An Electrical Experience

On Friday, May 12th, Benjamin, the youngest in the family graduated from McNeese State University with a BS in Electrical Engineering.  He's starting work in June with Phillips 66.  We're very proud of him.  If EE isn't a demanding enough curriculum, Benjamin's class had to endure two devastating hurricanes, leaving the area without power for weeks on end and the Covid craziness.

I'm not a big crier, but I got a little 'weepy' as 'ol boy walked across the stage and secured his diploma.  He's opening a new door in his life and has already moved out of the house, leaving a big vacancy in our home and I guess it opens a new chapter for us as well.  Just Tricia and I now in our house that once held five.  

Benjamin worked so hard.  He always kept a full schedule and worked almost full time throughout school working at a coin shop and worked full time jobs/internships during summer.  The smile you see on his face below is well-deserved.

from left: Laura Lee, me, Benjamin, Tricia, and Russ

My Mom and Dad attended and watched the last of our kids graduate from college.

One of Benjamin's classmates graciously took a photo of Benjamin's entourage.  Orlando and Deb (Tricia's oldest brother and his wife) drove in from Spring, TX to join in the celebration.  They're on the far left below:

The very next day we had a crawfish boil in which we boiled four sacks of crawfish.

They were just beautiful!

We poured the boiled crawfish, corn and potatoes across the table and everyone gathered round and ate the perfectly seasoned feast!  It was a beautiful day surrounded by a loving, supportive family.

God has richly blessed us and we are so proud of our electrifying graduate!

The Crawfish Boil

This past Saturday, my cousin, Patrick and my Aunt Cheryl flew in from Dallas.  We had a crawfish boil planned.  Dad got 120 pounds of crawfish and we had some corn and potatoes to go along.  It was the perfect day for a boil!  The weather was nice.  My brother and sister-in-law came in from New Orleans.  My sister and her crew were there.  Mom & Dad and Tricia and I and our three were there as well.  Before the boil we spent some quality time visiting.

We put the first of four sacks in the heavily seasoned boiling water and set the timer once it returned to a boil.  Five minutes later, they were done.  We let them soak for 20 minutes and posed with the first batch of crawfish.

(L-R) Benjamin, Laura Lee, Cheryl, Mom, Patrick, Tricia, Emery, Kristian, Russ, and Dad

We poured the first 30 pounds of crawfish across the table and folks began peeling and eating.  We got the second batch boiling.  The way we timed it, when the 30 pounds on the table were just about eaten, we had the next boiled batch ready to pour on the table.

A ravenous crew of crawfish eaters demolished those crawfish!

In between each new batch, we emptied the table of the heads and peelings.

There was visiting going on, too.  Aside from eating crawfish, there was corn and potatoes, jalapeno poppers, cookies, watermelon, blonde brownies and all sorts of other snacks.

Kristian brought his potato gun and my sister's kids shot potatoes into the woods with a loud BOOM!  They had lots of fun watching potatoes fly hundreds of feet.

And then it happened.  Like a Biblical plague, the horseflies descended on us, swarming, stinging, harassing.  Like ants at a picnic, they thought they were going to terrorize us into submission.  But they were wrong.  We fought back.  Armed with fly-swatters and rolled up newspaper, we waged war.  Slow progress at first.  It seemed like if we killed one, three more would appear.  The battle went on for 30 minutes or so.

At last we could visit and eat in peace.  When I tell you we killed over a hundred horseflies, I'm not exaggerating.  In fact, my sister swept them up and like hunters posing with their prey, we took a photo to capture the memories.  Look at all the dead horseflies at our feet!

Visiting, laughing, eating crawfish and killing horseflies.  Louisiana Saturday Night!

A Day to Celebrate Mothers

Mother's Day 2022.  We started out by attending church.  It was a glorious morning.  Before we took off our "church clothes," I had the boys (Benjamin on left, Russ on right) sit with their momma and take a photo to commemorate the big day.  We ate a light lunch since we were planning on having a crawfish boil in the late afternoon.  Along with Tricia, Russ, Benjamin and me, Mom & Dad were coming and my sister Jenny, her husband, Brett and her six boys and a girlfriend of the oldest.

The crawfish came from our farm.  The were graded, big and clean...

Monsters!  We had three sacks of roughly 28 pounds per sack to boil.  Time to get the show on the road.

We added the crawfish boil seasoning to the water, along with corn, potatoes, onion and garlic and then dumped the first sack into the water.

In about 5 minutes, the first batch was done!  We got these ready to pour on the table and then readied the next batch to boil while we ate.

