Improbable cross examinations

 East Texas State Park -April 4, 2011

We moved 200 miles west into east Texas. It started to rain so we pulled in early, but the forecast tornadoes and severe thunderstorms have turned to afternoon sunshine.


ATTORNEY:  What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS:     He said, 'Where am I, Cathy?'
ATTORNEY:  And why did that upset you?
WITNESS:     My name is Susan!
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ATTORNEY:  What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS:     Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
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It's probably still 600 or 700 miles to the Big Bend National Park in West Texas. I'm thinking that the cactus should be in bloom.

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  ___________________________________________

ATTORNEY:  Are you sexually active?
WITNESS:     No, I just lie there.
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ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS:     Yes.
ATTORNEY:  And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS:     I forget.
ATTORNEY:  You forget?  Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
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ATTORNEY:  Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS:     We both do.
ATTORNEY:  Voodoo?
WITNESS:     We do.
ATTORNEY:  You do?
WITNESS:     Yes, voodoo.
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ATTORNEY:  Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS:  Did you actually pass the bar exam?
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ATTORNEY:  The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS:      He's 20, much like your IQ.
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ATTORNEY:  Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS:     Are you shitting me?
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ATTORNEY:  So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS:     Yes.
ATTORNEY:  And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS:     Getting laid
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ATTORNEY:  She had three children, right?
WITNESS:     Yes.
ATTORNEY:  How many were boys?
WITNESS:    None.
ATTORNEY:   Were there any girls?
WITNESS:      Your Honour, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
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ATTORNEY:  How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS:     By death.
ATTORNEY:  And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS:     Take a guess.
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ATTORNEY:  Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS:     He was about medium height and had a beard
ATTORNEY:  Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS:     Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.
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ATTORNEY:  Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS:  No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
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ATTORNEY:  Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS:     All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
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ATTORNEY:  ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS:     Oral...
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ATTORNEY:  Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS:     The autopsy started around 8:30 PM
ATTORNEY:  And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS:     If not, he was by the time I finished.
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ATTORNEY:  Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS:     Are you qualified to ask that question?
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ATTORNEY:  Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS:     No.
ATTORNEY:  Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS:     No.
ATTORNEY:  Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS:     No.
ATTORNEY:  So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS:     No.
ATTORNEY:  How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS:     Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY:  I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS:     Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

Social Hour at Betty's RV Park in Abbeville, Louisiana.

You're not from around here, are you?

Touchet's Roadhouse, Abbeville, Louisiana

We're back at Betty's RV Park. It has been rated as the best small RV park in America. Betty has about 15 spots and it can be hard to get one. Betty make the experience. She runs a daily social hour that lasts three or four hours. The guests share appetizers and drink wine.




Betty guides you to local restaurants and musical venues of Cajun or Zydeco music. She suggests tours of craw fish farms, hot sauce factories or things like the drilling rig museum down in Morgan City where my best friend, Big Kenny, lies in an unmarked  pauper's grave.

 Zydeco and Cajun music are different. It's mostly a matter of race and instrument preference. The black Louisiana Creoles tend to prefer the piano accordion and eschew the fiddle. The Cajun prefer the fiddle and go for things like the steel guitar and amplified instruments. The jam session today was all white with lots of accordions, a fiddle and several amplified electric guitars. I'm not sure what it was, but it was happy music with a Cajun flair for a friendly crowd.



I still want to eat some craw fish (and suck the heads) and play some tennis before we move on Monday to San Antonio. There is an old, abandoned  Masonic cemetery we want to visit and photograph.



This area has 186,000 acres of craw fish farms that yield a product worth $121 million a year. You have to read the labels to make sure you're getting the real thing instead of a Chinese product with a Louisiana sounding name like Thibidues's or Boudin's.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Lake Pontchartrain RV Park, New Orleans

A Sailor: Can I help you, ma'am?
Blanche DuBois: Why, they told me to take a streetcar named Desire and then transfer to one called Cemetery and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields.

We like this RV park. We've been here before. It's just off Interstate 10 that runs though New Orleans and it runs a shuttle bus downtown. They have a pool and a bar and a supply of free books as well as a store that sells beer and RV supplies. It's on a wide canal that leads to Lake Pontchartrain.

The Desire line is no longer running in New Orleans. Desire was sold in 1948 to an entrepreneur in Chattanooga and then repurchased and retired again in 1997. There is a replica on the River Line, which I intend to ride in the morrow after my oyster Po-Boy sandwich.

We could probably spend a month in New Orleans without getting bored, but we have places to go and other things to see. Maybe we can stay at Betty's RV Park next in Abbeville, Louisiana if she has space for us. We want to suck crawfish heads, buy some Cajun delicacies at the Piggly Wiggly and dance to a Zydeco band.

