.Author.

Standing on the Corner, the Corner of Camp and Magazine, New Orleans

Standing on the Corner, the Corner of Camp and Magazine, New Orleans

Some call me Mike;

—my name given at my Catholic baptism – Michael –– my legal name.

— Others call me Clete;

— my Cajun Petit Nom – Clete – – my Cajun nick name,

— But everyone knows my last name, LeBlanc,

And So here I am Michael Clete LeBlanc – the name under which I write.

=============================================

I was named Clete,  fifty years ago from a gangs of boys who played a form of football somewhat like rugby, that we called Rough and Tumble, because of the cleated shoes that I wore.
—the name suited for my rough and tumble life.

Clete, the name of my Great Grandfather, born in 1818, whose ancestors had been exiled from Nova Scotia in 1755.
—the name suited for my Cajun life.

=============================================

I was named Mike, also Pet’t-Miko, amongst my family, some sixty years ago.

I came into the world in small town Louisiana at mid-century – one of the most Cajun places on Earth. A tender and dense place that will never leave my heart.

=============================================

I graduated from a Catholic school – a most repressive place in the 1960’s. A joyous student, the day upon which I left, and later a very sad student, because I had lost my way.

I found myself and my muse, a woman I still call my wife, at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, where I studied History.

We, the two of us, my wife and I, left our native place to live in Middle America, a cold hearted place, where I studied the history of Cajun culture at the University of Kentucky.
—in a most liberal discipline in the liberal arts and social sciences, Anthropology. But, one day I just left.

=============================================

We returned to Louisiana, where we birthed and reared our son in the 1980’s.

I worked offshore in the Gulf of Mexico on drilling rigs – a most working class place for a working class hero. I read much and loathed much. One day I just quit. Then I was mostly unemployed for a time.

I took a job as an engineering draftsman in the 1990’s, then a writer of grants for moderate income families (for we have no poor anymore) bringing sewers, drainage, drinking water, and US mail addresses mostly to rural places in Cajun Louisiana. But one day, I said fare thee well.

=============================================

I took job at the end of the century in government and there I used the skills of  drawing, estimating, and writing in how government might plan for the future. It is there I worked for a while. But then, I took my leave.

=============================================

I am retired now from full time employment. And so I write fiction to pass my days when I am not occupied with teaching planning and mapping to a new generation of students.

=============================================

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *