The reason for my lateness in publishing MP3 Monday? I was stuck in Houston after a flight cancellation, my second weather-related flight bumping in a week. I only straggled home to Dallas Monday afternoon.
I was in south Louisiana helping out the Jefferson Fellowships, the fellowship program that took me to Hawaii, China, and Japan last fall. (It’s a journalist exchange program between Asia and the U.S.)
The current crop of Jeffs was touring the U.S. to learn about energy policy, and I’d suggested to their chaperone Abby that they stop off in south Louisiana. So I ended up showing 12 reporters (from China, Burma, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, Bangladesh, India, Fiji, and the U.S.) around my homeland — taking them zydeco dancing, checking out Hurricane Rita damage, touring offshore drilling rigs, and feeding them all the local delicacies. Boiled crawfish, boudin, gumbo, raw oysters, shrimp, andouille, poboys, beignets — all the good stuff. It was great seeing all the new faces (and the one old one).
Also, because I’m sometimes told by masochistic readers that I should post photos once in a while, here’s a group photo taken Saturday in front of the glorious Cafe des Amis in Breaux Bridge. (I would be the green-shirted and alarmingly-haired gentleman in the back. The fellow sitting down in the center is Dickie Breaux, the owner.)
