Justin Wilson - 

𝓑𝓸𝓾𝓳𝓸𝓾𝓻! 𝓔𝓽 𝓒𝓸𝓶𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽 Ç𝓪 𝓥𝓪??

                                                                                                            © KENNETH E. HALL APRIL 27, 2019 HOUSTON, TX

There once was an entertainer who became famous for his humorous faux-Cajun accent, his quirky humor, his broad smile and quick wit, his constant flow of malapropisms and, of course, his well-known Cajun cooking.

☺His name was Justin Wilson.

No, he was not Cajun; he wasn't even full-blooded Créole, by his own adnission, but he was born in Louisiana near the town of Amite - at least that. He was a well-known raconteur — a storyteller, a spinner of yarns who took delight in telling ordinary and sometimes very corny, over-told jokes with his made-up "Cajun" accent, throwing in lots of malapropisms into the gumbo. It wasn't the story itself that was funny... It was the storyteller.

To herd dis' man talk, you'd swear you had passed youself raaat down ta dem bayous of La Louisiane, I ga-ron-tee!

Justin Wilson cut many comedy records and had numerous appearances on TV and radio - including his own cooking show. I enjoyed his cornball sense of humor and listened to him every chance I got when I was a young adult. Like some wannabe amateur Elvis impersonator, I wound up by getting good at imitating Justin Wilson, sometimes even being asked to tell some Cajun jokes in his style at work when we had otherwise boring out-of-town sales meetings

Funny thing, though: I never heard a real Acadian speak that way, and in my life I have travelled extensively throughout Acadiana - even living a couple of years in Lafayette.

BUT.... my Great Uncle Léon Yuratich from way down in Buras spoke just like him!! He used to come over to my grandparents' and tell the funniest shaggy-dog storier I ever heard.

If one were to have visited the little orange grove River town of Buras, La. in around 1900, French would have been by far the dominant language, followed by Croatian. English came in at a distant third place, Chère! Haw 'bout DAT!?

My grandmother, also a native French-speaker from Buras, would do a double-take when I'd do my Justin Wilson imitation around her, and she would give me a sideways glance of doubious appreciation.....

The truth is, she did not like it, because she remembered moving up to New Orleans as a young lady in the 1920's, and being terribly ridiculed for her thick French accent by the locals. In those days, speaking English with a French accent meant to many that the person was from the country, hence ignorant and backward. Sad but true.

Imagine someone coming into a big-city place of business looking for a job and speaking like Justin Wilson!

My grandmother spoke true French, not Acadian (Cajun) French as her only language until she learned to speak English in school. So cruelly was she mocked that she eventually learned to speak proper "American" English, and thus landed a job as a telephone operator at the United Fruit Company in New Orleans. One had to have perfect diction to become an operator. Though she never said it, my MonMon wound up by speaking better English than many of the New Orleanians who laughed at her as a young girl.

Entertainer Pinky Vidacovich, another native of Buras, also did a Cajun shtick, but, like my Uncle Léon, he spoke that way in real life, too! He became famous with WWL radio's "Dawnbusters" program long ago, some time in the 1940's, and went by the stage name "Cajun Pete" — but, like Justin Wilson, there wasn't anything "Cajun" about him, either! Mais NON!

Decades ago, some people actually took offense at this style of humor, much in the same way some blacks decried the TV series "Amos n' Andy," accusing it of ridiculing the way blacks spoke. and my grandmother would have agreed.

I think most people who are themselves true Acadians, however, took Justin Wilson's tall tales and "Franglish" speech with the good-hearted spirit in which it was done.
Happily, his popularity was never diminished by any of his detractors.

Justin Wilson, by the way, was not the only Cajun humorist, nor was he even the first. Numerous others have done Cajun Humor like Dave Petijean and Marion Marcotte, the latter actually doing his stories in Cajun French!

I met Justin Wilson in person once up in "Yankee country"... way, WAY up north ... in West Monroe, Louisiana... at a hardware show. By then I knew most of his material and mannerisms by heart, but that didn't stop me from laughing at those jokes and enjoying the once-in-a-lifetime privilege of hearing him live. I went up to him after the program and got in character: "I'm mos' please to meet choo!" I told him.
"Well, I'm mos' please to meet choo, too!" He said with a firm handshake and a mile-wide grin. 

"Ya know, " I told him, "Me, I'm sure glad you brought youself way up yere! We're da only folk in dis place what don't talk wit an ACCENT!"

"I GAR-ON-TEE!!!" he said loudly.

Many people have said that what Justin Wilson did was "just an act."

Just an act? What difference does that make? Justin Wilson was an entertainer after all - an illusionist, of sorts, as ALL actors are. One could say the same about Clayton Moore, who played The Lone Ranger. He portrayed that self-appointed lawman for so long and was him so much that he eventually BECAME the Lone Ranger even off-screen, and was almost never seen out of character or without his trade-mark mask.

This begs the question: Was Clayton Moore the "Lone Ranger"?.... or was the "Lone Ranger" actually Clayton Moore?

The same, I believe, can be said for Justin Wilson. He created a persona which he eventually became, but since that persona came originally from him, it's difficult to separate the person from the persona.

MY question is: do we really need to pay attention to the man behind the curtain, when the illusion is so good?

This jovial lover of good cooking finally passed away at the ripe old age of 99½!!

Justin, ma frien', wherever you are, in Heaven or Perculatory, I hope you pass youself a good time, yeah!"

*Photo of Justin Wilson courtesy of Wikipedia:

By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45201592