Dad traveled everywhere. So when he told us one of the most fun events he ever attended was a fais do-do, a Cajun dance party on a Saturday night deep in the bayous outside Lafayette, Louisiana, it stuck in my mind. I knew the infectiousness of Cajun music, having played with the Mudbugs, a band that reveled in honky swamp swing. Now, finally driving across that same bayou country on a weeknight fifty years after Dad’s visit, we were too early in the week for the fais do-do, but we found the food. Darkness overcame us as we rolled into Pat’s Fisherman’s Wharf in Henderson Louisiana. Pat’s is a family operation (photo). Been serving up Cajun seafood since before I was born. Gumbo and jambalaya, crabs and crawfish, alligator and shrimp, catfish, snapper and oysters, po boys and bread pudding. We were among the last patrons, something I’m always sensitive to, having served in a Cajun restaurant my ownself, and we only sat when they assured us they were gonna stay open for another hour. A good hour it was. We tried almost everything, including crawfish enchiladas. Throughout the meal we had a chance to visit with the family and the servers and the bussers and the folks at nearby tables, in the Cajun tradition of friendly neighbors never met a stranger. Peace out, and pass the hushpuppies.