Continuing on back toward New Orleans on Highway 90, we eventually passed by the small city of Raceland, situated on Bayou Laforche in Lafourche Parish, and then a few minutes later saw a pier/souvenir shop complex just off the highway to my right. Curious to see if the shop was open, I pulled into the parking lot, grabbed my camera and hopped out. The business itself was closed so I walked toward the pier where a medium-sized, shallow-draft tour boat was moored, with no one about.
When I walked to the water's edge and peered right, I could see the pier wall extending south quite a ways, actually merging into a rather quaint canal adjoining the lake, with houses on both sides, the water level already almost lapping into their yards, creating a sort of mini-Venice between the highway and the lake. And this was likely just as prone to all the flooding problems that beset the good people of Venice, Italy.
When I turned and looked directly at the lake itself, I could see an extensive body of calm, blue water, with a small island in the foreground, probably once part of the landscape protruding into the lake, and dim tree lines in the far distance, quite a majestic view. After taking a few photos I turned back toward the highway and started to take a few more shots in that direction.
Meet Lee Richoux
At that same moment, a car pulled into the parking lot, drove right past me, and then started to make a large U-turn. I could see there was just the solitary driver inside. On the spur of the moment, I decided to hail him down to ask what the name of this lake was as he approached me again. As he stopped, I walked over to the driver's side as he rolled down his window and started shooting the breeze with him. I didn't try to record the conversation or photograph him, although at some point he realized I was a journalist without my telling him, and at that point I began to take some notes.
His name was Lee Richoux, and he was an elderly albeit sturdy and ruddy-faced, long-time resident of this enchanted part of Southern Louisiana that includes Lafourche, Terrebonne and St Charles Parishes, a one hundred percent Cajun man he related, and he spoke with a pleasant, rich Cajun voice, almost musical, at first simply replying to my query as to the name of the lake right behind me. "Lac des Allemands." (which means "Lake of the Germans" – not only Acadians settled in this area, but Germans too.) This topic gave him an opportunity to soon wax indignant about the long and still ongoing tragedy befalling this lake, which, I had been totally oblivious of until now:
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