When I was the age of the children slaughtered Tuesday, May 24, 2022, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, our fears were about something completely out of our control: Mushroom clouds.
We had atomic bomb drills every now and then. Sure, hunkering down under a school desk would’ve done little to protect us from nuclear war, but, hey, one never happened, either.
Death by gunfire in school or anywhere, for that matter, was a faraway concept that never entered our minds, the minds of our parents or school officials.
The first death of a real live person by bullets that I was aware of was President John F. Kennedy in November 1963.
In high school, when death did arrive, the lives of my peers were lost in automobile accidents. In fact, from elementary school through high school, not one life was taken by a bullet, or a hail of gunfire.
Had gunshots rang out in the halls then, it would’ve been from a pistol, shotgun or hunting rifle. I would think there would’ve been time to escape or even encounter the shooter upon reloading.
Nowadays, mass murder in schools, grocery stores, places of worship — wherever — potential victims hardly have the opportunity to run or even attempt to stop the killer.
Why is that? In a word and where applicable: the AR-15.
To be clear, the “AR” in AR-15 does not stand for “automatic rifle,” but ArmaLite Rifle, the original maker of the weapon.
However, the rifle’s semi-automatic capabilities alone and the easy conversion to automatic status means little to those whose children and other loved ones have been killed by one.
“AR-15-style assault rifles have been a common trend in some of the deadliest mass shootings. These weapons possess an enormous amount of killing power because they can inflict what one of their designers called ‘maximum wound effect.’ These weapons are generally able to fire far more bullets at a faster rate than manual-action hunting rifles.” — Newsweek, 3/23/21, in a story headlined, ‘AR-15 Rifles Were Used in 26 Percent of the Last 80 Mass Shootings in America’
Also from the same story: “A 2018 study found that fatalities were lower when a federal ban on assault weapons was in effect between 1994 and 2004.”
How about that.
So, “What can we do about mass shootings in the U.S.?” The answer can be found in 1994 and the federal ban on assault weapons.
And I’d even take it further: Ban/Confiscate&Compensate/Destroy.
Curley Taylor and Zydeco Trouble perform at Maison Title’s fourth annual event celebrating its fourth year in Grand Coteau, Louisiana. DCross/photo
by Dominick Cross
It was mid-afternoon on Friday the 13th. Dark storm clouds grew and threatened as the wind whipped-up in and around Lafayette, Louisiana.
A pop-up storm, yet another of Spring 2022, was inbound and Downtown Alive!, the free outdoor concert series in Downtown Lafayette, was cancelled for obvious reasons.
Up in Grand Coteau, a small town some 15 miles north of Lafayette, a different scene would unfold under cloudy skies and a steady breeze. Not one drop of rain would fall.
The phone rang. The excitable voice on the other end happily informed me that Grand Coteau was having it’s own version of DTA! right then and there.
Right around the corner from her abode, hometown fave, Curley Taylor & Zydeco Trouble, had set up on a flatbed trailer in the street in front of Maison Title and were about to play.
And not only that, free crawfish, free hotdogs, free cookie-cake, free beer and other beverages were available while supplies last.
“This is our way of giving back to the community that supports us.”
Leah Graeff
Who’s going to pass up that? Not moi. When I arrived inexcusably later than intended, I would find the crawfish were gone, but everything else was in good supply.
I chatted with some friends and was told Leah Graeff had the keys to the crawfish. I’ve known Graeff mostly for her singing and “creative endeavors” (aptly stated in her bio).
(Backstory: Leah and I met a while back at Dwyer’s Cafe. She was having breakfast with her dad, musician/songwriter Benny Graeff.
(Back-Backstory: I’d been out of town a few years and hadn’t seen Benny in a while. We’d met in the mid-’90s working with Robert Dafford touching up some of Dafford’s frog murals at the Rayne exit on I-10.)
So, at Dwyer’s that morning, I was working through my breakfast, when Benny asks me in a disguised-ish, gravely voice, “Hey, man. I’m hungry. Can I have some of your breakfast?”
I looked up. Leah’s back was to me and Benny, sitting opposite her, just stared at me. Man, this dude is ballsy, I thought, but said aloud, “Looks like you’ve had your breakfast.”
Benny said something else along his initial comment and I was getting a tad uncomfortable and decided to ignore him. Then he says, “Dom. It’s me. Benny. Benny Graeff.”
When he stopped laughing, he introduced me to his daughter.)
Fast-forward to Friday past and Leah Graeff and crawfish and Grand Coteau…
Not that I was surprised the crawfish were gone. Fine. But how did Graeff know, I wondered.
Graeff, a Sunset native, is the executive director at Maison Title, the business that put on the shindig in its courtyard. She wears the marketing hat and a couple of others, too.
I also learned the event wasn’t Grand Coteau DTA! It was an annual celebration, now in its fourth year, that marks when Maison Title opened its doors in Grand Coteau. Maison Title is a real estate transactions company pretty much serving Acadiana.
But there’s more to it than that.
“We like to have events that bring the community out. We like to provide experiences for the people that we do work for in the community, the people we do see everyday,” said Graeff. “The people that we spend our time with.
“It’s how we brand ourselves. That’s how we’d rather spend any money we have to show people who we are,” she said. “We want to do stuff where we get to spend time with people.”
No ads in print or TV. No big billboards, though there’s one small billboard right around the corner by the office Maison Title’s our phone number.
“But, no. No other advertising any other way,” Graeff said. “This is just what we like to do. We’d rather have people front of us and spend time with people that we want to service.”
“This is our way of giving back to the community that supports us,” said Graeff. “For 364 days a year, they’re walking into the building for our attorneys to do work for them, for us to do transactions for their homes.
