10:40 PM |
Hit the happy trail again. Shortly made the Louisiana state line and just had to stop at the information center. This is Dot. She was very helpful. I wanted to go to plantation country. This is it, Dot said. She gave me maps of St. Francisville, with the plantations helpfully pre-highlighted in blue. Don't go to number one because it is just gardens. I asked her where the ladies room was, not that I needed it but my mama (I am getting southern) told me never to pass one up. Dot agreed. As I went outside some old guy's dog was peeing on the privets. Highway sign 1:
Wilkinson Correction Area
No Stopping 18 Miles
What the heck is a correction area? Another one of these soil erosion eco-improvement zones?
Highway sign 2:
Wilkinson Correctional Facility
It's a really good thing that I didn't stop to look at my map for those 18 miles. Angola is just down the road.
I missed the sign for the first plantation, but there are about half a dozen around here and I don't know one from the other, except Dot said one of them is the most haunted. Wish I could remember which. I want to go there because I got gypped out of my paranormal activity at the Duff Green Mainsion because they did not put me in the Dixie Room. Passed Cathey's Taxes. Sanitary Landfill (I hate to think of what an unsanitary landfill would be). A small blue sign with plantation's name on it. Missed it. Didn't turn around because there are lots of plantations in St. Francisville. Next small blue plantation sign. Gotta try it. Highway was 35 mph. The Judge told me never to speed in these small towns. Made turn onto small road to plantation. Speed limit 55 mph unless school lights blinking, then 45 mph. This is not a wealthy neighborhood. I guess the police are happy to have those students run over. Got to plantation. Not Andrew Jackson's, but some other guy's birthplace. Log cabin. Andrew Jackson was probably never even in this state. Doesn't matter because place closed.
Stopped for gas. Talk to Blaine who later brought his girlfriend over, but she wouldn't come within 25 feet of Woody. Looked up and saw why. Way cool purple car pulls up to next pump. I looked at the driver and said cool car. He opened the door. Except the door didn't open the normal way. It opened diagonally up, like some movie spy's. Blaine said he should put those on his truck because his hinges were a little rusted anyhow. I asked the purple car guy if I could take pictures. Sure, with a shrug and a slouch away to the convenience store in his huge, dark denim pants that hang halfway down your butt, except this guy, Bartrand, was a nice guy and had a t-shirt covering up all but the bottom part of the jeans seat. I asked Bartrand if I could take his picture. There were a bunch of old, some toothless or nearly so, black me at the scene. I said I like the car but I like him better. Everyone roared. As I pulled out, a woman walking to the convenience store called over her shoulder that Woody brings back a memory. I never, ever have women talking to me. I just had to know. Any specific memory? My aunt was taking us (some place) and the door opened and they told me just to hang on to it. Not the door to the car, I learned. The girl to the door.
Next small blue plantation sign. I stopped at the junction and looked at Dot's map. This one is 8 miles down the road. Decided to go anyhow as I may never see a plantation. Met Carol. Carol is one of the best storytellers I have ever met. She sounds a bit like Katherine Turner, and he mouth looks like my mother's. It was a good thing, because the bottom line is that this plantation was built 15 years ago. Yes, there was a plantation just like it there. Yes, there was a great story of whose daddy made his son drop out of LSU to oversee the renovation. Yes, there were civil war stories of abandonment, etc. And yes, the place had been struck by lighting and burned down. And mostly, there were stories about the films that were shot here. The crew of Louisiana, a French film, did the rooms perfectly. The crew of North and South were okay because they left the Louisiana decor intact. Then came The Big Valley, the theater version. They were turning the house into a Western set with pool tables and smoking and much more rich, according to Carol. And then last October, they just left. They left some furniture behind that isn't plantation furniture. The owner made them at least put the chandeliers up again. The wallpaper they hung is just coming off in ribbons. Carol said maybe we shouldn't go in that room. She would have to go up with us. Carol had us sit down for her story. It went on a good 25 minutes. Here are some of the things I heard:
I hightailed it to the next plantation because there wasn't much time left during operating hours. Found large brown sign for plantation. I wondered how the large brown signs were different than the small blue signs. Turns out that the large brown signs are owned by the Parks Department. Visited Rosedale. Our young guide has to sit down because she has been cooking all day on the plantation and had just had knee surgery. We were a big group. It is no longer off-season, and I will no longer get private tours.
Rosedale is amazing. Almost every little thing is still there. The last surviving daughter lived there until the 80s. She was in her 80s. They used outhouses and chamber pots until 1955. There are 13,000 (!) pages of original documents from the attic, including shopping lists, menus, etc. I asked what happened to the place during the war. The soldiers camped out in the fields, sort of an old MASH unit she said, and took things like books and rugs, things that they could carry and use. All of the family's good stuff was in an armoire upstairs. Legend has it that one of the daughters went up there, took off her clothes, and screamed bloody murder when an officer came in. No man ever went upstairs again. I'm not sure that's the whole story. If the ladies in Natchez were canoodling with the enemy so that their houses at least weren't burned down, I wonder what the ladies of Rosedale were doing to keep every single thing in their home untouched.
