Jimbaux welcomes you to where time stands still
No one leaves and no one will
Moon is full, never seems to change
Just labelled mentally deranged.
Hi, there. Today, I decided to take a bunch of pictures in Lafayette.
Since this is the first blog article since the first day of the month, I’ll write about what has happened since then.
If you are here only for the pictures, scroll down until the “Today” subheading.
The First Week Of October
On Wednesday The 4th, I rode Dalton Road between Kaplan and Abbeville for the first time, and I passed over a railroad track! What the hell am I doing there anyway? This branch has been gone for 30 years, but rails are still there in the crossing. I got essentially excluded from the Kaplan gym, too. There was a dude at the Kaplan gym who kept saying “brung”.
Cora posted some “close the border” stuff on Facebook. I’ve been thinking lately about Democrats validating Republicans’ premises on the border.
I have been planning a trip to Lake Charles in order to, among other things, shoot the neat Port Rail job again, and, early this month, I got the idea of eating at Waffle House in Lake Charles due to the fasting that I have been doing, because I want to eat a breakfasty food late in the afternoon. I thought that I would have gone there by now, but, I have not, which is why you’re looking at these pictures!
The morning of October 6 was beautiful, because it was quite cloudy, and there was a breeze.
If I still were at home, I totally would photograph the UP local train there every day if I could, if I still lived that close to it.
On the morning of the 7th, I was out walking in the morning and almost needed a jacket, with the temperature dropping during the walk. I had been thinking about my business rail transload idea.
The Second Week Of October
Sunday The 8th was a nice cold morning that made me homesick. I was cold on the morning walk! I had a light sweater on but was underdressed.
Late 2011 was that fun time before the bomb was dropped on me a year later, before the bad ending of my mostly-glorious time at Buccaneer Place. I am thinking about the sharp contrasts in my moods between late 2011 and late 2013, as I look at the pictures that I post from that time, because the bomb was dropped between those times.
On October 10, south of Lafayette, I saw a sugarcane truck! It’s my first sighting of the season. I miss them. If you can’t see trains or can’t see cool trains, then you can see sugarcane trucks, though it would be neat if we still had sugarcane trains. Harvest is projected to be bad this year, which makes me fearful of our future.
On the 10th, I got down below 178 pounds. The morning fasting is somewhat killing my energy during the day. I saw the Ableist Gym Manager at the gym working out in the dumbbell area. I don’t think that she saw me, but I saw her.
I had planned to do a walk of downtown Lafayette on the 10th, but I changed my mind due to the fact that it was supposed to be warmer and cloudy, which it was. I then planned on doing it on Friday, the 13th, but that didn’t happen.
I was processing late September 2014 pictures on the 10th and-or 11th. I miss the Union Pacific Railroad. If I lived back home, I’d try to photograph the UP local just about every day. Yeah, I said that already. It’s important, though.
I think that it was Friday night that I talked to Precious on a video chat that lasted for hours, which was, actually, precious.
Yesterday – The Disasters Of Fascism And Ableism
Yesterday, the 14th, was a mostly terrible day.
I was not prepared for the election, didn’t know about amendments.
The election was yesterday, and we will not even have a runoff for Governor. It is sad, tragic, infuriating, and demoralizing. Pretty much everyone, including people said that it was a near certainty that Landry would win and figured that we would have a runoff.
Even The Duke, of all people, was talking about waiting until the runoff to vote! WTH?
Plenty of Democratic-leaning people have left the state over the last several years.
The Ableist Gym Manager and her husband were at the gym. We had to avoid each other, except that I didn’t really avoid her, even though I didn’t approach her. She looked away from me.
When I walked in and went to stretch in the stretch area, she came from the bathroom and walked to where her husband was almost due north of me but on the other side of the gym and whispered something in his ear, after which he looked my way. That means that she had already talked to him about me and that she was pointing me out to him. They were there, both of them wearing earbuds, and, other than that encounter, hardly talked to each other while there.
That cigarette stinky guy was at the gym, even though he didn’t smell like cigarettes, but it reminded me of what Ableist Gym Manager did.
It reminded me of everything, that this is how this whole ableist society works, and then Jeff Landry gets elected.
No, I am not oppositional by nature. I am autistic, but it’s the way that society treats people like me. In a sense, it is society that is oppositional. It’s really terrible that I am forced to be this way.
She had initially, in 2019, been so nice and cordial to me. She was so nice and cordial when I more recently encountered her again. That’s how demoralizing it is. This is a person whom I thought I could trust. Even that person won’t protect you when you need it the most, when you’re the person who needs the most help. It’s sanctuary trauma and her people pleasing. She is a sellout.
