Old Cajun Toast for End of Year Events

[Joe Paris]

Dear Fellow Cajun Culture Lovers

This time at the end of the year
is often accompanied by
a reflective look back AND
a hopeful look forward.

One year is dying
and another is about to be born.

To honor this time passage,
Here's an Old Cajun Toast
I heard from my Great Uncle Mose one year :


May your coffin
Be made of the finest wood
From Century-old Cypress trees

That I shall plant
Tomorrow.



I love this toast because of its fierce misdirection.

You start on the seemingly inappropriate subject of death
but it's NOT inappropriate, actually
because the old year IS dying, after all

Yet you end up on the TOTALLY fitting subject of HOPE
by starting the NEW YEAR with an ACTION based thereon
(living at LEAST another hundred years from today).

Wonderful toast if delivered well.

Warmest personal wishes to all !

- Joe Paris