I was born in northern Louisiana, raised in southern Louisiana, and now work in southwest Louisiana. So for all practical purposes, I guess you could say, I am a “good ole Louisiana boy!” Last week my youngest daughter came into town from California for a wedding shower. She was one of eight bridesmaids giving a shower for her lifelong friend and former sorority sister from LSU. The shower was coordinated at the Thanksgiving holidays for a reason. All eight bridesmaids and the bride live and work out of town!
All these young ladies bleed Purple & Gold and proudly carry their Louisiana and LSU pride wherever they go. For my daughter, living in Los Angles and dealing with the Southern California crowd hasn’t always been easy. But in the good times and bad, everyone knows she is a LSU graduate, born and raised in Louisiana. When the football season is over, the day-to-day realities of life for her set in. Louisiana does not today and can’t for the foreseeable future offer the opportunities that will allow her, her friends, and her future family to live here. None one of these eight bright young ladies wants to live outside of Louisiana. They were born and raised in Louisiana and were spoiled with the wonderful cultures, cuisines, histories, and just great, real nice good people. And yes, they truly love their families!
We all know what family means in Louisiana. We all know with any hope whatsoever and only as a last resort would anyone leave Louisiana. Our young have no alternative, the opportunities are not here. For all you Mothers, Fathers, Grandmothers, and Grandfathers, this should ring a loud resounding alarm. Your kids and ultimately your grandkids won’t live here! They will live far away, maybe come home for holidays and maybe not. As they and their children get older, they will have established friends and lives in some place other than Louisiana. Someplace where you don’t want them to be and they don’t want to be. But once anchored there, sadly they will never return.
Unless you are from Louisiana, no one truly understands what it means to be from Louisiana. Try listening to Randy Newman’s song “Louisiana” without coming to the verge of tears. Sit down for a minute and try to write a short paragraph explaining to someone from somewhere else what makes Louisiana and its people so wonderful. Words and songs just don’t do us justice. If you haven’t lived here, “you just don’t understand!”
Some of our best friends who live North Carolina grew up in New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish (their families lost everything in Katrina). They left us 15 years ago. When they left, they promised to come back as soon as things got better in Louisiana. Fifteen years later, their kids and their kids’ friends are all in North Carolina. One is a law school graduate of Notre Dame (we won’t hold that against him) and the other works in the pharmaceutical industry. Their “friends” are not from Louisiana, but rather from North Carolina. When they get married and settled down, they will settle down in North Carolina. We have finally faced the inevitable, they are not coming back!
Our children and grandchildren are leaving Louisiana. Not merely for better opportunities, but in many cases, just opportunities. While we laugh about the “Good Ole Boy” politics in Louisiana, yet we continue to recycle the same old politicians. Many of these Good Ole Boys are forced by term-limits to put on new “hats.” Perhaps we should pause for a moment and think about what we’re doing. Look in the mirror and understand the hard facts: we are last in everything that counts – education, healthcare, and ethics. We are first in all the things that don’t really matter – crime, corruption, ethics, and everything else that makes us the laughing stock of everyone else. What was once a joke is no longer a laughing matter!
Disgusted with our past, we’ve elected Bobby Jindal and put him in charge of straightening this mess out. Bobby is coming into town on his white horse driving change in every part of state government. We don’t have to look very far back for our last savior, Buddy Roemer. He also was a bright young man trying to accomplish the honorable and right things that would make Louisiana a better place. After four years, his final scorecard was pretty ugly: Good Ole Boys – 100, Buddy Roemer – 0. He didn’t get a second chance. With Jindal, we’ve got a second chance. He can’t do it alone. When the Good Ole Boys raise their ugly head, and they will, Jindal cannot fight the battle alone. It will be each and everyone’s responsibilities to write the letters, send the emails, make the phone calls and hold these Good Ole Boys accountable, accountable for the fact that you will have to travel to see your kids and grandchildren, accountable that there are not jobs and opportunities here for them, and finally accountable for the overall mess in which we find ourselves. We’ve lost one generation, let’s don’t lose another!
