Quote:
Originally posted by randywebb
In Louisiana, every family aspired to live on a boulevard (so all the people going past in cars could see the house) - so they could show off.
- That was after the basic transition to living in a brick house was made -- that meant you'd made it up into the middle class -- a brick house instead of wood, or even tar paper.
So I think it's a regional thing -- and a cultural one. Malibu (the one we stereotype, David) is just the acme for one broader expression...
......The best recent line is from the trailer for the film 'Bobby' - a Hispanic guy says we didn't move over the border, the border moved over us.
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I spent a large part of my childhood in Louisiana. In Lafayette, it seemed the boulevard was no one's care, and brick houses were nowhere to be found. All a family aspired to was not have their home flooded, which was why everyone's house looked like it was put on concrete jack stands.
I find it unfortunate that the broader expression is also the most transparent and in the end, least thoughtful. Stereotypes serve no purpose but to display vast endemic ignorance from one society to another. Malibu notwithstanding for thoughts of it being nothing more than Tits and Testarossas, Lake Ponchartrain shouldn't just be known for inhabiting (as I've heard people out here say) inbred Cajuns.
Malibu has its Chumash. Lake Ponchartrain has/had its Chitimacha and Oumas, and probably some Blackfoot and Seminole.
BTW: the quote is:
"We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us." I've heard it about 50 times on TV.
