I'm not southern unless you count the Southwest, but my background is Northern Midwestern and that's how I was raised. (see Yankee) Some folks are from the South, and some are from the SOUTH. The directions to my boys' Gran-gran Meré's house began: First, get a boat. A pirouge to be exact. She lived south of I-10, south of everything but the last fringes of the swamp as it fades into the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana. And some folks from the South are not as "evolved" as we might like. Especially the older ones. Ok, even the younger ones too. I was polite and didn't say anything when matters of race, religion and value of a person was bandied about in ways I thought were, well, prehistoric! There were times when I almost bit my tongue off trying to keep my peace in this particular family. In other words, I did like my mother taught me and was a good guest. Though I must admit to taking my boys aside and talking to them about not picking up this kind of bigotry and racism. But sometimes there are cultural and linguistic land mines in the swamps and I hit a big one.
Laissez les bons temps rouler en dessous de l'accessoire d'orange
I'm not sure how it was possible, but the family "camp" was a bit more out of the way. The camp is a Southern thing I guess, as it doesn't resemble camping as I knew it. There's a house, corral, pond to swim in and even plumbing. It's where you go during the heat, or family reunions that overflow the main house. And that's why we were in Louisiana, in the swamp, in the summer, for Gran-gran Mere's 90th birthday.
To beat the heat, the boys were jumping around on logs and stumps in the pond. Flicking water at each other, trying to "not get too wet". Watching them made me laugh and my mother-in-law came out to see what was so funny. I pointed at the boys and said, "Will you look at those stump jumping swamp monkeys?". (a phrase I made up on the spot) I received a stony stare and she slammed the screen door as she went back inside. I spent dinner that night wondering what was going on as the steely silence seemed to have spread to other relatives. In fact, I spent the rest of our visit in the cone of silence.
On the way home, I did ask my boys and it seems that a "swamp monkey", according to their cousins, is a Cajun way to say someone is "that word". You know the word, the one no one uses but everyone initializes these days? A word that it would never cross my mind to call anyone! Yes, That word! And yes, the word, in English, French and Cajun, I'd heard slung around with impunity in regards to new neighbors, people in the store, folks on the sidewalk, etc. etc. etc. Seriously, ad nauseum for real. I already knew my mother-in-law and her family were racists and bigots, so it shouldn't have been a surprise they'd take umbrage at me unknowingly using a phrase they'd decided was a slur on their "heritage". So I lived with the silence and snipping asides for the next several years. And then, one day, karma came home to roost.
A family member was doing a family tree of these folks. She'd reached the "omg, double first cousins married each other!" stage and then things had petered out a bit. She asked for my Internet expertise, I gave her a few pointers, and off she went. She and my in-laws showed up for my sons' graduation and, since it was a "family thing", she brought out her tree for all to see. Gran Mere was all over it, pointing out relationships to the "movers and shakers" of the home parish and its' surrounds. Then, there was a stutter in her monologue. She saw something she hadn't been aware of before. She asked, "Are you sure? Positive? Oh my God!"
Yep, seems that there were not only "Injuns" in the swamp with her family, there were "maroons". No, not the purplish color, though at first her face turned that color. Maroon is a term used for an escaped slave who managed to live out their life in freedom, in the swamps and bayous of the Deep South. In this case, a maroon had managed to live on in the bloodstream of a cotillion queen par excellence.
Have you done your family tree or DNA? Any surprises?