Mamou

There is one darn good reason to come to Mamou and that's Saturday mornings at Fred's Lounge, 420 Sixth St. (tel. 337/468-5411; open Sat 9am-2pm only). At the other end of the Cajun music scale from the Savoy Music Center, this small-town bar nonetheless offers just as essential an Acadiana Saturday-morning experience. For half a century, Fred's has hosted Saturday daytime dances, with the band in a roped-off area in the middle of the floor and couples waltzing and two-stepping around them. This is pure dance-hall stuff (leaning toward the country-western side of Cajun, but much of it in French), where hardworking locals blow off steam and let loose. It won't be the same (or maybe it will) now that legendary bartendress Tante Sue, schnapps flask firmly holstered to her hip, has retired, but it still airs from 9 to 11am on radio station KVPI (1050 AM).