Atchafalaya Basin People: Chapter 08

  

DATE:                        January 26, 1989

INTERVIEWER:      Jim Delahoussaye

LOCATION:                          Myon and Agnes Bailey’s house at Oxford Loop, Oxford, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana.

COOPERATORS:   Myon Bailey, Agnes Bailey, Edward Couvillier, Lena Mae Bailey Couvillier, Kevin Couvillier, Carolyn Delahoussaye, Dorothy (Dot) Bailey Couvillier, Nikki Curran

Myon: Edward can smell it, it don’t bother me.

 JD:      Yeah you can smell it.  I can smell it.  Smells bad.  He says that he [Edward] doesn’t allow smoking in his truck and every once in a while his daughter and her friends will take it and go do something and they’ll smoke and they come back and you can tell, he can smell it.  I believe him, I know you can. 

 Boy, you got a full…a cup full, hunh?

 Carolyn:        Well, I’ll share it with you. 

 Myon: Come a load of sugar [in a barge on the bayou in the back yard].

 JD:      Yeah but it’s comin slow, yeah, we watched it from the front [?].  It was stuck on the bottom the whole way. 

 Myon: [you can] believe that.  Sometimes he got to back up and straighten up.

 JD:      I see Kevin [Couvillier] just passed.  How’s he been doin?  Here you go…..    good coffee.  Well, one of your sisters I had met, …..then the other one, I don’t remember.  I don’t remember the other one. 

Myon: He talking about Marie, she live up the country – not from here.

JD:      Where does she live?

Myon: Marie?  North Louisiana somewheres.

JD:      North Louisiana?

Myon: Yeah.  I’ll get you that name of that place…..

JD:      Is that [her living elsewhere and can afford it] a result of the accident that happened to her husband? 

Myon: Yeah.

JD:      Well, how you doin?  You wanta, you wanta, I need…..you know what I gotta do?  My truck has got a bad tire, I want to lift it on one side…you want to put your chest under it while I change the tire?  [Kevin had a truck fall on him while he was working on it a few days before].

Kevin:            Yes sir, I’m still sore…..

Carolyn:        Well, I guess so!  [laughter]

Kevin:            I probly could roll that one…..[my Mazda truck].

 JD:      You probably could.  You still sore, hunh?

 Kevin:            Oh yeah.

 JD:      You been able to go back to work?

 Kevin:            Never shut it down [stayed away from work].  Three days.

 Edward:        Ohh, a good football game tonight Jim. 

 JD:      What’s goin on tonight?

 Edward:        Notre Dame and Miami.

 JD:      Ahyayi.  Number one and number three, eh?  Who’s number two?  Is it Michigan?  I don’t believe, Miami’s number two.  Alabama?  Well, there’s three of em up at the top with 10 and 0 records.  Notre Dame, Alabama and Miami.   I bet Miami’s number two.

 Edward:        It’s number one and number two…..

 JD:      Yeah, I believe so.  Hon, you don’t want any more coffee?

 Carolyn:        No, ….enough.

 Edward:        I hope Miami whips em.

 JD:      Me too.  I wish I had somebody to watch it with. 

 Edward:        Boy, that Penn State…..that was a good game.

 JD:      I didn’t get to watch it…it was a good game?

 Edward:        Penn State won it, just barely Hoss.  It was tight.

 JD:      I’ll bet you didn’t get a chance to see any of that USL game last week, did you?  It was one of the best games I’ve ever seen. 

Edward:        Larry [Couvillier] told me that it was good. 

JD:      That quarterback that they had, that Brian Mitchell, uh, that was the end of his career, his last game.  Edward, that man did some things in the last ten minutes of that game that you usually watch professional football to see. 

Edward:        USL never that good, you know. 

JD:      But it was beautiful to watch what he did.  He threw an interception which put the other team ahead, and there was like four minutes left in the game.  Looked like that was all over with.  They got the ball back, he came back , he worked down the field, he threw a touchdown pass which put them tied.  If they kicked the extra point it would have been tied.  So they went for a two point conversion.  He threw a two point conversion, it was good, and USL was offsides.  They had to take it back, come back up five yards and try it again.  They tried again and he did it again.  Threw a two point conversion.  And they won the game.  It was exciting. 