A couple dance to Curley Taylor & Zydeco Trouble in the courtyard of Maison Title in Grand Coteau, La. DCross/photo
“They support us throughout the year,” she said. “So this is our one day where we put on a big party so we can support everyone.”
I also learned that Maison Title has other such events during the year.
“For Halloween, we do a ‘Carving in the Courtyard’ event that’s similar,” said Graeff. “We don’t have a band, we usually have a DJ because there’s more kids.”
In addition to pumpkin carving, there’s hayrides and other activities for the family. Graeff pointed out a pumpkin patch growing in the courtyard.
“That brings out about the same crowd and it’s all kids. They’re in costumes, the adults are in costumes,” she said.
When the weather is nice during working hours on a Friday, “we’ll have ‘Cooking in the Courtyard’ where we’ll have a huge barbecue pit or if it’s fall/wintertime, we’ll have a big gumbo going,” said Graeff. “So, anybody who walks past is welcome to have lunch. Anyone who has an appointment with an attorney or a closing, stay and have lunch.”
Sure, the whole idea can be considered a business doing business, but it’s also giving back and being a good neighbor. Call it good will.
“It’s fun. This is how we like to meet people and how we like to give people an opportunity to get to know us,” Graeff said. “And we’re doing what we like. We like listening to Cajun and zydeco music. We like hanging out outside and cooking and talking to people.
ARNAUDVILLE — Tommy Malone has always wanted to do what he’s doing now — and that’s his own material.
“It’s something I’ve dipped my toe in all along, even during the subdudes and in-between all the break-ups,” said Malone, frontman of the legendary Americana band out of New Orleans. “It’s just been sitting there and rarely do I get to play any of it.”
“So I’ve always had a hankering — always liked that word, hankering — to do this other material,” Malone said. “It’s just been sitting there and rarely do I get to play any of it.
“So, I’ll be bringing stuff that I’ve had for sometime, honestly, but haven’t had much of a chance to play for people,” he said.
NuNu’s is located at 1510 Bayou Courtableau Hwy. Tickets are $25 and available here.
“I’ve got this kind of hybrid guitar that’s somewhere between an acoustic and a baritone,” said Malone. “It’s what I use when I go on the road.”
The pandemic did a lot of things to a lot of people and most of it did not so good. For Malone and the subdudes, it brought an end to the band and a new beginning for the musicians.
“The group finally laid it to rest,” said Malone, who began charting a new, personal route for himself when covid hit the U.S. in March 2020. “And then simultaneously, the ’dudes just broke up.”
Malone said the split was something everyone agreed on.
“It just wasn’t fun anymore. It wasn’t creative. It wasn’t fun,” he said. “It seemed like everybody was interested in doing other things. It was kind of like the perfect time.
“It was mutual with everybody,” said Malone. “I’ve made peace with my fellas. Everybody’s doing fine and doing things they love; creative projects and stuff.”
Malone’s 2022 tour schedule takes him to Oklahoma, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Richmond and and he’s working on other shows in Annapolis, Philadelphia, Texas and the West Coast.
“I want it to be fun, creative and simple and I want it to make sense.”
Tommy Malone
Time and wisdom has Malone taking a different approach to performing, and keeping it to two gigs per outing figures prominently into it.
“I keep it simple. I limit my shows to two. I’ll go out, I’ll do two and I’ll come home,” he said. “I want it to be fun, not terribly difficult or draining. Even my voice, it won’t hold up like it used to.
“Simpler and easier is how I approach it, where it’s fun again. I feel like we used to always try to pack too much in. By the end of it, you’re just beat and worn out. Everybody’s in a bad mood.
“I want it to be fun, creative and simple and I want it to make sense,” said Malone. “And I want to go where people really are interested.”
In other words, the veteran musician is past the days of building an audience.
“I mean, that’s silly,” Malone said. “I have to take advantage of what I have now, or have done in the past, and work with that.
“But it is a young man’s game, you know?” he said. “But I’m happy to just go where people want to hear it.
“Like I said, do two shows on the road and then come home. And that is my approach,” Malone said. “Get a good night’s rest, eat well, take care of business, and that’s it, man. No delusions of grandeur.”
Come October, Malone hopes to be in Northern California “to do some recording,” with a full band, he said. “It’ll be my project, so I’m excited about that.”
Looking back on his music career, Malone pretty much jumped in the deep end and learned to swim.
“No plan,” said Malone. “Like Van Morrison said, ‘No plan B.’ I didn’t have any frickin’ plans. I was flailing around like a mongoose. I don’t know, you know what they say, stuff happens like it’s supposed to, I guess.
“But I feel very lucky. Very lucky that. I’m able to do this, still,” he said. “I don’t know if that sounds hokey or cheesy, but I’m amazed.
“I wasn’t real sure when the pandemic hit. I was going through some other stuff. It was good, but it was difficult and it kind of put you into some soul-searching mode like, ‘Man. What am I doing?’
“I almost wanted to quit,” Malone continued. “I almost just wanted to quit music and putter around the house ’til I’m 67 and get my social security and Medicare.
“Just write songs and just sit in my little space, play for myself,” he said. “But a friend of mine who was in the last version of the subdudes — Tim Cook — he’s a dear friend and he really was inspirational in getting me wanting to play again. He really was. So I’m grateful for that, too.”
Cook now manages Malone, who lives in Metairie.
“You know what, I never dreamed of living in Metairie. I was kinda like, ‘Metairie? Oh, lord,’” said Malone with a laugh. “But we’ve got this beautiful little house, nice backyard, and I’ve got a music space in a separate building.
“It’s quiet. It doesn’t flood, big plus,” he said. “Crime is honestly not an issue. I kinda like it. Kinda like it.”