ron g. cheek is an entrepreneur professor and welcomes your comments and questions at rongcheek.com
Filed under: Corruption, Education, Ethics, Louisiana, Politics, Uncategorized
Ron,
I think you have said it all with this post. As a graduate of LSU in 1999 with a degree in Management Information Systems, there certainly weren’t any opportunities in Louisiana for me. I moved to Seattle 3 days after graduation and have been there ever since. I still have lots of friends in Louisiana, some who are in medical school, and they are already keeping their eyes open for opportunities outside the state. Even if New Orleans became the epicenter for Information Technology, I highly doubt I would move back there due to the corruption, crime, and poor schools. That makes me sad because there was a time in my life when I looked forward to having a house in Baton Rouge, tailgaiting at Tiger games, etc. Now about the closest I get to that is watching them on TV with a few friends over here. My parents actually got a clue as well and crossed the border into Texas around 4 years ago. At least you’ve got Jindal in there who gives me hope!
-Jeremiah Lopez
LSU ‘99
Born / Raised in Louisiana
I moved here about 8 months ago, after having wanted to for the past 12 years. I was always hesitant to do so, as everyone I knew from New Orleans and Louisiana said to not do so. I do not regret leaving Atlanta.
I say that as a 32 year old with 10 years of career experience, and perspective has matured somewhat. I think there are great opportunities here, but it’s not typical for what most Americans want, who want to find jobs, buy a house and settle down. Its the natives and newcomers who will make a difference, as pioneers in a sense in this almost frontierlike state.
I’m happy to be here, I’m happy to call New Orleans and Louisiana home.
Ron,
I just discovered LA in the past year. A whole group of young adults moved from their hometowns of Monroe/West Monroe here (to Huntsville, Alabama) about 6 years ago. We’ve been friends ever since, and I finally made it home to meet all of their families this year. I’ve been to both NO and Monroe three times…that’s 6 trips in 11 months.
I have to say that to lack of leadership is evident in all the little things…but the whole is a beautiful, rich state that has so much potential.
My boyfriend and I are obsessed with New Orleans (he’s been working there as a freelance event photographer for a decade) and would love to live there one day.
I’m glad to hear there’s someone leading the charge in government reform in LA…I wish there was something I could do to help.
Godspeed!
I’m a California native, educated in Arkansas, living in Mississippi. I think a lot of what you said about LA applies to MS as well. I have a bachelor’s degree in Biology and a Masters of Public Health and 10 years of work experience. I can’t find a professional job here and have been working as a secretary. I hate it. Yes, we have a nice home, and we’re comfortable, and that is worth a lot in today’s times, but my job situation makes me want to cry. My husband is a native Mississippian, and I’ll stay because I love him. But I can’t lie, if it were not for him I’d be out of here on the next thing smoking. My professional opportunities are very limited. I’m trying to decide whether or not to pursue a PhD, but I’m not really sure if the additional education will pay off here or not (I’d still go with Public Health.) I don’t expect that our daughter will stay here as she grows into young adulthood, and I can’t say that I much blame her.
This article is touching; always makes me wanna cry when people finally wake up and start taking responsibility for what has happened to their reality. It’s so great to see people standing up for what they really want and no longer accepting the status quo. If everybody woke up tommorow and shed their fears enough to stand up for themselves then our world would be how we’d want it to be.
Louisiana is going to have to be like a calling for people to want to be here to improve things. Nothing will get better if people continue to leave, but coming here is almost like going into the Peace Corps or the military…you don’t do it for the money, you do it because you think you can make some sort of difference.
My “patriotism” of my city outweighs my career, or my ability to make a lot of money. But that’s not something I would expect others to say, but someone will. Nothing improves on its own, people will have to stay and fight.
Interesting that our education system is good enough for our children to find jobs in other states, but not here. If that’s the case then lets just flat-out dump the Taylor scholarship program. If all it is being used for is to educate another state’s workforce and not our own, then what is the point of it? At the very least, if you take the scholarship, but then you go to work in some other state, pay the money back!