Edward:        You know, its hard to get two points. 

JD:      Especially twice in a row. 

Edward:        I seen LSU do it, LSU did it against uh, that one they beat 60 somethin to nothing?

JD:      Somebody “State”?

Edward:        Well, anyhow, some old boy, they was goin for two points.  So, old ….[?] hands to that old boy and he dropped it, and he picked it up and threw it in the end zone and old boy caught it .  Wasn’t even the quarterback that threw it.  [laughs]  Runnin back, dropped the ball, he picked it up and didn’t have nowhere to go so he just throwed it in the end zone, old boy caught it. 

JD:      For two points?

JD:      I need to identify on tape the two ladies that have been talking that are not identified are Myon’s half sisters. 

Myon: They vote they own raise.

JD:      The state people, you think?

Myon: Um.  Congress do that.

JD:      Congress does that.

Edward:        ……million dollars in debt…raise…

JD:      Yeah, right.

[unintelligible

JD:      Oh, that other fella?  Jay Lenno. 

Edward:        Jay Lenno?  He was telling jokes About them raises them boys was getting, all that……..Take Reagan, Reagan makes more money now [than he did as President]

JD:      The money they give him for his speeches and talks and everything?

Myon: His pension.

JD:      He is getting a pension, I wonder how much he gets for that?

Edward:        About 125 thousand a year.

JD:      That right?

Edward:        Like the Governor?  Exgovernor gets, I believe, 75 thousand.   Louisiana got Davis, Treen, Edwards… any others?

JD:      Not alive, I don’t believe. 

Edward:        Four of em, so you see that’s a half million dollars …. And none of em need it. 

JD:      Myon, I wanted to ask you About something that occurred to me the other day.  I had some bones from some of those Indian sites that I picked up that belonged to birds, big bones for big birds, and they’re bigger than a great blue heron, by far, and they’re bigger than a turkey, by far, these bones. And I’m wondering, do you remember anybody ever talking to you about birds that used to be shot in the Basin that don’t occur here anymore?  I have two in mind….

Myon: The only thing is eagles, Jim.

JD:      Eagles?  There used to be a lot of eagles?  There used to be a lot?

Myon: Yeah, they used to have them…..all them big cypress, could see one on there…

JD:      That right?

Edward:        Course, that wasn’t bald eagles. 

Myon: The heck it wasn’t!

JD:      It was white-headed eagles?

Edward:        White-headed eagles.  That wasn’t bald eagles.  They don’t have bald eagles over here. 

JD: What I wanted to…you know there’s two birds that could have been here, that were back here in those days, but I don’t have records for it.  One is the whooping crane, that bird that you always see on TV that they’re tryin to protect?  There’s only a few left?  I know they used to be here, do you remember, at all, anybody ever talking about em in the Basin? 

Edward:        Is that a big bird?

JD:      Yes, about six feet tall. 

Edward:        I remember when they talked about them whooping cranes.

JD:      You do remember that?  That they used to be in the Basin?

Edward:        Oh yeah!  I never did remember seein any. 

Myon: Me neither, but I heard about em,  …talk about [them].

JD:      So, sandhill cranes, there were whooping cranes, there were swans here in those days.  Great big white swans.  They were here too.  But I’ve never heard anybody talk about it.  But I believe those bones that I’ve got from those Indian sites belong to one of those big birds.  I just don’t know which one. 

Myon: Some big pelicans….

JD:      Pelicans?  That’s a possibility, pelicans, I hadn’t thought of that.  That is a possibility. 

Edward:        Big white pelicans, [but] they don’t have a big head. 

JD:      The bones that I have are leg bones.  This bone right here [thigh], and it’s half again as big as a turkey.  Bigger, way bigger than a turkey.  Way bigger than one of those, those great blue herons that you see.  Way bigger than that. 

