Even the little pink cowboy eagerly ran out, arms swinging, boot-deep in freshly-tilled red Oklahoma rodeo dirt. Fortunately for our little buddy, only the older kids (10-12 year olds) were fast enough to get close to the lanky calves, who very easily could have trampled the toddlers trailing them, dreaming of chocolate. I’m not a rodeo expert, but I will admit that the Oklahoma rodeo was not overly impressive. It was better than the Benton County Fair Rodeo and a little less entertaining than the St. Paul Rodeo. Also, the St. Paul Rodeo has tons of booths and food and a fair that accompany it, so the three booths and one food option here in OK were not up to my rodeo standards. Turns out, good old tiny St. Paul, Oregon does a pretty great rodeo, complete with 4th of July Fireworks. So all of that happened last night and today we drove FOREVER with no fun stops for the kids, which was rough, but we finally pulled in to our campground at Bayou Segnette State Park in New Orleans, LA at about 8pm. When Bryan hopped out to get us checked in, the barrage of cicada song began. “What is THAT??” the kids wanted to know. I explained that the cicadas had come out of hibernation(?) this year after lying dormant for 17 years, and that they were living it up while they could. “They had to come out THIS year when we came?” the kids lamented. This was just the start of our ill-fated bayou adventure. The sun was setting beautifully, and there was just enough light for me to notice that we were literally camping in the swamp – like two steps from the RV power box. On the way here, we had driven over miles of swamps, with Judah claiming he saw many alligators. Alligators were definitely on the brain as I turned my back to the swamp to guide Bryan, who was backing up the motor home into our spot. I also quickly realized the air was thick with swamp and mosquitoes alike and I should be wearing long sleeves, long pants and drenched in bug spray! After hurriedly getting the RV level (enough), we dove inside and the kids vowed that they were NEVER going outside. The kids took showers in preparation for church in the morning and we fell asleep thankful for our air conditioner which managed to cool us off and drown out some of our noisy bug neighbors. Sunday morning, we woke up and gladly pulled out of that campsite, planning to spend the whole day NOT there.

We attended First Baptist New Orleans, an impressive building surrounded by a huge cemetery. A delighted Judah scampered into his class, while Cayden and Piper came with us for worship. The huge auditorium boasted a huge pipe organ, curved pews and a couple small TV cameras. Attendance looked sparse by the time service started at 9:30am. Surprised there weren’t more people in this huge building (I would guess maybe 200-250 people), Bryan and I exchanged surprised and concerned looks. It seems people are no longer flocking to a church that obviously used to be thriving. Now, I recognize there are many factors to churches being sparse these pandemic days. I also learned afterward that the church recently got a new minister and so maybe things will be looking up soon. We enjoyed a sermon from a professor from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, because the church’s pastor was at the Southern Baptist Convention. After service, we walked through the extensive cemetery, marked buy it’s above-ground cement-encased graves (I’m assuming because of flooding). Next on our to-do list for Sunday was the Whitney Plantation – the only plantation dedicated solely to preserving accounts of the enslaved people who had been kept there.

The weather was stifling as we donned our headphones, digital tour guides in hand, and stepped into a world where people were forced to process sugar cane in these boiling temperatures with little hope of a different life.

Walking through 14 stations on the tour, we were given reprieve when we entered “The Big House,” where inconspicuous vents now pump in AC. We learned that this, the master’s house, was built with French doors on both sides, which let air coming off the nearby Mississippi to streamline through, creating cooler conditions for the whitefolk. A story was told of a young black girl whose job it was to fan the masters during meals.

Stories were also told of the girls getting raped and mothering children who were half master, half slave, but treated as full slaves. One such child, Victor Haydel, even had the master’s last name, but was enslaved until emancipation in 1865. After emancipation, Victor and his eventual wife, Celeste, became freedmen working at the plantation, which had since changed ownership from the Haydel’s to a man named Bradish Johnson – who changed the name to the Whitney Plantation. Eventually, Victor and Celeste made enough money that they were able to purchase some of their own land nearby the plantation, where they raised educated children. Their great granddaughter, Sybil Haydel became an educator and a Civil Rights leader, and her son Marc Morial became mayor of New Orleans.

It is mortifying to think about how our nation was built on the backs of enslaved people. The fact is that millions of people were forced to come to this “great” nation and sacrifice themselves so white people could get rich. They didn’t have a choice. I think about my adopted niece, who is a mix of many different West African ethnicities and I am crushed in thinking that while my ancestors were forging out on the Oregon Trail, hers could have been cutting sugar cane in the sweltering Louisiana heat. My family might have bought a wagon from a company that also sold wagons to carry this plantation sugar cane.

