CAJUN WAYS
Papa, my mother's father, was a Cajun from south Louisiana, and a compendium of old Cajun remedies and folklore. He came to live with us at Beech Springs when I was five. His maternal grandmother spoke only Cajun French, no English. Papa was a big one for doctoring himself, and his medicines of choice were coal oil (kerosene), soda, salt, aspirin and Vicks salve. He prepared a concoction using kerosene that he actually swallowed, for chest colds. Others were for heart burn, indigestion, headaches, sore muscles, cuts and bruises. Coal oil to Papa was a magical elixir. Vicks salve was used a lot during winter, smeared on mustard plasters for the chest and on, around and under the nose. Hot toddies were a great reliever of what ailed you.
Paregoric, an opium derivative almost never prescribed today, was widely given to babies to relieve colic. Castor oil is still available but, of all medicines I have ingested over my lifetime, castor oil is the all time vilest, most nauseating. I almost gag just thinking of it, and swore I'd never give it to my children. In the recesses of my mind I seem to recall one other vile concoction - asafetida. Its smell was much worse than skunk.
Papa was an accomplished, naturally talented Cajun fiddler who could also play the French harp, or harmonica, equally as well. Several of his eleven children inherited his musical talents.
I remember my family attending a Cajun dance or fais do do in Forest Hill, near Cheneyville and LeCompte, in south Louisiana. Dances were usually held in someone's house, the sparse furniture pushed against the walls to make a dance floor, which was sprinkled with cornmeal to make the feet glide over it better. This dance, however, was in a public building with a parking lot. The occasion must have been part of holiday festivities, because a hog-calling contest was held and Lillian won the contest by yelling in a shrill, carrying voice heard for miles, "Sou-e-e-e! Pig, Pig, Pig!" She won a green ceramic vase in the shape of three frogs squatting in a circle with their mouths open. I wonder who has that vase today?
The older children were in a world of their own playing hide and seek and other games outside. Pallets of quilts were placed under trees when the children became sleepy later in the evening. The distinctive rhythmic tempos of the Cajun music makers, fiddler, guitar, banjo and accordion, could be heard for miles. The guitar wasn't regarded as highly in music in those days as it is today, since the beginning of country music and western swing was in its infancy.