This whole confrontation happened because of what other people are doing, and it’s only recently, for the first time in my life, that I have a language to explain that; that language came from people who are immunocompromised and have dietary restrictions and from watching the way that people like one Mobley treated her, from disabled people absolutely demoralized that society was just deliberately sidelining them.
It helped me to realize that, no, I have not been in the wrong all this time in my life.
It is demoralizing, because it made me realize that people won’t change, which is why my life always was hopeless. The only good thing about that is knowing that there was nothing that I could have done to avoid this fate, nothing that I did wrong that caused me to suffer as I now suffer.
I am not, by nature, oppositional. I was made that way by other people.
I learned from disabled people, from Nicole Lee Schroeder.
Family gatherings are inaccessible both here and home.
A couple of weeks ago, I encountered Randall and Ryan encountering each other one morning, the latter asking the former if you think “they’ll shut down the government,” and Randall saying “I hope so.”
Well, to hell with him. What a jerk he is.
This is where my hyperindividualism comes from. It comes from trauma inflicted upon me by this horrendous society.
Anyway, I actually had a pretty good workout at the gym. I worked out chest, shoulders, and triceps. I did six reps of 225 pounds the bench press on my last set and then went to Walmart. For the rest of the day, though, I was very tired and couldn’t get anything done.
I really haven’t been eating white beans, red beans, and lentil soup lately, because I have been fasting.
Today
The morning walk today was cold. I was wearing gloves and a sweater!
I had some issues with my audio recorder today, with being told that the memory was full, with recordings suddenly stopping.
Today’s big theme, however, was excrement, as, thrice, I nearly pooped on myself, and largely because of the dearth of public bathrooms in this exclusionary society.
Thrice today, I almost crapped on myself. The first time was my first time in the Acadiana Mall. There were no bathrooms by the entrance. I had to powerwalk in a sphincter-tightening way to the bathroom in some department store, Dillards. I had to power walk in a very weird way all the way to the back of the building.
It was a relief when that was done, but how do you not have bathrooms at the entrance?
Anyway, I did intend to purchase apparel at the mall.
Then, I walked around the mall. I had never been in there before, even though I drive past it often. That stressful, near-disastrous experience was my introduction to Acadiana Mall.
I think that these pictures – the one immediately above and the one immediately below – were of ableist retailers who were blasting painfully loud music. I came here to get clothes, and you are repelling me from this place. Walmart doesn’t do this. Target doesn’t do this. Kohl’s doesn’t do this.
This is downright obnoxious, and, yet, almost no one complains about it.
I bought some shoes at a different store.
While I was there, I telephoned some pictures of the place to The Cajun Porkchop, being that I was in his part of the world. His swift response revealed that he was more familiar with the place than I realized.
Porkchop said that the mall was a big part of his life. His mother had a job somewhere in the mall, which meant that he had to spend time there, and, then, later, he himself had a job there.
Anyway, after all of that, I went north and realized that the brown bears were again calling my name. I went into the Raising Cane’s on the corner of Kaliste Saloom Road and Pinhook Road and did the disgusting business. After that, though I was hungry, and though I could have gone for some Raising Cane’s food, I decided to not eat there, because the music was so damn loud.
To hell with this awful, obnoxious, ableist crap! I guess that I really am, in multiple ways, too old for Raising Cane’s.
The last time that I ate at a Raising Cane’s was when I was in Lake Charles in August, which I realize was not that long ago. Still, even taking my decreased fast-food consumption into account, I patronize that place much less often than I once did.
So, then, I went across the road to Whataburger and had a combo meal, one of those sweet-and-spicy burgers, nothing really special.
As I have hoped would happen, I am getting jaded with Whataburger!
Then, I went to the post office in Oil Center.
I like the half-century-oldness of this place!
I don’t really want to be in Oil Center, though.
Still, I wanted to check out this place. There was some kind of music festival happening at Girard Park, to the west.
Then, I zigzagged downtown without a map.
I got downtown, to the transportation station, and it was some time after that point that the third incident of nearly crapping on myself happened, but I don’t quite remember the order in which the events that preceded it happened. This building was closed, which I didn’t realize.
I went north of the depot to scope out the area for a picture. It was either after that or, less likely, after I returned to the area after taking pictures of the eastbound train that I had to run and find a toilet. The coffee shop that I wanted to visit was closed! I think that I went to the Greenroom place to relieve myself.
That, on top of the prior two similar incidents already today, was mildly traumatizing.
It must have been only after that that I felt comfortable enough to snap a few images.
Then, I went to the downtown post office and then, saw and photographed the eastbound train.
I discovered that, even though there are post office boxes downtown, unlike the Oil Center place, you can’t get in there! I don’t like that!
I came out of the post office and heard a horn. It sounded like it was coming from the west, and I went and grabbed the camera out of the truck.
Sure enough, there was a southbound BNSF Railway manifest train.