[sounds of a rocker squeaking, conversation shifts]

Myon: Boat sure got trouble with that barge.  [a tugboat pushing a barge of sugar in the bayou right behind Myon’s house where we are sitting in the kitchen, talking].  Tide must be out, eh?

Edward:        [unintelligible]  …..that tide’s comin in.  I think that’s his problem. 

JD:      I tried to get back in that hole, where you had those traps? through that lil slough, on this side of the lake.  I guess it’s by Oaklawn Canal?  You remember the one I’m talking about?  You had em in that lil slough?  I tried to get back there just a little while ago

Edward:        Shallow?

JD:      The only place there’s enough water to run is in the slough itself. 

Edward:        Yeah.

JD:      There’s about five feet of water in that slough,everywhere else it’s about a foot deep.  I wanted to show Nicki [Curran] some beavers, their house, back there.  But you can’t [banging noise]….God Dawg!  But you can’t get to it, anymore. 

Edward:        [yelling out of the back door to some kids playing near the bayou]….what you got?  A snake?  ….got there, a snake? 

JD:      Really?

Myon: …[that’s] what he say he got.

Edward:        ….messin with a snake over there. 

Myon: Might be one of them, uh, rubber snakes.

JD:      Might be.

Myon: Oh, they catch them snakes yeah, Chad had one in his hand the other day, king snake.

JD:      King snake, hunh?

Myon: They gone catch the wrong one, some [of] these days. 

JD:      We saw one just now out in the Basin, curled up on some grass, it was a water moccasin.  A real one.  Boy, but he was poor poor [skinny] poor, poor. 

Myon: That’s the kind [that will] bite you. 

JD:      Yeah?  That right?

Myon: They looking for something to eat. 

JD:      Uhh.  [pause in conversation] Boy it’s been nice out here today. 

Myon: Yeahhh, it’s pretty. 

JD:      [it’s] About right.

Myon: I mean, it’s not cold, not hot….

JD:      Yeah

Edward:        …..flood gates over there….a set of locks… where they could, uh

Myon: well, if they have down here yeah, if they had one down there, down at the end of Bayou Teche over there, they could keep it closed…

Edward:        They got flood gates in Bayou Teche, they’d have to, uh, they’d have to put a set of locks in Baldwin Cut [Charenton Drainage Canal]…

JD:      Right at the Baldwin Cut?

Edward:        That’s the only place water can get out, there, and at Calumet they got locks [actually, just a gate] over there, so that’s [?] if they want to do that. 

JD:      Well, that’s what they’re talking about, but I believe it would probly would be….

Edward:        What they should’a done, put a set of locks down there by Morgan City, put a set of flood gates at Calumet. 

JD:      Yeah.

Edward:        That way ….could’a held some water in here. 

JD:      Yeah.

Edward:        You would’nt have to worry about water,….held what they wanted. 

JD:      Well, they still have to do something about ….

Edward:        ….Talking about in the Atchafalaya Basin.

JD:      Oh, in the Basin.   Greg didn’t start talking about buyin pond crawfish yet? 

Edward:        We ready to buy, [if] somebody bring em. 

JD:      Back here?

Edward:        Yeah.  Anywhere.  We gone build up there, …waitin on that freezer, waitin on that freezer.  [plan is to build a crawfish buying station at the front of the Oxford loop]

Myon: [Yelling at kids]  yall better get away from that bayou! 

Edward: [build back near bayou…..rather build up near highway ]  build up there, you see.        Ain’t gone take long.

JD:      No, weekend you can probly build that.  Nicki, be sure you put my paddle back in my boat!  Look at the quail!  Look at the quail!  You saw th  About 15 quail just landed right on the other side of Myon’s house.  Hunh.

Nikki:             I wish I brought my bow and arrows.

JD:      I wish you would have too.  Nicki, watch those kids if they follow you.

