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When I arrived home from work on Tuesday, the rain had been falling enough to wet all the grass. I walked to the mailbox, and, as I turned to return to my house, I got a good strong whiff of crawfishing. The smell of the wet mud and grass took me back to the times when I was a girl and my dad would would take us crawfishing in a wide ditch somewhere on Webre-Steib Plantation where we once lived. Smells are powerful and can take us back to certain times and places in history. At that time, we could go to the store and get a few pounds of fresh melt to use for bait. Melt is the pancreas of a cow, juicy with blood and an unforgettable smell, a favorite food of crawfish. Crawfishing in the late 60’s and early 70’s was a fun adventure. We always had to be careful of snakes, but a flick of a stick would put them back in the water swimming away from our catch. I enjoyed the memory evoked by the rainy weather and the few grins that came with remembering. Eating crawfish will have to wait a bit longer until the prices come down.

St. James Parish Library is among over 100 public libraries nationwide awarded funding by the Public Library Association (PLA) to increase digital literacy using Digitallearn.org resources, powered by a generous $2.7 million contribution from AT&T.

Editor’s note: The writer is a member of First Community-Antioch Baptist Church