As a rule, when you say Louisiana, most people outside of the Pelican State respond with New Orleans. Or, more specifically, the French Quarter.

To continue with this call-and-response in no particular order, they’ll also come back with the New Orleans Saints, gumbo (especially this time of year), bayous, the Birthplace of Jazz, Cajun and zydeco music and even Popeye’s chicken.

And despite our laissez faire attitude toward the environment, the Louisiana license plate boasts “Sportsman’s Paradise.”

All in all, tourists get the whole joie de vivre thing even if they don’t know it. But it is why they visit.

Here, they can let their hair down and pass a good time as they eat food with foreign names and listen or dance to exotic music (what’s with all those accordions, anyway?).

What happens in Louisiana obviously doesn’t stay in Louisiana. Our food and music is exported around the world.

And here it is, the 61st year of the Grammys, and three nominees from the area are in the mix.

There’s Lafayette’s own Lauren Daigle, whose "Look Up Child" release gets a nomination nod for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album. "You Say," a single, is up for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance Song.

By the way, you can catch Daigle’s “Behold Christmas Tour” on Friday and Monday at the Heymann Performing Arts Center.

Keeping with religious overtones, Abbeville’s Koryn Hawthorne, a former finalist on “The Voice,” is nominated for Best Gospel Performance Song, “Won’t He Do It.”

And Sean Ardoin’s album “Kreole Rock and Soul” nabbed a Best Regional Roots Music Album nomination. Not only that, the Lake Charles native’s single on it, “Kicks Rocks,” is in the running for Best American Roots Performance.

Not a bad day’s work.

But it’s not all boudin, beer and two-stepping here, either.

According to usnews.com, Louisiana is ranked near the bottom in many categories based on federal government data from the U.S. Census, National Center for Education Statistics, the FBI and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The report culled info and ranked us on stats in health care (47th), education (49th), economy (44th), opportunity (50th), infrastructure (44th), crime and corrections (48th), fiscal stability (48) and quality of life (42nd).

However, we are the fourth most religious state in the country, and people appear to like the way we sing about all things sacred.

At the same time, Louisiana is No. 2 in crude oil refining, No. 4 in natural gas production and No. 3 in chemical production, and we’re a top-10 oil producing state.

The info is based on a research project by Together Louisiana, a statewide network of religious congregations and civic organizations that is working on issues that includes tax fairness, access to health care, flood recovery, access to healthy food and infrastructure.

So how do we reconcile the accolades over the years for Louisiana’s gifts and contributions to the world of music and food with such a dismal overall ranking?

I’ve lived in seven states, worked in six, with the vast majority of my life spent in Louisiana.

And like a lot of folks here, the negative stats frustrate me. It seems I’m always defending myself to others who just don’t get why I stay.

Sometimes I don’t get it either because, really, there’s nothing concrete to get. No numbers or charts to explain the reasons why. It’s one of those intangible things.

Old friends get all excited about seeing a band from our teenage years for the umpteenth time where they’ll stand in a crowd of strangers and lip-sync along and hold a lighter or a smartphone in the air.

Yet, they’ll get all prissy when I try to expose them to our homegrown music. They look at me like I’m crazy when I say, yes, I still go out dancing and that at festivals, you’ll see grandparents down to grandkids doing the same.

Some don’t like the food we eat. It’s too spicy or too scary, they say. They don’t get the shared vibe of a crawfish boil or understand that when you have a party, folks will bring their own instruments — not just the guy with a guitar taking James Taylor requests.

And the jam sessions, in homes or public venues, are something else, especially when they launch into original or traditional tunes and everyone knows how it goes.

Of course, life isn’t a party all the time. But considering the aforementioned rankings, at least we do have our own music, food and attitude to fall back on.

I know of seven states that cannot say the same.