There was a place I didn’t think I could still get to. It’s been so long since I’ve been there. It was a real place when I was a boy, but now it’s just a place in my mind. It was a long dirt road, with large deep ditches on both sides that were always filled with tadpole’s frogs and turtles, with the occasional snake to keep you on your toes.  Honey suckle grew on the barbwire fence the white flowers with long yellow stamens dangling poetically as the plants vines wrapped themselves about the post and wire. Further down the way there would be blackberries large and plump, and a few plum trees along a craw fish pound. Mr. Dugas didn’t mind if we ate from the trees and bushes or even pulled a few craw fish from the pound… as long as he didn’t catch us of course.

The road almost in the center of town had the Drive Inn movie theatre on one end right across from the Dairy Queen. It was the place to be in the evening. I remember walking there at night with my cousin and watching the movies from a hole in the wooden fence that we ‘accidentally’ made one weekend, the murmuring squawk through the speakers that hung from the car windows of paying patrons made us strain our ears to hear the words, the smell of popcorn, butter, and root beer floats wafted through the air. Fire flies darted here and there with flickering orange tails as a dirty hand wiped sweat from a hot face in the humid Louisiana air.

Last time I was in the area some sort of big Box Food store with a parking lot that goes on forever was there now.

If you took the dirt road in the other direction you would walk straight into a cattle ranch with a large fenced in red and white bull, its horns curled wickedly on its head , his eyes following you as you quick stepped your way past to the small woods. I and my older brother would hunt the woods with pellet guns. We took down small birds mostly; they would be plucked and cleaned then put into gumbo. I always felt so important coming home with my little cache of birds to add to the family meal.