I like little conversations on the street. A young man asked me for directions to Ochsner Health Care on Napoleon Street, west of downtown and drawing near Tulane University. He looked lost and we walked to a bench in front of an elementary school. Sat down and talked. His wife has filed for divorce. He visited his doctor and his doctor sent him immediately for treatment at Tulane University, a cancer diagnosis that called for four days of chemotherapy infusions. His left arm bore the tracks of injections, not the tracks on heroine, thank god. He wanted to go home to Lake Charles, but the man who drove him to New Orleans couldn’t come until Sunday.
I looked up Lake Charles, Louisiana, three hours away toward Texas. “Friend, you are a mere ten dollars from a bus ticket to Lake Charles, where your friends and home awaits. Could you call someone to buy you a Flixbus ticket? He knew someone. I showed him the app. He asked for directions to the passenger terminal. The terminal awaited a mere ten minute walk away. “Look for the Flixbus customers on the side, sitting and waiting for their ride”. Megabus actually gets to use the bus bays behind the passenger terminal. He walked in the right direction for the terminal. I hope he had the sense to ask his friend to send him the booking fee and the tax, add ons to the low 9.99 price.
Cloudburst has clouded the open door and window. If he’s waiting for his Flixbus, he’s waiting out in the rain. I will have to get up from my table and stare at the rain. I loved to stand on the porch father built and stare at the cloudbursts of June, July and August, tossing the leafy tree branches of the maples and breaking off deadwood. On the radar, we have a pocket of red over our heads that won’t last until Two in the afternoon. The clouds full of rain have come in from the gulf, so I wonder what they’ll let drop outside. The cable car tracks flood, but that hasn’t slowed the progress of the cars that draw power from overhead lines.
I was disappointed this morning because I promised to show up at the offices of Bike Easy, the local bike advocacy organization. I was almost to the door when Fidel texted me, hoping to reschedule. He had to deal with the fallout from a car accident. I asked if he was okay, but I didn’t get a response right away. Later, he asked if he could call me, and I said, “Sure, why not”. No call has come in from Fidel. I have little idea what I’ll be doing next Wednesday, but I left the option open.
While I was sitting on a bench in a rain garden, a man walked over to talk to me, “So, do you think we’ll get all the rain the forecast promised”. I can talk about the weather like a pro. “Sure, I think we’ll see plenty of rain”. He took an interest because he saw me taking short TikTok films of a library that was part of the Southern Food Museum.
The building had been sold to a developer for three quarters of a million and he was leading a work crew. I wonder now if the books had to be catalogued and boxed for easy transfer to the next library space. He took ownership of the museum, and I soon learned I was talking to the curator of cooking for meats and butchery, Dan Roberts. His family had just sold out of the slaughter and meat packing business because he couldn’t find help that could pass a drug test and he had to replace seventy retiring employees.
I love it when people take a liking to me and keep talking. I excused myself because I had the appointment, or so I thought, a half mile down the road. He said, “Bike Works is right across the street”. “Yes, that’s where the Youth Improvement Program fixes bikes. I’m going to Bike Easy”.
“Oh, I don’t know about Bike Easy. Let me know if they need a feed for a fundraiser. I love to build up this street. It’s easy to make up a bodacious batch of Jambalaya”.
I thanked him. “The South is Different”, I said, knowing it to be true from the writings of Tennessee Williams and Flannery O’Connor. “I bet the food is extraordinary at the Southern Food Museum”.
“We take our food seriously in Louisiana, sir”.
Maybe he might help develop a vegan cajun cuisine?
https://southernfood.org/
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