Reporting from Morgan City, La.– After the BP oil spill, the organizers of one of America's more unusual civic celebrations began fielding the phone calls, the ones that invariably asked: Are you really going to have it this year?
In response, they erected a big billboard on U.S. 90 as it winds west from New Orleans through the heart of Cajun country.
"YES," the sign said. "We Are Having 75th Annual Shrimp and Petroleum Festival."
Morgan City's civic leaders never doubted they would green-light their paean to crustaceans and crude, even though one of the featured industries has been threatening, of late, to wipe the other one out.
"We still need both," said Lee Darce, assistant director and vendor chairwoman of the festival, as she drove a golf cart on this muggy September Sunday among busy booths hawking boiled shrimp, shrimp on a stick, bacon-wrapped shrimp and shrimp etouffee. "That's what makes our community. That's our lifeblood."
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