I recently joined a Port Arthur Thomas Jefferson High School Alumni Site and while I was on that site I created a group for all Thomas Jefferson alumni who also attended William B. Travis Elementary school which made me think about the fact that although I was born and raised in Texas I'm much more in touch with my Louisiana heritage and that when my sister and I went to the ghost hunting continuing education class at University of Louisiana in Lafayette with my cousins how we felt so at home when the "teacher" called roll and it was all Thibodeauxs and Heberts and Boudreauxs and Breauxs and well you get the idea and we related to all of the cultural references and the Cajun accent and French words thrown in here and there and how I don't really feel like a Texan most of the time even though I've lived here my whole life and we had to take a whole year of Texas history in seventh grade and that even though I've lived in Texas my whole life and with all that Texas education and even though I attended William B. Travis Elementary School that until last night when I read about William B. Travis on Wikipedia that I had no idea he WAS ONLY 26 YEARS OLD (!!!!) when he died at the Alamo.
26 years old.
Wow.
6 comments:
Interesting link! I have to admit I snoozed through all my history classes. Now I'd be sitting front and center and making straight A's. School is wasted on the young.
Allo! comment ça va? Personnellement, je meurs de faim.
Pass the cajun-spiced popcorn please.
I miss Texas. But I do love my life here in Loo-ee-zee-anna.
Mais, he was only 26 when he passed? I never knew that, me!
I only left Beaumont and moved to the Bayou State a month ago, but when your grandparents are from Abbeville & Erath, that little accent you had as a child sure comes back fast yeah.
I don't have any ties to Louisiana, though I have enjoyed the dilletante-ish aspects of living in an area dominated by that culture. I have often told people this area is part of Texas only as an accident of geography, at least the Texas most people think about.
Actually, living on the margins of a larger cultural identity is an interesting concept to me. I have a friend from El Paso who says out there they feel detached from Texas in the generic sense in much the way we do, though for different specific reasons. (Someone told me once if one lives in El Paso and wants to go to the beach, it is closer to drive to Southern California than it is the Gulf Coast. I've never verified that, but I love little tidbits of information like that.)
Just... - I totally agree.
Lorna - Bonjour, cher! Gumbo? Etouffee?
Ms. E - I love Louisiana, too!
Queen - I know!!!
Inca - I heard that about the beach thing and El Paso, too. Had to look at a map. Weird.
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