My lovely godmother lives in Metairie and teaches theology at Loyola in New Orleans. I try to make a point of imposing on her at least once a year, as I did last August. She always takes it well.

I spent my last day of that trip in the Tulane Louisiana Collection, researching Louisiana lycanthropy myths. (We had been playing Exquisite Corpse in the evenings, which somehow generated a story about the Virgin Mary living in the swamps and hooking up with the Loup Garou, so I needed to know. Doesn't everyone do this sort of thing?) Anyway, it's long been my habit to scribble down the little unrelated oddities I find in the course of research. I just ran across the piece of paper from that day, and thought I'd set them down here for some sort of future reference. God only knows what use they'll be, but one never knows, do one?

The following come from Gumbo Ya-Ya: A Collection of Louisiana Folk Tales, by Lyle Saxon, Edward Dreyer and Robert Tallant. (Bonanza Books: NY, 1965)

TRANSEXUALISM:
If a girl kisses her toe, she will become a boy. Kiss your elbow and you will change your sex (p. 558).

SOUTHERN COLLOQUIALISMS:
I feel so feelsy. I love I. I'm going wild crazy. I feel like a stowaway. I wouldn't give a pinch of snuff for my life. Big I and little you (p. 559).

MYTHOLOGY:
In this section of the state [Ponchatoula River] Jack O' Lanterns, the elusive phosphorescent swamp lights, are common and are here believed to lead to buried pirate gold (p. 265). (I had never seen swamp lights referred to as Jack O'Lanterns before.)

Down in Terrebonne Parish the children talk as familiarly of mermaids as if they were their daily companions. And the age-old tale of the sirens, whose sweet music attracts men and costs them their souls, is as alive among the Cajun fisherman today as ever it was in Ancient Greece (p. 191 - 192).

BECAUSE I LIKED THE NAME:
Vermilionville.

BEST JOURNAL-ESSAY TITLE IN A LONG TIME:
"Down In Your Mustard-Seed, Kool-Aid Pumping, Marshmallow-Filled, Twinkie-Eating Heart," by Shawn Mitchell. (Louisana Folklore Miscellany, Vol. VIII, 1993, pg. 57)