Jeanette Ray – Bachelor’s Degree and Master’s Degree, 1984

Jeanette Ray
1984

                All my childhood growing up in New Jersey I had to hear my father express how much he missed the life he knew having grown up in the Mamou/Eunice area of Louisiana. His mother had been of Cajun descent being a “Manuel” and the aunt who helped raise him was a “Fontenot.”

When deciding on what college I would attend, the choice was easy. In August, 1977, at the age of 17, I arrived on the campus of the University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1500 miles away from “home.”

                My parents and brothers drove away in the station wagon, my mother reassuring me, “It’s not too late to change your mind.” Those words, I learned my first semester, would become my safety net; if the homesickness ever became unbearable, I could always “go home.” That never happened.

                Twenty one years later, I still say that choosing USL was the single most important decision of my  life. What was supposed to be four years of college in Louisiana turned into a total of eight years in Lafayette with both a Bachelors and Masters degree from USL,  and nine additional years working in New Orleans. Proudly I say that I lived in Louisiana as long as I lived in New Jersey.

                Arriving in Lafayette in 1977, it did not take me long to experience the “joie de vivre” that my father spoke about so frequently. I quickly embraced the people (and vice versa!), the language, the music, the dance, the food. My career in health care has since taken me to Atlanta, Georgia. How comforted I was arriving in Atlanta two years ago to learn they had an “Atlanta Cajun Dance Association” (ACDA). I joined the A the first week  I arrived; thus, I still get to enjoy the music, dance and food of Southwest Louisiana at least once a month. It’s not Louisiana; for it is there that I left my soul. But I get to hear the music, dance the two step, waltz and jitterbug. Reminiscing like this is good, yet hard; it’s on days like this that I miss my life “back there” and find tears welling up in my eyes.

                Thanks for allowing me to share my story.