ANNA MONICA / L’Observateur / August 30, 2000

Pattifest brought community together

Bad news always makes the news, doesn’t it? Good news doesn’t have it so good! For instance, when people, every day, every where, perform a myriad number of acts of kindness, there are no songs sung or on their behalf. That’s life, perhaps, and it’s unfortunate because there is so muchgood out there being done by the “quiet people,” and there are many of them in our neighboring parish.

It was easy to meet people we knew at the much-publicized “Pattifest” a couple of weeks ago because there was so many of them. The event, held toraise money for Patti Amato of St. James Parish, was good news that didmake the news because of the care and generosity of citizens in and around the area.

I use to spend plenty time in St. James Parish when I worked with theLutcher High School Fellowship of Christian Athlete girls and played quite a bit of tennis there as well as took lessons from the well-known and well-liked “Coach Wes.” The first tennis tournament I ever played wasthere, and I first learned to swim, as an adult (later in life than I will admit), in the Gramercy pool. The place hasn’t changed much, and one caneasily pick up where one left off. People there are quick to come together,as they did for Patti, and it is really easy to be comfortable there.

Patti is the sister of Tina Guidry, my cousin Keith’s wife. I haven’t mether, but Dr. Dana, a St. James native, and I wanted to do something to helpthe cause for Patti, so we went to the fest. While Dana beamed andaccepted congratulations from old friends for earning her M.D., I had noproblem getting friendly with the people cooking and serving food, plenty of food. For instance, Buggy Lemoine and Zip Zimmer, who I captured asfeatured cooks last week, gave me a list of products used, I believe, by a group called the “weekend cooks.” They cooked all day throughout theweekend in addition to the other cooks doing their specialties.

Here is some fascinating information I found out. First, the productsincluded 800 lbs. of smoked sausage, 800 lbs. of cubed pork, 150 lbs. ofground beef, 75 lbs. of ground pork, 200 lbs. of fresh sausage, 1,000 lbs. ofonions, 150 lbs. of pepper, 100 lbs. of celery, 100 packages of shallots,1,000 lbs. of rice, 300 lbs. of spaghetti, 2,000 hamburgers, 1,000 hot dogsand 75 gallons of propane.

Then, these cooks, besides Buggy and Zip, included Kirt Brady, Stephen Louque, Danny Martin, Milton Martin Sr., Kenny Martin, Randy Millet, JohnnyLouque and Dave LaBorde. That’s not all though, because others were RickyMillet, Eugene Louque, Charlie Brock, Ronald Louque, Lyle Cambre, Shelby Oubre, Timmy Roussel, Kimbo Roussel and Kenneth Foret. Whereas I don’thave names of other very giving people who worked hard for the event, I do have more cooks (and I plan to get them for the cooking column), and they are Milton Lambert, Leo Lambert, Steve LeMoine, Jr. Ted Bourgeois, RobbieOckmond and Christopher Speaks.

The LPG Hunting Club sold food as did cooks Mickey LeMoine, Chris Louque, Poncho Roussel, Paul Hayes, R. J. St. Pierre, Dwain Richard, Todd Detillierand family, Noble’s Restaurant, Spuddy’s Cajun Foods and Mr. Burger. Mostof us ate while we were there, so it was easy to get to know these friendly cooks and good people who gave so much of themselves that weekend.

Allen St. Pierre, a St. John councilman, cooked for the event, too, and manynice comments were made about the help given by St. John. My neighbor,Gloria Borne, for instance made goodies to send there while daughter-in- law, Kathy, collected money. Tommy Bourgeois, coordinator of the eventand brother of my sister-in-law, Linda, never seems to tire of good deeds.

If we could always read about this kind of news and concern for each other as exhibited by the St. James population, we could have total improvementin attitude toward the world we live in. Anyhow, that is what I believe,and I greatly admire the people of St. James.

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