My family has been established in the Willamette Valley for 8 generations, with each generation having the opportunity to own land, educate our children, grow our wealth. While my family was growing in Oregon, other families born into slavery were also growing, but their children were considered by law equal with cattle, with no rights, no humanity. Enslaved parents could not leave anything of earthly value to their children because they weren’t allowed to own anything, let alone their own land or a home. These patriarchs couldn’t even legally marry without the consent of their white masters. I learned all these things, not for the first time, but with a new perspective. I also was struck by the resilience of these oppressed people. Their faith, preservation of culture, and love of family shone through the darkness of the Whitney Plantation, showing that the vast majority of the value in a family comes from somewhere other than money. After Whitney, we drove the motor home into downtown and a policeman showed us the safest place to park our RV in a Walmart parking lot. Catching an Uber into the French Quarter, we asked out driver where to eat dinner and he (unfortunately) answered, "the further away from the French Quarter, the better the food." It became apparent that locals want little to do with the French Quarter, and it soon became evident why. Our driver dropped us off outside Cafe Beignet where we gladly indulged in an order of 6 powdery beignets.

Bryan accidentally inhaled some of the powdered sugar and gave us a good laugh when he coughed out a puff of the white smoke over himself.

Judah was surprised to find that he loved the beignets and the girls enjoyed them, along with thte self-playing piano, and the birds picking up crumbs off the floor. After our treat, we went out to explore the French Quarter.

The architecture was fun to see, with bright colors all over the place and the signature iron railings.

As we drew closer to Burbon Street, however, the noisy bars full of Pride Month revelers and bikers revving their engines quickly turned our adventure into a quest to escape as both Cayden and Piper clung to my arms (as I'm trying to snap pictures!), Piper crying because it was too loud!

While fleeing the noisy, dirty French Quarter, we stumbled upon an oasis, Armstrong Park.

Entering through the big half-circle gate, it seemed like we had stepped into a different world.

There were families eating Sunday picnics together and I was drawn to the heartbeat of the park – a large group circled around African drummers laying beats for the black legs and arms and long white dresses of the beautiful people just dancing. There were robust old grandmas wearing their Sunday long white dresses, watching from their folding chairs, but the rest of the people were standing, haphazardly, some nodding their heads, a tambourine shaking in the crowd, one child’s leg starts to tap. One beautiful woman, about my age, danced across the middle between drummers and grasped the hand of on of the grandmas, a crinkled smile running across her face because she knew grandma wanted to dance too. I wonder if her son tells her she has cracks around her eyes like mine does. These are the sons and daughters of enslaved people. They are all around me, in this city, which was the largest slave market in the United States. Their ancestors might have been bought and sold in the very French Quarter my family and I had just traipsed through. And yet, they are here – dancing. I want so badly to get close, take photos, enter in to their culture, but I feel like I shouldn’t. It feels sacred, in a way and for some reason, I hang back. As I walk away, I notice a mural. The mural is also dancing.

It reads, “Congo Square. During the late 17th Century and well into the 18th Centuries, slaves gathered at Congo Square on Sundays and sang, danced and drummed in authentic West African style. This rich legacy of African celebration is the foundation of New Orleans’ unique musical traditions, including jazz.” We had stumbled upon one such Sunday. New Orleans didn’t give me a great impression of beauty, until that moment. We skirted the loud section of the French Quarter on our way back, looking for a restaurant that served something other than fish. Finally, across the street from where we started, we found Cafe Maspero, which had kids menus with crayons and alligator on the menu.

By the time we were done with our dinner, a storm had worked up off the coast and made landfall, showering us with thunder and lightning. We called an Uber and watched the storm.

When we got back to Walmart, we shopped before heading back out to the motor home. As we walked out, lightning zipped across the sky and the Walmart lights flickered off. Their generators had kicked on by the time we made it to our motor home, the rain driving us to run faster. Pulling into the Bayou, I was even more reluctant to get out and help Bryan back up, but the rainy dark conditions definitely didn't make backing up easier for him to do alone, so I put on my sweats (see, I'm getting more bayou savvy!) and raincoat and maglight. With one eye on the swamp and one eye on the motor home's red lights, I was shining the flashlight on the paving edge for Bryan when I was shocked to feel something chewing on my Nikes! Horrified, I look down and kick and shine my light all at once (and screamed, I'm sure) and all I saw was a large brown behind with a rat tail running away from me. It was a nutria. A huge nutria. And it was chewing on my toe. My skin still raises thinking about it. After FINALLY getting Bryan backed in, I ran to the motor home and (like the kids) never came out again at Bayou Segnette State Park.