WanderingWilbo: After Two Nights on Two Different #Megabus Runs, Wilbo Arrives in #NewOrleans and Reflects Upon the Journey

January 24th, 2020

St. Roch Market

New Orleans, Louisiana

I arrived by Megabus to the Union Passenger Terminal, arriving on time at 6:30 AM. I felt disappointed that I hadn’t walked around in Montgomery and Mobile, where the bus made stops to pickup and drop-off passengers. I slept through Montgomery. No worries. I had actually spent a night in Montgomery three years ago, visiting a good restaurant and touring the art museum.

I was almost to the bus door in Mobile when I the door closed and I was stuck inside. The driver put the bus in gear and we began rolling. A man carrying a red ukulele had boarded and he was having a hard time finding a seat in the dark, the only passenger who boarded. He had a beard long enough to be called supernatural, wild and two feet long. I wondered if he was going to New Orleans to play music for tips in the French Quarter. Mobile must have been warm, a warm port on the Gulf Coast. A fog made the drive to the freeway onramp seem mysterious.

I had enjoyed my brief visits to Richmond, Fayetteville and Columbia, walking into the bus station, looking for clues to tell me about life in that town. Columbia didn’t have a bus station. A bus shelter gave the people who were boarding some idea where to wait. The dark curb on the opposite side of the street from a Baptist Church provided enough space to embark and disembark. Three young men in really fresh activewear boarded and found seats in the upper deck.

To be friendly, I said, “Four more hours and we’ll be in Atlanta”. “This doesn’t go to Washington?” “We came from Washington'', I said. The three men picked up their carry-ons and departed quietly. I wonder how that mistake got made. The driver should have caught it. It would have been hard to end up in Atlanta if ones goal was to reach Washington. The driver came up to the second level a few minutes later and announced, “Everyone here is going to Atlanta, right”? No one got off. My friendliness had saved the day for three young men.

This morning, I looked for the cable car to Elysian Fields so I could wash my clothing at Melba’s Old School Po’boys. Melba’s does sell Po’boys but has become an institution on Elysian Fields Boulevard. Today, Arthur Hardy signed his annual guide to the Mardi Gras at lunch time. Helen Prejean, the religious writer who inspired the story of Dead Man Walking, paid a call last week to promote her newest book, River of Fire. I also freshened up by wardrobe by doing all the wash that desperately needed to be done. Open 24 Hours, I thought about doing laundry at night when the driers are free.

I always did my laundry at Melba’s during the winter I spent in New Orleans staying at my friend’s house on Urquhart Street. I had wanted to visit Melba’s because President Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton visited recently to review in a project to install a learning center in the laundromat wing. The Clinton Foundation had funded the effort to pilot the center at Melba’s. It took up the entire north wall and included an alcove where children could work and play away from the machines. It looked like a well-kept elementary school, although small, supplied with tables and chairs for small people. I noticed a very young girl in diapers playing at a peg board table, rather happily. She walked on her bare feet on a colorful mat. The walls carried books for grades pre-kindergarten to sixth grade. As for crayons and paper, Melba’s has always supplied crayons and white paper by the roll for children to draw upon.