And here are the lovely honorees of the day.  My mom on the left, my sister, Jenny, in the middle, and my bride, Tricia on the right.

We poured them out along the long tables and the crawfish quickly started to disappear.  It was like magic.

Mom sat down and peeled crawfish after crawfish.  They were seasoned good and we visited while we ate.  It was a hot afternoon, but we were in the shade and a cool breeze would blow from time to time.

There's my sister getting into a crawfish pincher.

And my wife on the left eating some as well.

We thought we would have some left over to peel and freeze for etouffee, but we did not!  We ate every last one of them.  Once finished, we had room for ice cream and a lemon dessert.  We pulled our chairs around in a circle in the shade and talked and laughed and remembered funny things.  It was a very pleasant time.  We made some memories.  Before we knew it, the sun was sinking below the horizon.  What a great day we had celebrating some very special mothers!

A Rewind from the Crawfish Boil

On Good Friday we had a crawfish boil at the house.  We posted about it last week.  We ate until we thought we would pop, and then we peeled the remainder for crawfish scrambled eggs and a big crawfish etouffee that Tricia cooked up the next day.  Delicious! 

Family Crawfish Boil April 2020 

Crawfish always bring back a lot of memories...  Each and every year growing up, we had crawfish boils where we lined a table with newspaper and poured hot spicy crawfish on top.  We would encircle the table like vultures, elbow to elbow, peel and eat while laughing and visiting with family, friends, and neighbors.  A true social, back yard party that went on every year across the state.  In springtime you could just smell the spices wafting through the air when neighbors boiled crawfish.  The roar of the propane, festive music playing, and the anticipation of crawfish, corn, and potatoes about to be poured on the table.  Allons Manger!  (Come on, let's eat!)

Crawfish

As we were eating them on Good Friday, I was telling my family about how we would catch them as a very young kid - probably 6 or 7 years old, but I still remember it.  My family would ride out in a pickup truck to the farm in Oberlin, LA.  We would take a dirt road to a spot to the northern side of a rice field.  There was a pond there.  We would unload nets.  They were square cloth mesh supported on all four sides with stiff wire rods that met in the center on top.  There was a loop where we'd tie a string to lift the net out of the water.  In the center of the net was a string.  We'd tie chicken necks, "melt," or bacon to the center and drop it to the bottom of the shallow pond.  After a little bit, we'd pull the net up and remove the crawfish that would cover the net.  Rinse. Wash. Repeat.  After a while we would have enough for a boil.

A sack or 35 pounds of fresh caught crawfish

In the early 1980's, my grandfather hoped to instill in me an entrepreneurial spirit.  He had a welder in Eunice, Louisiana weld an aluminum boat for me.  He also purchased a number of sacks of 'seed' crawfish and we stocked a 24 acre pond (not far from the pond I explained in the paragraph above) with crawfish.  He also purchased a number of crawfish traps for me.

The boat was powered by hard-work, determination, and desire.  I would pull the boat and my brother, my sister, and friends would pick up the traps, dump the catch into the sorting tray, re-bait the trap with cut up fish, and fill onion sacks with crawfish we caught.  We would sell them to people in the community wishing to have crawfish boils.  This was several years before crawfish farming turned into the burgeoning industry that it is today.  My brother, to this day, never fails to bring up his grievances to me regarding this business venture.  He says that I was running a sweat shop and that he never was paid for his labor.  

I must have pulled him around that 24 acre pond hundreds of times, catching thousands of pounds of crawfish.  Sometimes the traps contained snakes, too.  That'll always give you a scare when you pick up a trap with a big, fat water moccasin in it.  It was fun, but it was honest work, too.  It was also smelly work!  Prior to crawfishing, I would chop up catfish heads, buffalo (carp), and other trash fish to use as bait.  The hot sun and sweltering heat would quickly make the tub of cut up fish and fish guts ferment.  The stench permeated the air.  It also was next to impossible to remove the scent from your hands.  I finally cut up lemons and washed my hands with them and that worked to some extent.

Twenty something years later, my crawfish pond would expand to be 124 acres big and my boat was powered by a Honda engine instead of pulling it manually.  Crawfish farming was a fun way to make a living.  It is one of those times where you enjoy immediate gratification seeing the sacks of crawfish pile up in the bottom of your boat.  You would always want to catch as much as you could before Good Friday as that is when the price usually falls. It always gave me a sense of pride, knowing I was providing the main ingredient to more than a meal, but an experience that everyone looked so forward to.

Although I no longer crawfish for a living, it remains a fond memory of my childhood that extends into my adult life.