Travelogue: Brownell Memorial Park Carillon and The Mystery of the Morgan City Rambler

A few years ago, I was at Grand Isle, LA, but I was not fishing, crabbing, shrimping, or beaching like the other whales. I was watching cable access television. Some glorious local program, sponsored by a local motorcycle company, featured a hip leather-jacket-clad couple gallivanting around strange locations in South Louisiana. At some point, much like a fever dream in a Stephen King novel, there was a massive tower in the middle of nowhere, full of ringing bells.  I sat up, entranced by its blissful, alien melodies.
"I am going to this place," I sang in whale song.
I began my journey, aka, I did not go to that place and lived my normal life for several years, then thought, oh yeah, that bell thing, and went a couple of weeks ago. Here, translated from my native Whaleanese, which is essentially just yiddish with more bubbles, is the tale of my adventure. Please blame all of the typos and grammatical errors on the translator, a wily moray eel named Frank that I met through Craig's List.  Okay, Frank, put some dots right here, or something.

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I set out for Morgan City not so early in the morning because the bell thing, or Carillon, located in Morgan City, LA, did not open until ten that morning. Research, which I don't really like to do for these travelogues, instead just typing whatever stupid garbage first pops into my mind, shows that the 106-feet tall Carillon features 61 bells. varying in size between 18 and 4730 pounds, and was built by someone with entirely too much disposable income back when people could afford such things. Songs of great depth can be played through the Carillon by means of an actual human sitting at a clavier. Clavier sounds like clavicle. It would be cool if the clavier was made out of clavicles.
A clavier is like a piano, and that cable access show I watched featured footage from the top of the tower, where an actual human played songs on the bells through a clavier.  Now you possibly know what a Carillon is, or you just got bored and clicked your bookmarked porn or knitting site of choice, and are still waiting for it to load.
For those still with me, Morgan City is a town in South Louisiana. I'd say it is on the ocean, or more specifically, on the Gulf of Mexico, but in South Louisiana, outside of Grand Isle, no town is actually on the ocean.  It is generally the town, and then 10-20 miles of mud, and then the ocean. Plus, our whole state is slowly sinking into the gulf, thanks to the weight of deposited sediment. Thanks a lot, Father of Waters.
I had never been to Morgan City before, even though it is 90-minutes from my house. I set out on a nearly empty stomach because I heard they feed you real good in Morgan City, and I was tired of eating nothing but krill. Eh, I'm tired of the "I'm a whale" joke already. I'll drop it now, I guess (ED. NOTE: Wait, am I still getting paid? I have a family to support. How will I feed my eel pups? The minnow harvest was low this year. My wife has been giving her portion to the kids every night. Did you know we lay over 10,000 eggs. Do you have any idea how much food it takes to feed 10,000 starving eels? My wife is wasting away! I'm so weak, I can barely type this! Pl). Yes, it is definitely time to drop this dumb whale schtick. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes.
The day before my trip, I wanted to head to FYE. I have this tradition of purchasing cheap used CD's blind, and then listening to them on road trips. Not only is this fun and surprising, but sometimes you happen upon a real winner. See: this travelogue for reference.
However, this winter, FYE closed. Physical media is dead. I decided to instead do the digital equivalent and purchase three $5 albums blind from Amazon's digital store, because that plucky little company could use a little more capital.
I put on one of these albums, Past Life, by a new band called Unwill. This album is metalcore in the style of Underoath, by which I mean it is by 20-year-old white, middle-class dudes with their whole lives ahead of them, who hate themselves and wish they were dead, which in turn makes me feel really old and out of touch. It was pretty good.
The drive to Morgan City was very swampy, and I got to travel down one of my favorite stretches of Louisiana highway, LA 69 (also, if LA 69 PM's you, IGNORE). LA 69, once you pass the speed trap in White Castle (not the burger place, the impoverished, badly aging town that needs to catch you speeding to make rent), runs along Avoca Island Cutoff Bayou, and there are houses on the other side of the bayou that can only be reached by tiny, hand-pulled, wood-plank ferries. Lest this sound like some made-up thing I saw on a True Detective episode, here is a picture I took for proof. There are five or six houses like this along the bayou, and this is one of the reasons I love Louisiana.

I then took a right onto Highway 70 at Pierre Part, crossed a bridge I once saw at a distance at sunset while driving my cousin to his bachelor party at a Pierre Part Bar called Crobar. For some reason, though, I couldn't remember where Crobar was, only that there were a lot of bug and animal noises outside when we were leaving it, and Google maps it in the middle of a swamp. Hmm...