Southbound? Did I just say “southbound”?
I photographed this eastbound train north of the Amtrak station, north of Jefferson Street.
Hey, look, there is some more Hardie backer board! I saw some coming through here in May. I wonder where it is going.
Yeah, I discovered this old spur.
I do wonder what the story behind it is.
Here is the rear end of the train.
So, there was one locomotive on the front and one locomotive on the rear.
This might have been when I hurriedly went to find a toilet, the latest that this last of three such events today could have occurred.
Anyway, this is downtown Lafayette.
It’s not as nice as other downtowns that I have known, but I am trying to make myself learn to like it, as I don’t have much of a choice.
I had wanted to visit this coffee shop today.
This is downtown, baby.
You are here, even if you are not here.
I went to walk in some areas where I have not yet walked.
This is interesting, I guess.
This structure appears to have been for a railroad customer at one time.
It appears to be where that spur diverging from the mainline seen earlier went.
That kind of railroading was so cool.
That is especially true given the coolness of the cars from back then.
I want to know more about this place.
This is the view across West Second Street at West Cypress Street.
Here I am at Monroe Street.
This is a northward view along Monroe Street toward West Simcoe Street.
Here is a westward view along West Simcoe Street at Monroe Street.
Here is the view in the other direction, toward the railroad crossing.
This is 111 Monroe Street.
This is an eastward view of BR Junction at South Pierce Street.
This is where the Breaux Bridge Branch begins, and it’s called “BR Junction” because this branch once went all the way to Baton Rouge via a ferry over the Mississippi River until the Great Flood Of 1927 knocked out the long bridge over the Atchafalaya Basin.
Here are a few more views from (and, above, along) South Pierce Street at the mainline railroad crossing.
When you are a traumatized autistic person, because you live in a society that traumatizes you, no place feels like home.
You long for a home that you never had, even though I do long for a home that I very much had, albeit – I wrote “ableist” right there, which is also right – not legally.
A little farther north on South Pierce Street, this is what remains of the Alexandria Branch.
The last customer here was a local brick distributor, but it stopped getting railroad service due to what it claimed was poor service, particularly the demurrage charges.
Let’s go back south now.
Damn, Lafayette, what the hell?
I guess that “shot” means the same thing that did in making that image – that ‘shot’.
I don’t know what to think.
So, I heard horns!
Here comes a westbound BNSF Railway train.
The lighting isn’t optimal here, because shadows are already getting too long, and the nose isn’t lit as well as it would be if we were closer to the summer solstice, but this is not bad, either.
It’s just a modern boring train, as it goes.
There is our set of carbon black cars.
I often think of Wayne Shell when I see carbon black cars.
I am glad that he liked them, because I surely don’t.
I much prefer these, at least when they aren’t graffitied.
“Welcome to where time stands still. No one leaves, and no one will.”
This is better.
I want more of this. #MakeTrainsLookLikeThisAgain
God bless the Santa Fe railroad, or something like that.
I suppose that Native Americans might not agree, and, I guess, for good reason.
The train is seen here crossing West Simcoe Street.
That’s all for this train.
We definitely could have more passenger trains in the area. An Opelousas-Lafayette train would be great. There was once a railroad line from Lafayette to Alexandria. Imagine daily passenger trains on that line.
It would be really good to connect Slidell with CSX near or on the other side of Waveland and, via the old GM&O mainline via Bogalusa, to Jackson.
Anyway, ABA services?
This seems very troubling.
I like this building.
I walked in some places where I had not walked before.
I feel lonely.
There seems to be some special things happening at this intersection.
I need to know more about this.
I feel connected to this, yet detached from it all.
Why am I posting so many pictures from this street corner?
I must know more.
What am I doing?
This is what I am doing, and I wish that I were east of here.
I want to go home.
Here is the Rosa Parks Transportation Center, where I was earlier.
Now, I go south of there.
Let’s fix this!
Let’s fix that!
I want to know more.
Neoliberalism is bad.
Here I am at Parc Sans Souci.
This is a good way to end the day.
The temperature was dropping.
A man at Parc Sans Souci said something to me about how it was going to be 40 degrees tonight and that he didn’t know what he was going to do, which I interpreted as being an expression of a need for shelter, which made me assume that he was unhoused.
I can’t remember how I responded, but I remember thinking, as I think now, that, man, I am so close to you, so close to being you.
I guess that I will get out of here.
This is all for the pictures for today.
I got in the truck and went by the railroad yard, where I saw new CN boxcars with GTW reporting marks, one with a tiny patch of graffiti. That is really good for 2023.
I had a good day, got some good pictures, and learned plenty.
It would have been a perfect day if it wasn’t for a society that forces people to poop on themselves, as, thrice, I almost did.
I hope that you liked the pictures!
Jim