Also learned that potato chips were invented in Saratoga and were served only by the rich. Also that pretty daughter had over 100 suitors. They gave her lots of jewelry and she had to color code ribbons to men so that she could wear the right jewelry for the right guy. She was pressed to make a choice as she was not getting any younger. Married the boy next door.
Note to self: Only follow large brown signs, rent The North and The South and laugh at sets
Stopped for gas. Talk to Blaine who later brought his girlfriend over, but she wouldn't come within 25 feet of Woody. Looked up and saw why. Way cool purple car pulls up to next pump. I looked at the driver and said cool car. He opened the door. Except the door didn't open the normal way. It opened diagonally up, like some movie spy's. Blaine said he should put those on his truck because his hinges were a little rusted anyhow. I asked the purple car guy if I could take pictures. Sure, with a shrug and a slouch away to the convenience store in his huge, dark denim pants that hang halfway down your butt, except this guy, Bartrand, was a nice guy and had a t-shirt covering up all but the bottom part of the jeans seat. I asked Bartrand if I could take his picture. There were a bunch of old, some toothless or nearly so, black me at the scene. I said I like the car but I like him better. Everyone roared. As I pulled out, a woman walking to the convenience store called over her shoulder that Woody brings back a memory. I never, ever have women talking to me. I just had to know. Any specific memory? My aunt was taking us (some place) and the door opened and they told me just to hang on to it. Not the door to the car, I learned. The girl to the door.
Next small blue plantation sign. I stopped at the junction and looked at Dot's map. This one is 8 miles down the road. Decided to go anyhow as I may never see a plantation. Met Carol. Carol is one of the best storytellers I have ever met. She sounds a bit like Katherine Turner, and he mouth looks like my mother's. It was a good thing, because the bottom line is that this plantation was built 15 years ago. Yes, there was a plantation just like it there. Yes, there was a great story of whose daddy made his son drop out of LSU to oversee the renovation. Yes, there were civil war stories of abandonment, etc. And yes, the place had been struck by lighting and burned down. And mostly, there were stories about the films that were shot here. The crew of Louisiana, a French film, did the rooms perfectly. The crew of North and South were okay because they left the Louisiana decor intact. Then came The Big Valley, the theater version. They were turning the house into a Western set with pool tables and smoking and much more rich, according to Carol. And then last October, they just left. They left some furniture behind that isn't plantation furniture. The owner made them at least put the chandeliers up again. The wallpaper they hung is just coming off in ribbons. Carol said maybe we shouldn't go in that room. She would have to go up with us. Carol had us sit down for her story. It went on a good 25 minutes. Here are some of the things I heard:- He was the Donald Trump of his time
- If he had been in our time, he'd a been one of those kids you had to give a pill to
- Don't boss around and yell and scream at your slaves
- Boiling bark off of trees and calling it tea
- Land is land
- You're so smart when you're twenty-some years old
- He must have been some kind of handsome and some kind of slick to get that girl
- They lived all over it
- The slaves had children and you had little bitty slaves
I hightailed it to the next plantation because there wasn't much time left during operating hours. Found large brown sign for plantation. I wondered how the large brown signs were different than the small blue signs. Turns out that the large brown signs are owned by the Parks Department. Visited Rosedale. Our young guide has to sit down because she has been cooking all day on the plantation and had just had knee surgery. We were a big group. It is no longer off-season, and I will no longer get private tours.
Rosedale is amazing. Almost every little thing is still there. The last surviving daughter lived there until the 80s. She was in her 80s. They used outhouses and chamber pots until 1955. There are 13,000 (!) pages of original documents from the attic, including shopping lists, menus, etc. I asked what happened to the place during the war. The soldiers camped out in the fields, sort of an old MASH unit she said, and took things like books and rugs, things that they could carry and use. All of the family's good stuff was in an armoire upstairs. Legend has it that one of the daughters went up there, took off her clothes, and screamed bloody murder when an officer came in. No man ever went upstairs again. I'm not sure that's the whole story. If the ladies in Natchez were canoodling with the enemy so that their houses at least weren't burned down, I wonder what the ladies of Rosedale were doing to keep every single thing in their home untouched.Also learned that potato chips were invented in Saratoga and were served only by the rich. Also that pretty daughter had over 100 suitors. They gave her lots of jewelry and she had to color code ribbons to men so that she could wear the right jewelry for the right guy. She was pressed to make a choice as she was not getting any younger. Married the boy next door.
Note to self: Only follow large brown signs, rent The North and The South and laugh at sets