On a lonely stretch of asphalt cut through low red clay hills and flanked by woods filled with pines and dogwoods stands a granite marker pocked by bullet holes, indicating the spot where Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ambushed and killed by Texas Rangers and local law enforcement officers (glorified posse) in 1934. (Today’s bullet holes are courtesy of recent target practice perpetrators, of course, not the ambushers of yore.)

I grew up 15 miles away in Arcadia, seat of Bienville Parish. My father was the 3rd generation proprietor of the establishment that “processed” Bonnie and Clyde’s corpses: a furniture store where coffins were sold that evolved into a full-service funeral business after embalming became all the rage. At the time that Bonnie and Clyde were despatched, my father was 7 years old. But still, during my childhood and adolescence, the files containing all the particulars, including grisly photos, were tucked away in a cabinet, rarely to be exhumed for viewings.

As a matter of fact, due to my father’s exemplary sense of propriety and my grandmother’s domineering sense of civic - and cosmic - pride, mentioning the Bonnie and Clyde incident was all but taboo. I guess my father’s stance was that a human being had an inalienable right to some dignity in death, even if s/he were a criminal. My grandmother, on the other hand, was offended that our town and the neighboring communities had somehow been tainted by association. “They were MURDERERS!” she would exclaim, silencing anyone who dared mention their names in her presence. “This town is full of NICE people. THEY are the people we should be talking about.” People tended to yield to any of Inez’s dictates.

So in 1990, even though my grandmother had been dead for 4 years, I still felt I was being sneaky when I decided it would be a grand lark to haul 4 of my big city friends back into the woods on an expedition to find the ambush site with its marker. Come to think of it, my friends were not only “big city” folks, they were all “foreigners”: Jane and Steve were British, Francesco and Alma were Sicilian (from Catania). As a matter of fact, Alma had only just arrived in the U.S. for the first time a few days prior to our outing. (Or was it only the day prior? And was it really the first time I met her? What MUST she have thought of me and this bizarre American landscape and project?) We were all living in Shreveport, where Jane and I worked together at the public radio station and where Francesco was doing research in psychopharmacology at the local medical school.

My sense of sneakiness must only have been compounded by the fact that it was into my late grandmother’s 1970-something Ford Maverick - my inheritance - that we all crammed for the excursion. How did I ever arrive at the decision to turn off the interstate freeway prematurely, so that my friends might have a better chance of taking in local flora and fauna? How did I ever think that I or any of them as navigator might make sense of the hairline squiggly lines on the map that were supposed to represent narrow, remote, windy little roads? In short, I got lost. And how did I ever end up bumping us all down a dirt road, desparately hoping to come across some isolated farmhouse to ask for directions? Well, lo, such a farmhouse did materialize, the proprietor watching our dusty approach while balancing mistrust and scorn in his regard. Was it my embarrassment that lead to Steve’s being appointed the person to ask the way to Mt. Lebanon?

“Whur you folks from?” the native asked first, detecting Steve’s British accent.

“Shreveport,” Steve answered crisply.

“Hm.” Pause. “Well, keep own down that way a piece, then turn right win ya git to the pavement. You’ll git to Mt. Lebanon that way.” Pause. His final admonition: “And stay OWN TH’ BLACKTOP!”

We did find the monument. I don’t know whom to credit with the absolutely tasteless idea someone had that they should all assume poses as though shot and falling out the open car doors, but the idea was a hit and I served as photo-documentarian. Whatever emanation of my Grandmother that might still have been lurking around in the ether after 4 years was certainly bridling, incensed at our shenanigans. Judging from the hint of subversive delight I’m taking at recalling the event, perhaps I should embrace ownership of “the absolutely tasteless idea” of the photo shoot.

“Cheese!” Bang, bang.

Monument seekers from points northwest, north, and northeast would be well-advised to take the most direct and well-marked route to Gibsland, find Highway 154, head south through Mt. Lebanon, then continue 5 miles south, keeping eyes peeled for the marker. I do not know how to advise people coming from points south, other than to insist that you “stay OWN TH’ BLACKTOP.”

Bang.