http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20091122/OPINION01/911219933?Title=Taking-fruit-on-a-northern-trek

Taking fruit on a northern trek

Bill Ellzey Columnist
Published: Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, November 21, 2009 at 11:03 p.m.

It was time for our traditional Thanksgiving trip, but the significance of the season hadn’t sunk into my consciousness until I drove down to Klondyke for another batch of citrus.

“Going north for Thanksgiving?” Dot Rogers asked. Then it hit me. For dozens of years, while my wife worked at South Terrebonne High School, every Thanksgiving, with its extended school holiday, involved a trip to the Rogers orchard for goodies to take to relatives north of Louisiana’s tropical zone.

Ancient tradition: Louisiana citrus has been a family tradition for half a century. Having aunts, uncles and other relatives who came south for teaching jobs in Terrebonne, Plaquemines and Cameron parishes, my family began enjoying citrus gifts from the coast back in the ‘50s.

Favorites were the huge Louisiana navels my Aunt Jean brought home from the Port Sulphur area on her trips home to Natchitoches every holiday season.

And when I came to Terrebonne in the ‘60s, I discovered satsumas, which some folks still call mandarins, easy-to-peel treats which I hauled north on my holiday visits.

Changes: Both my wife and I are retired from teaching, and no longer restricted to school holidays like Thanksgiving, and the parents we traveled to visit are gone.

Still, we headed north Friday afternoon, laden with satsumas, and other crops to share with family and friends. I have no doubt that the citrus we carried for an early Thanksgiving feed at the historic Methodist church my folks helped restore in downtown Robeline were a treat.

But our stay was short this year, just overnight. We hurried back for what has become another tradition ... the November “Fais do-do” at Dulac.

One fruit or two? Some folks say “satsuma,” others stick to “mandarin.” Janice Armand says they are names for two similar citrus treats. “Mandarins have thicker rinds and some seeds,” she explained.

Web sites I visited indicated “mandarin satsumas” and pending further research, the question remains unsettled.

In any event, they grow locally in profusion, to the delight of citrus lovers like me. And the tasty fruit is clearly different from tangerines once common in groceries this time of year. They are also markedly unlike the “clementine” oranges that have begun turning up in produce departments in recent years.

Huey at Le Petit: “Who Shot the Kingfish” is the next production at Houma’s community theater, and the “courtroom” re-examination of the shooting death of Huey Pierce Long needs a cast of nearly 20 adults, three quarters of them male.

Auditions are scheduled at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 1 and 2 at Le Petit Theatre de Terrebonne in Houma. It’s a good opportunity for potential actors looking for a minor role.

Say what? “Non sequitur,” a Latin term meaning “not logical,” turned up in a Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office report last week, describing how a resident responded to the officer’s questions.

The term was used correctly, but since reports are intended to clarify situations for court and elsewhere, perhaps not “appropriately.” The verbose officer is being “counseled.”

Responding? Contact Bill Ellzey at 381-6256, 876-5638, billellzey312@gmail.com, ellzey@mobiletel.com or c/o The Courier, P.O. Box 2717, Houma, LA 70361.