I need to watch my "Easy Rider" DVD again and catch the New Orleans cemetery scene with the man with the umbrella.

Blanche DuBois: You're married to a madman.
Stella: I wish you'd stop taking it for granted that I'm in something I want to get out of.
Blanche DuBois: What you are talking about is desire - just brutal Desire. The name of that rattle-trap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another.
Stella: Haven't you ever ridden on that streetcar?
Blanche DuBois: It brought me here. Where I'm not wanted and where I'm ashamed to be.
Stella: Don't you think your superior attitude is a little out of place?
Blanche DuBois: May I speak plainly?... If you'll forgive me, he's common... He's like an animal. He has an animal's habits. There's even something subhuman about him. Thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is. Stanley Kowalski, survivor of the Stone Age, bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle. And you - you here waiting for him. Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you, that's if kisses have been discovered yet. His poker night you call it. This party of apes.

Why Betty’s RV Park is America’s Best

Abbeville, Louisiana

Betty’s is sometimes rated as the number one RV Park in America. Others say it is one of the top 25. There are only 14 spots laid out around Betty’s home in Abbeville. There is no pool, no hot tub, no tennis court.

What makes it a top park is Betty Bernard. Every night Betty has a happy hour from 4:30 to 6:30. While, I’m quite an introvert, but in the last two evenings I’ve had very interesting conversations with at least six different people. Mrs. Phred is in her element here, interacting with the other residents.



Many of the visitors to Betty’s are Cajuns. I’ve met three so far, including Marvin, a militant Cajun. Marvin is very focused on the English deportation of the Acadian Nova Scotia French Settlers 200 years ago. He tells me about Queen Elizabeth’s apology to the Cajun/Acadians. I think that the Queen has a way to go with her apologies if you include the Irish, the Scots, the South Africans, the Indians and Pakistanis and all the Arabs.



Tonight Betty put on a potluck dinner that included Cajun red beans and sausage. Tomorrow Betty is taking us all to a Cajun restaurant.

Betty keeps a book of interesting things to see, including:
- Zydeco Music Joints
- Crawfish Farms
- Local Cajun restaurants
- Hot Sauce Factories
- Oil Rig Tours
- Casinos and Horse Races
- Swamp Tours



We signed up for three days and added two more today. I like it here. Marvin says the Cajun culture has assimilated all the other people who have moved in. It’s a good time happy place where you can revel in sucking crawfish heads and dancing to upbeat Zydeco music.

Sucking Crawfish Heads

Abbeville, Louisiana - December 11, 2006

This is Cajun country. The Cajuns are of French ancestry and were rounded up in Nova Scotia and expelled in 1755. They settled in Louisiana and are known for fantastic crawfish gumbo and zydeco music, featuring the fiddle and the accordion.

There are lots of things to do here. There is the McIlhenny Tabasco hot sauce factory to visit for a two-hour tour and the agrifactory where crawfish and rice are grown in the same fields. It takes three years to make the Tabasco sauce. It's marketed in 100 languages and the entire world supply is produced on 2,300 acres on an island just a short distance away. Just down the road in Abbeville are eight municipal tennis courts (scores 6-0. 6-1 in favor of Mrs. Phred)

In Morgan City, 60 miles east, there is a 110 foot tower with 61 carillon bells cast in Holland (a photo op) and an oil rig museum.


The carillon bells are closed on Monday and the gates are locked, so we have crawfish gumbo and wait for the 2 PM tour of Mr. Charlie in Morgan City. Mr. Charlie is the first offshore drilling platform. It was constructed from 1952 to 1954. It’s a submersible platform capable of drilling in depths of up to 40 feet.


Mrs. Phred and I are the only people who show up for the 2 o’clock tour. The platform was retired in 1992 and sold for $10. It is currently used to train oil service workers. The company that sold the rig now pays the new owners thousands per worker to train new hires. The old rig is amazingly complex and I listen intently but only understand and absorb a small fraction of the drilling technology. This training program is said to have reduced oil rig worker turnover by 49 percent.

Today rigs float in place in deep water and thrusters keep them in position by monitoring GPS signals.


We are staying in Betty’s RV Park. Betty has a class act in a Louisiana bayou. She has 15 RV sites situated around her house. Every evening at 4 she has a social cocktail hour. We were advised by other travelers to stay here to get a taste of her gumbo, which is made from chicken, sausage, jalapenos and vinegar. I am told that her small RV Park is rated as one on the 25 best in the U.S.


I refuse to suck crawfish heads, but I really like the tails.