I then drove along Louisiana's most prevalent landmass, a levee, for quite some time, until I saw a sign along the highway, and took a hard left into the woods.

I crossed my fingers and hoped that Brownell Memorial Park was free to enter...and just like your mother, it was!
I drove a short distance and ended up at a classic swamp shack (still waiting to see my first "post-modern" swamp shack).

The shack was manned by a very nice, talkative woman. An elderly Colorado couple happened to pull up at the same time as me, and bore the brunt of her sweet hospitality, but when I saw a poster for Tarzan of the Apes, I had to ask, "Was this movie shot here?"

"Yes," she replied. "We actually showed a screening of it a few years ago...it was...well...um...it was...interesting."
Well, with a tagline like "TARZAN DID NOT KNOW WHY HE CARESSED HER...HE HAD NEVER SEEN A WHITE WOMAN BEFORE," I don't understand why it could have been anything out of the ordinary, but seeing as my own wife is not white, maybe I am missing something. Do white women have some kind of magical power? Should I try to caress one?
After looking at some photos of the bells' construction, I headed back out to the walking path. Brownell Memorial Park borders Lake Palourde, which is part of the Atchafalaya Basin. Also, a manatee was spotted there last year! but I didn't see it (ED. NOTE: That's because the manatee, washed into the lake by a storm, shortly died in the fresh, cold water). Brownell Memorial Park is like my wife of non-European descent-- and this is no offense to the women whose mere presence causes Tarzan to compulsively caress them-- beautiful, but in an entirely different way, though I guess I could make a bunch of awful double-entendrees about swamp and hanging moss or something. This is a family blog, though, so you perverted, life-hating liberals will get none of that!

Also, there's a sculpture of some dude just chilling with a bunch of raccoons, with absolutely no explanation. And this is one of the reasons I love Louisiana.

Wait, it looks like there's an explanatory plaque right to his left. How could I have missed that? But wait, why is it on his left side? More liberal lies and distortion!
Speaking of lies, you know how I told you that The Carillon has 61 bells that are played by a clavier? Apparently, the one at Brownell Memorial Park is only played on special occasions.  The rest of the time, every fifteen minutes, speakers, controlled by a computer, play pre-recorded bell music. I realized this after seeing the mysterious tower rise up out of the woods, then produce beautiful music without a single bell ringing...wait a minute...oh, no. I just realized something. The bells are hammered. Not rung. So actually, the computer program might still be ringing the bells. I just wouldn't be able to see them ringing, because they wouldn't be moving. Oh crap, I need to make a phone call real quick...here's a picture I took of the tower to keep you occupied--

(30 MINUTES LATER)
--okay, I just had the most charming conversation with the lovely older woman in the visitor's center, as well as a woman in the Morgan City tourism department. It turns out that neither of them actually know if the computer program is playing the bells, or just playing pre-recorded music...but I don't recall seeing any kind of speaker up there. Maybe the bells were really ringing. Maybe, instead of just having knee jerk reactions, I should make sure my opinions are informed by thoughtful dialogue and the accrual of facts. Nah, that just sounds like some kind of snowflake jibber-jabber! This is a free country, and I can think what I want!
Anyway, as a cool peaceful breeze blew off the lake, I sat in peace and filmed the tower chiming 11, and playing a couple of songs.

I then got up to take a walk around Brownell Park's lovely, but incredibly short walking paths.
This is when I felt the pain on my butt.
Something was biting me and it wasn't existential dread, or the encroachment of time; this wasn't metaphysical, but an actual creature with teeth, sinking those teeth into the left cheek of my buttocks.
I immediately spanked myself, unfortunately in front of that couple from Colorado, and then fled to a private place in the woods where I could stick my hand down my pants, which is something I'm thinking about putting on my Linked In account. After fishing around, fearing a large black widow and leg meat-liquidification, I discovered, removed, and promptly crushed the culprit: a large fire ant. I hate those guys. By this point, the Colorado couple had fled, and I had the Park all to myself, including this lovely vista.

I then did what every sane person would do in that instance: I sat on a bench and played Chrono Trigger on my DS for an hour.

After a lovely gameplay session, I looked up to see a little friend from the game had come to life, and was sitting on a broken bench on the edge of the lake.

