The Place I Call Home

Louisiana is the place I call home; the place my heart will always call home. When I think of my home my mind goes to the Old Town Soda Shop in my hometown of Slidell, Louisiana. My mind goes to that place where I am sitting at a wrought iron table among a group of friends laughing and smiling, just enjoying the company of good friends in an atmosphere where times seems to just move a little bit slower and there is no rush for anything. My friends and I spent hours and hours in the Soda Shop on Fridays during high school, just hanging out and getting a break from the monotony of the everyday routine; that is until Hurricane Katrina. Slidell is located on Lake Ponchartrain, leaving the Old Town Soda Shop only a few miles from the lake. Hurricane Katrina left a major portion of Slidell devastated and completely flooded the Soda Shop. The owners made the hard choice to not reopen its doors. So a landmark of my past, a place that houses many cherished memories, will not be known to future generations.

Louisiana as a whole has this sense of small town feel, just the same as the Old Town Soda Shop. Visitors, no matter where they are from, are made to feel like they are a part of the culture that is Louisiana. They are welcomed with open arms into whatever is taking place, whether it is Mardi Gras, a crawfish boil, or just sitting around in a local “hole in the wall” restaurant visiting with friends and family. My picture represents that aspect of Louisiana that epitomizes southern hospitality and gives Louisiana that warm friendly feel.

There is another aspect of Louisiana my picture represents, while Louisiana’s location on the Gulf of Mexico in part makes it the “sportsman’s paradise” and makes Louisiana culturally rich it also leaves Louisiana vulnerable to Mother Nature, in the form of hurricanes. Part of calling Louisiana home involves having to pick up the pieces after a hurricane hits. Hurricanes are devastating because they not only cause physical damage but they also can take away places that are a part of Louisiana’s culture and they cannot always be brought back. After a hurricane hits and the flood waters are subsided it is up to us to clean up the pieces and put them together as best we can, but sometimes the pieces cannot be put back together and fixed and we lose local wonders like the Old Town Soda Shop. When it comes that we lose local wonders we should keep their memory alive by oral tradition and making sure future generations know the history of the place we call home. We should let future generations know about the places of in our history so the great local places of Louisiana are not forgotten.