The Ohio Theory
i circled it. i went over it three times. it is still there.
I want to lay something out tonight, and I want you to read the whole thing before you write me, because I know what some of you are going to say, and I know DocFenwick has already typed the first line of it.
Here is a list. Everything on it is public. Most of it is from the parish paper in Le Marais Perdu, which I read faithfully, and the rest is from this board.
A woman moved to that village this spring and wrote to the advice column to learn how to make a roux. She is from Ohio.
A birdwatcher who signs the paper's guestbook every season, counts spoonbills, and was observed looking for a long time at a certain milk jug on a certain lake: Ohio.
A couple who got lost driving to New Orleans in 2008, spent three days in that village, and are "still not 100% sure how we got out": Columbus, Ohio.
Two of the four new students at the high school this year: Ohio. The paper printed that like it was nothing.
The parish bookmobile has not been seen on its route since June. I asked. It is waiting on a part. The part is coming from Ohio.
Friends, Ohio is eight hundred miles away. It has its own rivers. It has its own fish, I assume. There is no reason on God's earth for that many people from Ohio to end up in one village in the Atchafalaya that does not have a working ATM.
DocFenwick says people move, people travel, Ohio is large, and a bookmobile part is a part. He also asked me, and I want to be fair to him, whether I have ever been to Ohio. I have not. I have never met anyone who has been to Ohio and come back to tell me about it. Everybody I know from Ohio is here now.
Here is my read. I am not saying Ohio is not real. I am saying Ohio is very interested in us. It is sending people one at a time, nice people, people who like gumbo and birds and have good manners, and they are settling in, and they are learning to make a roux.
I do not know what Ohio wants. I know the woman who learned the roux now has neighbors at her door every Tuesday. That is how it starts. That is also how you get invited to a veillée. I am keeping an open mind.
I relay. You decide.
In Truth and Terror.
— Beau
