Baja St. Martin

I have ridden on a jet ski once and it was lots of fun, but I’ve never driven one. Today, a Sunday, there are at least two jet skis on my section of Belle River and I keep holding my breath that they don’t hit each other. Two of them are pulling inflatables, which also looks like fun, but as far as I can see the drivers are watching the floaters a lot more than they’re watching where they’re driving. And they’re going really fast! One just completely rolled over, dumping two people into the water. Nice to see that the vehicle seemed to immediately stop and the riders were able to get themselves back on board and just took off again.
Back in the day, my oldest daughter was a good slalom skier. Adventurous and pretty daring. My youngest daughter and I were not so terrific. She and I were too afraid of getting hurt.
I wasn’t even a very good boat driver although I eventually did get to the point where I drove the boat by myself, into Belle River for groceries, once or twice frogging at night, running trot lines.
Put me in a pirogue and I was just fine! All a matter of control, I guess. I even got lost in the swamp once, in a pirogue, and the only thing that really worried me was enduring the mosquitoes if I’d have had to spend the night out there. As it turned out, I didn’t, but it was dark by the time I did find my way into a bayou leading to our camp.
It may have been that experience that made me become overly cautious about marking my pirogue trail when running crawfish traps. Most people painted an X on the trees or tied a ribbon on a branch, but I soon discovered that if I got on the wrong side of the tree I didn’t see my mark, so I painted a line all the way around or tied ribbons around. I got a lot of laughs but I didn’t get lost again!
Twenty-seven people for Bingo on Aug. 18. Our next games will be Tuesday, Sept. 1 and Sept. 15. Before the 15th we have something tentatively planned but I’ll have to wait to tell you about that when planning is more definite. My friends, Gordon and Faye Smith and Jerry and Linda Fabre are so wonderful with all these activities. Dependable and inventive.
The next Food for Seniors will be Thursday, Aug. 27 and I hope not to miss this one. Eight in the morning in Stephensville and about 9:30 a.m. in Belle River in case you’re new. I would have gone to take a picture of Grover and his crew working at the substation the other day, but the rain was too bad.
Have you been to a doctor lately? Everyone has an online “patient portal” to sign up for. I’ve got so many patient portals, it’s hard to keep up with them. And I don’t see a lot of purpose in them ’cause the offices always call to remind me of appointments, or I call them about meds, etc., anyway. The portal is just so much electronic “paperwork.” I wonder who looks at them?
Cypress Cove on Hwy. 70 between here and Stephensville is now just about full of camps. They are all (well, almost all) up on pilings, arranged along man-made canals leading to Belle River. If you don’t mind close proximity to neighbors they’re nice places. There is not a cypress tree in sight!
I finished “To Kill a Mockingbird” and loved it as much as the movie. “Go Set a Watchman” left me with mixed feelings. Maybe Harper Lee should have followed Margaret Mitchell’s example of only one book!

Teche News’ Lower St. Martin correspondent, Linda Cooke, can be emailed at lindacooke1939@gmail.com.