by K M Draughn

Created on: September 29, 2009

When people from other states think about Louisiana and the people who live here, they seem to believe that the whole state is one big swamp, that everyone either speaks French, Cajun or like they did in movies like Steel Magnolias or the Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, oh and of course seeing an alligator is an everyday occurrence. Over the years because of different jobs I have had, or my son being in the military, I have spoken to many people from different states on the phone or have become internet friends with them. And the misconceptions they have about Louisiana is very funny sometimes.

The one thing that they do notice when speaking to them on the phone is my accent, and that it is because it is very southern a country girl from the south, can't help it, I was raised in rural Louisiana, and they way I talk is fairly common from where I am from. But it is not like those folks in the movies, more like what you might here in Andy Griffith or Dukes of Hazard but not the exaggerated way that kind of makes fun of us Louisiana girls.

The Questions are almost always the same, How far away is New Orleans, Do you get hurricanes where you live, and what are the swamps like? The answers four and a half hours, the wind off of a twisters sometimes, and we have beautiful lakes, rivers, bayous and creeks in North Louisiana.

I am very proud to be from Louisiana, proud of my heritage. I grew up in the piney woods of Central Louisiana, the daughter of a forester , I have learned to love and appreciate the beautiful pine forest.

In small town USA, where there is a main street, a school a couple of churches and a couple of mom and pop stores, kind of like Mayberry in the Andy Griffith Show, everyone in town knows everyone else and everyone else's business, in the parish I grew up, (remember in Louisiana a parish is like a county else where), everyone in the whole parish knows everyone else's business. I grew up in that type of area, not in a metropolitan are or city like New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport or Monroe, though Monroe is where I now live.

Louisiana is a grand state from top to bottom, from East to West with the flat lands between the Mississippi River and the Ouachita in the North fit for farming, cotton, corn, soy beans, sweet potatoes, and truck crops of all types Then the flat land gives way the hills between the Ouachita and the Red River, with piney hills where the forest and forest products as well as some oil fields are the way an man makes

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