Deep in the swamps of Louisiana, there’s a friendly subculture of folks that call themselves Cajun. They’re a congenial lot with an accent that teeters between French, Creole and a burnt-out Southern drawl. For a Yankee like me, it’s completely indecipherable.

As part of our total N’awlins experience, we came down to bayou country to experience life in the slow lane. Our host, Carey, is a self-proclaimed “Coon-Ass”—which is offensive on a number of levels outside of Louisiana, but is really slang for a proud, hardcore Cajun boy. “I’m a registered, licensed Coon-Ass,” Carey announced to our group of painfully inept northerners.

I’ll say this much, a nicer guy you will not find. He was the quintessential host with the most all weekend, catering to our every whim.  Cajun boys are hard-working, hard-partying, no-nonsense individuals. You want to keep them on your good sign at all times. They are friendly until provoked and then God help the person that stirs up the hornets nest.

Staying down here is like being immersed in an episode of “True Blood.”  Alligators and humidity rule the roost. Stand in one place long enough and you’ll be covered in Spanish moss. Carey invited our whole motley crew down to his swamp house for an old-fashioned shrimp/crawfish boil.

The Zydego music blared most of the afternoon as we drank ourselves in to relative oblivion.  The only thing missing was the cast of “Steel Magnolias” breezing in saying classic lines like, “My signature colors are blush and bashful.”

The swamp house has a simplistic metal facade. You walk inside and suddenly you’re in a palatial palace of marble tile and 55-inch big screen TV’s. I assume this is what the home of famous NASCAR racecar must be like.

The shrimp feast was legendary. Epic. Monumental.  I’d tell you about it, but I’m slipping in to a food coma. And it’s taking every last bit of energy I have to guess what Carey is saying to me right now. The more he drinks, the thicker his Cajun accent gets.  I think he just offered me dessert. Either that or he’s trying to inform me I’m about to be attacked by a mutant backwater mosquito.

Who’s my (craw)daddy, indeed?