Edward:        Yeah, that deal they put down in, in the lake, that ain’ helped nothing.  [the big rock weir in the lake near the opening to the Calumet Cut/Wax Lake Outlet, the weir was removed several years later and the rock used to build breakwaters on Grand Isle]

JD:      Well, what’s it supposed to do?  Hold back water?

Edward:        ….fill that in down there.

Myon: Yeah, they want that fill in.

Edward:        Looks to me like they, if they want to stop it up, just stop Calumet Cut up.  Save a lot of money. 

Myon: Save some money, yeah. 

JD:      It wouldn’t have took near the money to….

Myon: It gon stop Calumet Cut anyway.

Edward:        See, they claim, when they, uh, put that bridge and they dug Calumet Cut it was 45 foot of water.  That’s what the waterevel was.  And not around them bridges they got some places they got 125 feet of water.

JD:      [whistles] Because it’s dug out? 

Edward:        And that’s what they want to do, they want to fill that in, see?  It cut out, afraid them bridges gonna go.

JD:      Well, I don’t understand what their purpose is, with that weir they have there and then that, that they have in the Big Chute [Blue Point Chute]

Myon: That weir they got there is to fill in from [the weir] to Calumet Cut.  They want to fill it in.

JD:      They just want to slow the water down so it fills in? 

Myon: Willows gon come up there, behind that weir. 

JD:      You think so?  It will?

Myon: Ohh yeah. 

Edward:        It ain’t gon be but two or three years, there gon be trees growing all over back there.

JD:      You mean that water makes an eddy behind that weir? 

Myon: That’s what I tell you.

Edward:        There ain’t gon be nothing but [roads?]  It’ll probly never stop completely up.

Myon: No.

Edward:        There’ll always be a lil ditch goin thru there.

JD:      Sure seems like they can’t leave well enough alone.

Edward:        I think what they should’a done, really, put up a set of jetties out of Calumet, dredge that out good as far as….

Myon: Nature take care of [its] ownself.

Edward:        Go out till they get 30 feet of water and …..[?].  Just like [something about a meeting]

Myon: Yeah. 

Edward:        [example of something] You got a lavatory, it stopped up, you don’t just keep building the sides up….clean it out.  So it drains.  And that’s what it is, we don’t have no drainage, you know? 

Myon: You know if you keep pouring water in a tub, it gon run over. 

JD:      Umhm.

Edward:        Years ago, I remember when I was a kid, Hoss, we had three and four foot of water runnin by the bank, everywhere.  Around Catfish [Bayou] and all them places, them bayous in there?,  [at the lakeshore] the lake, we had three and four foot of water right at the bank. 

Myon: ….tell you that.

Edward:        Everywhere you went, and now you can’t get within three or four hundred feet from the bank [ too shallow].

Myon: Miles[?] Point, I caught many goujons at Miles Point….

Edward:        You get there in wintertime, you get in them stumps against them cypress trees?  Talk about catch some fish man!  Big fish!

Myon: Three hundred pounds of goujons, nothing to catch in there. 

JD:      [whistles]

Edward:        Just like Oaklawn Canal, shit I remember fishin lines right against the bank in Oaklawn Canal, had five, six, seven foot of water there all the time.  Now you ain’t got nuttin but sand, Hoss. 

Myon: Them sandbar[s] didn’t start build in here before they put that channel thru there. 

Edward:        They started dredging….

Myon: That lake was wide open.

Edward:        If they never invented a…a suction dredge, or a dredge, let the Corps of Engineers get aholt of it, never had no problems.

Myon: And it wasn’t long, after they put that channel thru here.

JD:      When they put the channel thru?

Edward:        …..close to Blue Point.

JD:      When they put the channel thru, you say, that’s what did it?

Myon: Yeah, that’s what done it.  Sandbars begin to grow on each side, comin down, comin down [north to south], all the way.  You take like across here [Myette Pt.] goin to Blue Point, man you could cross.  I used to live across [the lake], come on this side and fish.  But soon as they put that channel thru here, the sandbars begin to build and first thing you know [you] couldn’t go over [cross the lake]. 

