It used to be Porky's

Rick Cronin, a Belfast artist, began exploring Waldo County with his sketchpad in 2024, finding the mystery and peace of the landscape, and drawing it. Then last summer, he thought: Why not broaden his horizons, explore the U.S. and sketch what captured his attention on the road? So, he bought a 1997 Dodge Roadtrek camper, and he and his wife, Susan, agreed that their shaggy dog, Dolly, would be up for the adventure. Right now, Rick and Dolly are traveling the highways of America and sending back their observations and sketches for us all to read. Those interested in receiving the full set of drawings of each state, email croninme47@gmail.com

I’m sitting next to a flat field near Lake Arthur, Louisiana. Either they’re growing water or rice. There’s water everywhere, which is what you would expect of Louisiana, but there's always more.

I entered from the north, from Arkansas. In Arkansas and Louisiana I’ve seen more lumber mills than I expected. More than Maine. Miles of southern long needle pine and miles of board feet of lumber. As I moved south through the state the trees have changed and now I’m seeing more live oaks, pecans, and even cypress. And cane fields.

My GPS has been filtered to keep me off of freeways and it’s not reluctant to get me so lost that I end up without any phone signal and then I start feeling even a little more lost because the AAA maps are pretty sketchy. Getting lost is part of the fun, but you don’t want to get so lost that you start getting nervous about bears and alligators and never being found again.

The rural roads keep me out of traffic and away from cities so the general impression I’m getting of our country is just how much of it remains agricultural. The radio tells me that the row crop farmers are getting a helping hand from Trump. That is of course after they drew the short straw with tariffs, There are rows of just about everything. Corn, soybeans, cotton, rice, cabbages, peanuts, strawberries, and pecans. If it is not in a row it is a forest, a pasture, or in the case of wild pecans a grove.

When I was a kid I remember my father pointing out a special herd of cows that were all black. Angus cattle were new to the U.S. and a little exotic to him — special cows that made high quality meat. They’ve become very popular in the last 65 years. Now about 80% of the beef raised in the U.S. is from Black Angus although the herds have gotten smaller forcing the price of hamburger to over $8/lb.

The cows I saw in Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, and Arkansas were almost all black but then south of Shreveport I started following the Red River Valley and Louisiana Route 1 and things changed a bit.

I consider Red River Valley to be the iconic cowboy song and I was singing it to myself, fairly loudly, when I saw a sign for the RRCC, the Red River Cowboy Church.

I did as quick a U-turn as I could with the van and pulled into their lot. It looked more like a stock barn than a church, but they had a sign out front telling me to drop in for a free cup of coffee on Tuesday morning at 9. Just my luck, it wasn’t a Tuesday or 9 a.m. so I wasn’t going to get a handle of what Cowboy Christianity was all about.

But, this was certainly cow country and I went back to singing my song and I also started noticing that the cows weren’t all black. Some were red, some brown, there was a Brahma bull, there were white Charolais, and white faced Herefords. Even a herd of Belted Galloways. These Louisiana cowboys still appreciated diversity and inclusion.

At the end of my day wandering down the valley I drove into Alexandria looking for what had become a mythical dining destination for my wife Susan and me — Porky’s.

My memory of Porky’s was this beat-up little joint in a marginally industrial neighborhood with a drive through window and a couple of picnic tables. It had a staff of two: A tiny ancient black man and a white guy wearing a T-shirt that looked like it had been used to clean the grill. But, the boudin balls and cracklin washed down with a cold Coca Cola made one of those meals you’ll never forget.

My trusty GPS delivered me right to it. But it wasn’t Porky’s anymore. The awning over the drive through window was unripped and hung a little straighter and there was some fresh patching in the small parking lot. An inflated dancing tube man was filling up and slumping out front and they even had a handicap parking spot. The picnic tables were gone. There was an electronic sign over the old building that said Quebedeau’s Cajun Kitchen — Boudin and Cracklin.

I cautiously approached the window and asked if this had been Porky’s. There were two tidy women with clean aprons and food-server gloves behind the window and they said it used to be. They assured me the food was good, even better than it used to be. So I ordered some cracklin, a boudin ball, and a coke.

It was good. Probably every bit as good as Porky’s had been, but it wasn’t a memorable meal, except as a reflection of my original visit to Porky’s.

It used to be Porky's

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