Slidell, The Big Easy, The Monkees, and Blue Crabs
One of my favorite childhood memories is a summer vacation
trip we took to Slidell, Louisiana.
My dad was born late in my grandmother’s life and, becaus of that, he had several nephews who were actually pretty close to him in age.
One of his favorites was John Rooker, the son of my Aunt Audey. At the time,
John was working on an oil rig somewhere out in the Gulf. As I remember it, he
worked a week on and then had a week off.
John lived in Slidell, Louisiana, and sometime during the
summer of either 1966 or 1967, he invited Dad to load up the family and come
down for a visit.
Me and my sisters, Janet and Lisa, were absolutely beside
ourselves. We were taking a road trip—a real road trip. Before then, the
farthest we had traveled from Leeds, Alabama, was to Panama City Beach or St.
Augustine, Florida. Louisiana seemed like it was halfway across the country.
Dana hadn’t been born yet, so it was just Dad, Mom, Janet,
Lisa, and me.
On the morning our trip began, we all piled into Dad’s 1964
Impala SuperSport and hit the road. I don’t remember much about the drive
itself. Dad pretty much drove straight through, stopping only once or twice for
bathroom breaks. There were no video games, cell phones, tablets, or movies to
keep three kids entertained in the back seat. We had the scenery, each other,
and probably more than a few arguments over who was taking up too much room.
Somehow, we survived.
When we finally pulled up at John’s house in Slidell, we
practically exploded out of the car. After all those hours riding, we were
ready to move.
Our cousins Donna, Tammy, and Jonathan were waiting for us.
Donna was about the same age as my sister Janet, Tammy was a few years younger,
and Jonathan was probably four or five at the time.
While our parents unloaded the car, us kids headed straight
for the backyard, where John had built some sort of cabin for the kids to play
in.
Or was it a treehouse?
After almost sixty years, some of those little details get
fuzzy.
What I do remember is that the thing was awesome.
When it was finally time to go inside, all of us kids kept
yakking away about the important things in life—our hobbies, school, and, most
importantly, The Monkees.
Donna had the new Monkees album, and I’m pretty sure we
played “Last Train to Clarksville” at least a hundred times during that visit.
If the adults got tired of hearing it, they never let on. Or maybe they did and
we just weren’t listening.
After dinner, everybody finally began to wind down, and
eventually we shuffled off to wherever we had been assigned to sleep.
The next morning brought one of the biggest surprises of the
whole trip.
Dad and John left early and headed somewhere down toward the
Gulf. A few hours later, they came back carrying a burlap bag filled with live
blue crabs and shrimp.
Now, for a kid from Leeds, Alabama, this was something to
see.
John had a huge cast-iron kettle set up over an open fire in
the backyard. He filled it about halfway with water and spices, then added the
blue crabs, shrimp, potatoes, and corn on the cob.
While everything cooked, he covered the picnic table with
several layers of newspaper.
Once it was ready, there were no fancy serving dishes and no
carefully arranged plates. They simply dumped the whole steaming mess right
there in the middle of the newspaper-covered picnic table.
I thought it was wonderful.
There was something about being a kid and being told it was
perfectly acceptable to reach into that pile with your bare hands, grab
whatever looked good, and eat until you couldn’t hold another bite.
Crabs. Shrimp. Potatoes. Corn.
We ate until we were thoroughly stuffed.
I remember sitting there thinking that we ought to eat like
this all the time.
That crab and shrimp boil became one of those childhood
meals that has stayed tucked away in my memory all these years. I have eaten
plenty of good seafood since then, but none of it has ever tasted quite like
that.
Maybe it wasn’t really the food.
Maybe it was being a kid.
The next few days were pretty normal. The adults sat around
relaxing and talking about whatever it is adults talk about while they think
the kids aren’t listening.
As for us, we spent our days hanging around Donna’s room
listening to The Monkees, playing outside in that cabin—or treehouse—and
enjoying the simple pleasure of being with cousins we didn’t get to see very
often.
Eventually, though, it was time to start thinking about
home.
Since Slidell sits just across Lake Pontchartrain from New
Orleans, there was no way Dad was going to take us all the way to Louisiana
without visiting The Big Easy.
So we said goodbye to the Rookers, piled back into the
Impala, and headed toward New Orleans.
We drove onto the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, and to three
kids from Alabama it seemed like we were driving straight across the ocean.
Janet, Lisa, and I stayed glued to the windows, looking out at water in every
direction.
Twenty-four miles of bridge seemed impossible to me.
Now here is the strange part.
I really don’t remember much about New Orleans.
You would think a place like New Orleans would have burned
itself permanently into the memory of a kid, but apparently it didn’t. I
remember walking the length of Bourbon Street, but at that age there really
wasn’t much there that interested me.
What I remember much better is what happened afterward.
We got back into the Impala and headed toward Pascagoula,
Mississippi, where Dad had more cousins.
They lived on a large farm, and fortunately for us,
watermelons were in season.
Not just watermelons.
Huge watermelons.
Dad’s cousin told us kids to go out into the field and find
a couple of the biggest ones we could find.
Well, you didn’t have to tell Janet and me twice.
We headed into that field like we had just been given the
most important assignment of our young lives. Before long, we found two
monsters that we were convinced had to be the biggest watermelons in
Mississippi.
There was only one problem.
We couldn’t carry them.
Dad and his cousin eventually came out and hauled them back
to the car for us.
The trunk of the Impala was already packed with luggage, so
those two giant watermelons had to ride home in the floorboard—one behind Mom
and the other behind Dad.
I imagine those watermelons probably had more legroom than
us kids did.
Once we left Pascagoula, Dad high-tailed it toward Leeds.
The minute we got home, Janet and I started hounding him to
cut one of those watermelons.
And I have to tell you, those were the best watermelons I
have ever eaten.
Ever.
Were they really the best watermelons ever grown?
Probably not.
But in my memory they were.
Just like that crab and shrimp boil.
Just like Donna’s Monkees album playing “Last Train to
Clarksville” over and over.
Just like that cabin—or treehouse—in John’s backyard.
And just like three kids staring out the windows of a 1964
Impala SuperSport as their dad drove them across Lake Pontchartrain toward a
place they had only heard about.
Funny how memories work.
Almost sixty years later, I don’t remember much about
Bourbon Street. I don’t remember where we stopped for gas, what motel we may
have stayed in, or most of the miles we traveled.
But I remember the blue crabs.
I remember The Monkees.
I remember those watermelons.
And most of all, I remember being with family.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again.
The best trips aren’t necessarily the ones that take you the
farthest or cost the most money.
Sometimes the best trips are the ones where you pile into an
old Chevrolet, go visit some cousins, eat something with your hands, play the
same record a hundred times, and come home with two giant watermelons taking up
all the room in the floorboard.
Those are the trips you remember.
family and friends
are the best.