Edward:        I remember when you could leave Myette Pt. And see clear across the lake. 

Myon: I remember that. 

JD:      You do?

Edward:        I remember comin down the channel, you can’t see where it’s at now but, Jim Miller used to live up there.  You come around by Jim Miller’s and you just turn, you could head straight to Charenton, you could see Charenton Beach. 

Myon: Oh yeah.

Edward:        Wide open. 

Myon: [In] 1928, when I got married, Jim Verrett’s big spec boat come across to Charenton from Lil Pigeon, Big Pigeon.  Across there. 

JD:      You could see Charenton from the mouth of Big Pigeon? 

Myon: Oh yeahhh.

Edward:        I remember, Jim, you could see Baldwin bridge from [? Jim Snels??] when the suns shinin right and there was a flash off it, you could see Baldwin bridge.  Straight shot, there wasn’t nuttin, you know.  A long ways, but you could see the bridge when the weather was right.  If you could see, you know. 

Myon: When I first was livin at Williams Canal across there, them steamboat,  Albert Anslem, them lumber company, big steamboats, goin cut timber across there.  All the way down.  Albert Anslem [steamboat] parked many times in the end of that canal where I was livin. 

Edward:        I remember when that sucker [boat] used to go up to Catfish [bayou], hook on to that timber, and that steamboat would pass, then you could just see that timber goin for miles.

Myon: Miles and miles.  Oh yeah.

JD:      Really?  Those floats, those rafts would be that big? 

Edward:        Miles and miles of that stuff.

JD:      [calls out to somebody]  Bout ready?

Carolyn:        Well, where’d Nikki go?

JD:      Over there.  It would be a good idea, she’s climbing a tree, it would be a good idea I don’t think, I think we ….go see if those other ki are getting in trouble because of her. 

Myon: Aw no, they go back there all e time, don’t worry about that. 

Edward:        That’s when I would liked to have a movie camera.

JD:      Aw yeah.

Edward:        Take pictures of all that. 

Myon: Yeah. 

Edward:        Go back and look at it…..Yep, if man had decided to haul all that sand in here, fill all that up, it would take em 20 years.  Never, never filled it up. 

JD:      Well you figure too, for every pound of sand there is out there, there’s one pound left where that water comes from, so you know…

Edward:        Must be some awful big holes….[laughs]

Myon: That [silt and water] comes from up North Myon.  That’s rainwater, that’s uh, erosion from farmland and cropland. 

Edward:        Red River.

JD:      Uhhunh.  That’s right. 

[jumbled mixed talk]

Myon: That big boat?  He passed again? [on Bayou Teche, in Myon’s back yard]

JD:      Big boat, though, hunh?

Edward:        Draggin bottom.

JD:      A river boat in the bayou?  Well, he wasn’t havin any trouble with that mud?

Edward:        Naw, naw, uhuh.  He got power……

JD:      It probably costs them a lot more to rent a boat like that than it does one of these [small tugs that usually push sugar barges in Bayou Teche]

Edward:        Yeah.

Lena Mae:    You ought to seen that passed yesterday! [the big river tug].

JD:      That’s what he’s telling us about.

Edward:        He couldn’t turn around in this bayou!  [too long]

JD:      He couldn’t?

Edward:        Oh no!  No way, Hoss. 

[jumbled, noise of tugboat passing in the bayou]

JD:      Well, he’s makin pretty good time now.

??:      Yes he is, makin more noise than he’s makin time though.

Edward:        Sometimes he backs up, to free his barge up [from sticking in the mud]

JD:      A while ago he wasn’t movin at all down the bayou.  How much draft you think that barge is takin now, About six feet?  Nine you think?  That much?

[jumbled, noise of tugboat passing]

JD:      Found those quail?  Did they jump up again?  Did they jump up again?  They did jump up again? 

[Jumbled, noise of tugboat passing]

JD:      Ten feet, real close to ten feet [the depth marker on the barge].  Well, no wonder he’s havin trouble, that thing must be diggin a channel as it goes!