LaLa lived simply, and loved it

I think I knew LaLa Lalonde for a year or more before I knew his real name. He was a member of the legislature when I met him, but I don’t think I ever heard him introduce himself as “Raymond” or “Representative Lalonde.”
He introduced himself simply. “Hi, I’m LaLa,” sometimes in French. That said a lot about who he was.
He was a brilliant man with degrees in physics, math, foreign languages and education. He worked for a time on the Saturn V rocket project, and probably could have made a lot of money after he was recruited by Texas Instruments into what was not yet called the tech industry.
But for all his expertise in rocket science and whizzbang instruments, he was first and foremost a “people person,” and deep roots led him back home to the St. Landry farming community of Pecaniere. He explained that decision to me in a note written some years ago.
“My great-great-great grandfather, Guilliame Lalonde was one of the first settlers in that area, originally called La Prairie de Gros Chevreuil. I don’t know when the name was change,” he wrote. “I was born there, lived the first 18 years of my life and as they would say, mon nombril est enterrer là. In olden days it was said that wherever your navel was buried was where your heart remained throughout your life. My navel and most of my ancestors are buried there.”
He was born there in 1940, graduated from Leonville High in 1958, worked on B-52 bombers at Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, then for Boeing on the Saturn V project in New Orleans, and for Texas Instruments in Dallas.
He came back to Pecaniere in 1971, after which he taught hundreds of students in St. Landry schools, and represented their families in the legislature for 16 years beginning in 1980.
As a legislator he was a staunch promoter of two of his loves, vocational education and Louisiana’s French culture.
Randy Haynie, who was a young lobbyist when LaLa was in the legislature, remembered that he “pushed heavy” to get a vocational education system in St. Landry. “He wanted to help those who wanted to learn a trade and get to work as soon as possible,” Haynie said.
His love for the French culture came naturally. French was his first language and he was reared in that culture in which family, friends, and the traditions that bind them are central.
He sometimes spoke in French on the floor of the legislature to emphasize a point, and worked with CODOFIL and other groups to keep the language alive.
“I think he’s going to be remembered as a people person because he loved people,” his daughter Cindy Falterman said. “He never met a stranger and, if he met one, he was shaking their hands and introducing himself, asking where your family’s from, all of that. He was very honest and a quiet listener … [and] very proud of his Cajun heritage. He wanted to promote that his whole life.”
His obituary said his favorite pastimes were “meeting other people and Cajun dancing.” Add to that one of his election slogans, “when you need him, LaLa c’est la, (when you need him, LaLa is there),” and you have a fair summation of a life lived simply and well, and of the man who lived it.
He was 82 when he died on December 30.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.