• you never, never use the East Main and East Park bridges to cross the Intracoastal Canal, and the sight of a lowering crossbar with red liglits blinking automatically raises your blood pressure

   • you sometimes refer to the Houma Air Base as the "blimp base"

   • the men in your family keep what amounts to an arsenal of guns in your house, and none of it is for protection but instead all for huntîng

   • your parents or grandparents pronounced it the "Houma Coo-ree-ay".   or even occasionally still refer to the local newspaper as the Terrebonne Press

   • you feel a twinge of nostalgia when you drive past the vacant area on West Main that was once the Houma Drive In

   • you still hesitantly sniff the air at Highway 311 near Southdown (especially when cool weather begins in October and November) where the mill used to fill the atmosphere with its characteristic odor

   • you never refer to the streets as Park or Main, but instead always precede the names by the specific designations East and West, except for the stretch downtown from Canal to Dunn, which is Main Street to you

   • you don't find it strange to hear a local say "hose pipe" for "hose"

   • the terms up the bayou and down the bayou hold directional, not cultural, connotations for you

   • you occasionally head absentmindedly for the red brick building across from the courthouse on Main Street when you have to mail a letter

   • your conversation ever includes referrals to the "girls' school" and the "boys' school"

   • you have ever sensed a phantom whiff of popcorn wafting from the First National Bank drive-in area where the Bijou Theater stood on Main Street

   • mention of the name Chacahoula makes your mouth water for fried chicken or frog legs 

   • your grandfather called a sidewalk a "banquette"

   • the Intracoastal Canal tunnel still seems new to you

   • your childhood memories include helping your grandmother gather and then crush sassafras leaves for gumbo filé 

   • you have ever gone trawling

   • you have never pronounced the family names Theriot "the riot". . . Hebert "hee-burt". . or Belanger "bell-anger"