The Napoleonic Code: Louisiana's Wild Legal System

Part of rebuilding New Orleans caused residents often to be challenged with the task of tracing home titles back potentially hundreds of years.

With a community rich with history stretching back over two centuries, houses have been passed along through generations of family, sometimes making it quite difficult to establish ownership.

You have to love this lawyer.......

A New Orleans lawyer sought an FHA loan for a client. He was told the loan would be granted if he could prove satisfactory title to a parcel of property being offered as collateral. The title to the property dated back to 1803, which took the lawyer three months to track down.

After sending the information to the FHA, he received the following reply:
(Actual reply from FHA)

"Upon review of your letter adjoining your client's loan application, we note that the request is supported by an Abstract of Title. While we compliment the able manner in which you have prepared and presented the application, we must point out that you have only cleared title to the proposed collateral property back to 1803. Before final approval can be accorded, it will be necessary to clear the title back to its origin."



Annoyed, the lawyer responded as follows:
(Actual response)

"Your letter regarding title in Case No.189156 has been received. I note that you wish to have title extended further than the 206 years covered by the present application.

I was unaware that any educated person in this country, particularly those working in the property area, would not know that Louisiana was purchased by the United States from France, in 1803 the year of origin identified in our application.

For the edification of uninformed FHA bureaucrats, the title to the land prior to U.S. ownership was obtained from France, which had acquired it by Right of Conquest from Spain. The land came into the possession of Spain by Right of Discovery made in the year 1492 by a sea captain named Christopher Columbus, who had been granted the privilege of seeking a new route to India by the Spanish monarch, Queen Isabella.

The good Queen Isabella, being a pious woman and almost as careful about titles as the FHA, took the precaution of securing the blessing of the Pope before she sold her jewels to finance Columbus's expedition...Now the Pope, as I'm sure you may know, is the emissary of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and God, it is commonly accepted, created this world.

Therefore, I believe it is safe to presume that God also made that part of the world called Louisiana. God, therefore, would be the owner of origin and His origins date back to before the beginning of time, the world as we know it, and the FHA.

I hope you find God's original claim to be satisfactory.

Now, may we have our loan?"

The loan was immediately approved.

And so, do you want the Federal Government running education, and health care, protecting the environment, and our borders, etc.?

Zachary Richard, a true wild man.

I hope I don't scare anyone with this photo, because in person, my friend in the photo below is the most respectful, intelligent, sensitive, quiet, and introverted individual. But you would never know it from the picture below taken at Grant Street Dance Hall for Mardi Gras in 1991.


Blast from the past. Grant Street Dance Hall Mardi Gras 1991. Le bon vieux temps

Below are a couple of more photos which are a little more like Ralph "Zachary" Richard as we know him, when he is not on stage.


Photo courtesy Gregory Holt. From Chartres Street. deep in the heart of the French Quarter


Zachary is one of the people who campaign to represent our Acadian/Cajun/Creole culture in it's true form, and present that to the world. Often we suffer from outsiders attempting to define "What is a Cajun", and grossly misleading the rest of the world. The Renaissance we are presently experiencing culturally here in south Louisiana would not be possible if it were not for people like Zachary who have brought the music abroad.

The Neville Brothers - Fire on the Bayou

How about some New Orleans Funk from the wild men in "The Big Easy"? Enjoy!

A Little Raw And Unedited Footage...

Hi, I am Marcus de la Houssaye, owner and operator of de la Houssaye's Swamp Tours, at Lake Martin. I am also the host of an upcoming reality TV program, called My Wild Louisiana now in production, and soon to be broadcast on the internet and cable.

I decided to release a little of the unedited raw footage of an interesting encounter I had with an American Alligator, on tour with a group of college students from Tulane University, a couple of months ago.



The dog baying the gator is Jesse, who is a Louisiana Catahoula, and he bays a gator as quickly as he would a wild hog! Jesse will be with me on the TV program and also works as a professional blood tracking dog with me during deer season. In the spring and the fall when we aren't doing Lake Martin Swamp Tours, Jesse is a hog dog.

If you would like to contact me for a tour, or if you are interested in my dogs, I can be reached by cell phone at 337 298 2630.

Yvette Landry - It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels

Here is one of the musical wild women of my wild Louisiana.

Louisiana Swamp Tours, and Taco Sisters

It is getting warm, so my Louisiana swamp tours at sunrise and sunset are becoming the norm. And signs of summer are everywhere, such as the American Lotus, now in full bloom.





After the tour yesterday, Christina and I had lunch in Lafayette at Taco Sisters,



home of the smoked fish taco, on the corner of Vermillion and Johnston in Lafayette.

To quote Christina; "These burritos are out of the box. This is the best Mexican food, I've ever eaten."

She had a BBQ brisket burrito



and I had the grilled yellowfin tuna taco





with the homemade salza.

OMG, was it good, and I also ordered a large veggie salad,



thinking we'd have some take home, but we ate it all!





There was no leftovers. The cheese, black olives, tomatoes, greens, and little wedges of apple, topped with house vinnegrete dressing made every mouthful an explosion of flavor, AND, I only used half of the dressing!

And now that I think about it, the salad dressing was the only thing we had to take home, and I did just that.

Open for Lunch
Monday-Friday 11am-6pm
Saturday 11am-2pm

234-TACO (234-8226)
to order ahead and pick up at the drive through

If you are looking for a place to satisfy a healthy vegetarian diet and have fresh smoked fish, shrimp, meat and poultry, Taco Sisters can do.



There are more restaurants per capita in the city of Lafayette, than any othr city in the US, and that means competition is stiff, and the food is very original and almost always has a Cajun twist.

Mexican, Cajun, Mediterreanian, Japanese sushi, or Creole, no matter what you chose for lunch or dinner, the homegrown ingredients and wild caught Louisiana seafood




Lafayette is famous for, will not only satisfy you, it will surprize you with explosions of natural flavor.

Too many travel writers have described our Cajun food as spicy, which is misleading and inacurrate. Described in one word: it should be flavorful. Although for some dishes, and certainly with some chefs, spicy could be an understatement. And in my opinion, a chef who uses too much pepper spice, is not authentic culturally, and not that good.

You will have no problem with the flavor or freshness of the Taco Sisters.

What amazing food Lafayette has.

Prepare to taste the most delicious tacos you've ever had, made with fresh smoked Gulf tuna, smoked Gulf shrimp or savory meats and poultry. Delicious brisket burritos, veggie tacos and salads made with fresh ingredients and lots of love. No frozen food, just homemade specialties with premium ingredients.

I am providing a link to the Taco sisters website here,

and as you can see in the pictures, they have a wonderful outdoor dining



area with a colorful flower garden and some interesting artistic fences.

Typical of Lafayette natives, these women are some of the friendliest

and happiest in the world: open for lunch till 6PM, so if you get there late enough in the day, it could suffice as an early evening meal. You can then go a few blocks up the street to the Blue Moon Saloon for happy hour from 5-7 PM.

Go there, get this amazing food, and you may feel like if you do this too often, a diet and exercise program will be in order.