You won’t m find a store in New Orleans, weather a ‘Mom & Pop’ grocery or a major supermarket chain, hardware store or Wal-Mart, that doesn’t have a section devoted to Voo Doo/Santaria paraphernalia.

Not only candles in tall ornately painted glasses, but a wide array of large aerosol cans filled with ‘Good Money’ spray, “Love & Harmony’ spray and ‘Peace With Acquaintance ‘ spray.

Years ago, I put an ad in the paper to give away the last of a litter of kittens. A woman called and fairly grilled me about ‘ was i sure it was a white kitten ?’.

She finally said she would be right over, on the street car. She promptly showed up. All 6 feet of her w/ Dreads. She told me her son was on the way, on his bicycle, because she wouldn’t be allowed on the street car with the kitten. The 10 year old boy was High Yellow with the bluest eyes I have ever seen. He was at least 6′ 2″ on a kiddie bike with a basket.

After they left with the kitten, I got to thinking about it and was most worried about the fate of the animal. This woman had the dead on seriousness of some sort of Born Again Bible Freak. No small talk. No Jive. Just a deadly serious obsession with weather the cat was all white or perhaps tainted with a spot or two of color.

I’ll put Bayou Country Louisiana up against the deepest darkest hollers of Appalachia for downright skin crawlin’ creepiness.