I made my first visit to Grand Caillou School on a cold, rainy January afternoon in 1980. In spite of the winter weather, I parked my oil dripping red and primer gray VW Beetle across the street, as far back as possible in the shell-covered parking lot to avoid being connected to the wreck. From the front, or bayou side as the kids called it, the school looked fairly presentable: two brick structures for classes and another serving as a combination cafeteria/auditorium. I wasn’t assigned to any of these, though, and was directed to what was called “the back building.”
Grand Caillou itself seemed totally alien, a small fishing community just “up to bayou” as the Cajuns say above Dulac, the last outpost in Louisiana salt marshes before opening up to the Gulf of Mexico. The bayou in front of the school would have been attractive had its banks not been profusely littered by discarded junk. Broken refrigerators, half-sunken boats, old tires and even wrecked cars mingled with egrets, floating vegetation and more than an occasional alligator. In many ways I felt as if I’d just landed on Mars. Continue reading “Teacher’s First Day”