Waters of the Delta

This is a painting from the 19th Century by William Henry Buck of the bayou country. I was wanting a vacation from the bookstore where I worked, but had no money and no car and was interested in someplace that I could go as a sort of a retreat to work on my book without interruptions. Cary, my boss, found a cabin out in the bayou that a friend owned that was miles from the nearest town, no TV, radio, no indoor plumbing and no cost. So I went for a week. Cary even drove me out and came to pick me up. The cabin was beside a stream where I bathed and washed my dishes. I wrote and wrote. There was mosquito netting and an outhouse that you had to make a mad dash for in the night so the bugs wouldn't catch you. I did hitchhike into the little town nearby one afternoon and had a beer in a bar and then hitchhiked back out- just because I was getting lonely. The guy that picked me up going in talked and talked and his Cajun was so thick I didn't understand a thing he said. He didn't seem to mind. The water in the little stream was wonderful during the day.

Avery Island is to the south of New Orleans, they make Tabasco Sauce there and they have a park and a bird sanctuary. You can't swim there because the alligators are abundant. I went with a couple I knew pretty well. The husband wanted to start a writer's commune and have us all live together and work on each others stuff and collaborate on things. It sounded intriguing at the time.

This is the beach over in Biloxi Miss. The couple and I went there too. All I remember was blowing sand, muggy weather and food sort of grainy from the beach. I think the couple was having martial meltdown and within the year they were separated. I tried to put it into a story, but it didn't go very far.