Most people would take this frog as a sign that God or the universe loves them, or would simply think, "What a lovely frog!" or (if you're a hypocritical, offspring-hating liberal) "What a horrid frog, let me squash it with my shoe so it doesn't spawn!" but I instead thought this:
Wait a minute, did Chris from work give me this copy of Chrono Trigger, or did he just loan it to me? Will I have to give it back some day? Should I ask him if he gave it to me, or if he wants money for it, or if he wants it back some day? What if he did give it to me, but he forgot that he gave it to me, and will then want something for it if I mention it to him? But aren't material goods impermanent? Chrono Trigger is your favorite video game of all time, and has been for 20 years. You still have your original Super Nintendo copy, which still works and holds your original save file. This portable version, which you received for free, is only a convenience, and you can't take either version with you when you die! But what if they don't even make it that long? Video game systems weren't meant to last for decades upon decades. Eventually, all of the video games and systems you've collected will not only become obsolete, but non-functional. But then, won't physical media go the way of the dodo, anyway? Look at what just happened to FYE. Won't everything be easily available digitally? Even if isn't, and the physical copies of your video games still somehow miraculously work, are you going to be playing Chrono Trigger on your DS in bed in 50 years when you are in your mid-80's? No, probably not. It's not material goods that matter. It's people. It's human relationships. Wait a minute, how did I get to this section of woods? I haven't even been paying attention to my physical surroundings, I have been lost so deeply in this metaphysical, existential mental quandary. Look what's staring at me? A huge owl! My, how we can miss the beauty of creation by worrying about possessions and property. Who owns this beautiful owl? Who can know if it has a soul? But seriously, though, did Chris say I could have this, or did he just loan it to me?

After all this foolishness, I realized I was hungry and left.
I took Highway 70 into Morgan City, and searched for the near legendary Morgan's Restaurant. This restaurant, like Dolly Parton, is famous for two things (in her case, her wit and humor):
1. Its near perfect rating and status as top-ranked Morgan City restaurant on Trip Adviser. For some perspective, when people talk about Louisiana food being the best in the world, they're talking about the food in a town like Morgan City.
2. It is located in a hotel lobby.
That's right, the highest-rated restaurant in a town more full of good food than Uncle Scrooge's Money Bin is full of doubloons' best restaurant shares a space with the Clarion Inn Hotel.

Let me tell you something else ("Please" let me tell you something else?): Morgan's is a buffet--it has a full menu, but the buffet is its claim to fame. In the early 2000's, after the Beau Rivage casino in Biloxi was constructed, many people, myself included, were excited about its buffet--I don't gamble, but I do eat. Unfortunately, I have never found the Beau Rivage buffet very satisfying. Morgan's kills it. It is everything I wanted Beau Rivage to be. The food at Morgan's skews more typically "Southern" than "Cajun"---think smothered fried chicken over jambalaya--but good gravy, and I ate a whole lot of gravy that day, it was delicious. I didn't take any pictures of my food because that would have just been obscene, considering the amount of plates I put away, and the three tall glasses of Dr. Pepper and Sweet Tea (always capitalized) I dumped down my gullet. At some point, my wife called me, and her sweet voice lifted me out of my eating-induced stupor. Full of good food and my wife's optimism, I drove around Morgan City aimlessly.
Morgan City, like most towns in South Louisiana, has three markers.
Giant Catholic Church around which the entire town is based:

Check.
Cemetary that holds a sum of bodies greater than the entire current population of the town.

Check.
Badly aging, down-on-its-luck downtown area that's seen better days.
Check, and mate.
Actually, I am only saying that about Morgan City's downtown to serve a narrative I already predetermined before even visiting the city, something I learned from those godless liberals I heard about on TV. The downtown is actually composed of several streets, contains a park with a cool fountain, and an awesome-looking blues bar that I will surely visit if I ever find myself in the vicinity of Morgan City after dark.
Another interesting fact: following the will of our fearless leader, who God obviously intends to use in a sort of pussy-grabbing Moses role to lead us to the promised land, you stupid godless libtards, Morgan City is a walled city. In all seriousness, there is a wall protecting the city from the Atchafalaya River, who, much like our President, can get a little too handsy. This makes for quite a strange effect, but rather than some nebulous concept, like a murdering, raping, job-stealing immigrant, it keeps out something that is only fluid on an elemental level.
The truth is, Morgan City has a cool, totally unique vibe and attitude. I mean, you are welcomed into the town by a shrimp boat.

Which is a great insult to any shrimp visiting from out of town, but for everyone else, it is an original, warm welcome.
Bolstered by this knowledge, my wife's encouragement, and the rather alarming quantity of medicinals I procured from the local Walgreen's to counter-effect the feeling of consuming double-digit pounds of food, I decided to re-visit Brownell Memorial Park Carillon on the way out of town.
I leapt out of my car, strode through the woods, past the tower, to the lapping shores of Lake Palourde, where I pissed into the waves as a conqueror.