As I mentioned in my May 1
post, May 2013 starts the tenth year of this blog. Last
November I moved back to my childhood home, New Orleans, to focus more on my
painting. Here is a post on my move: Driving Through Hurricane Sandy To New Orleans.
Here is another post on my more recent experiences with the Arts Council of New Orleans where I do a
monthly booth to sell my paintings.
I have been presenting my paintings and my travel
photos on the weekends on this blog. I am going to expand that coverage, as
well as writing more about my childhood, and new hometown, New Orleans. I will
still cover emerging technologies but on a more part time basis. This week
marks the beginning of my expanded coverage of New Orleans. The next posts
cover my childhood and some of the time before I moved here.
We lived near Tulane
University in what is called Uptown. As a city kid, my friends and I
played
baseball in front of my house, which happened to be on a corner. The intersection provided our asphalt
infield and the opposing street corners were our bases. These corners displayed the street
names, Jeannette and Lowerline, in aging blue and white
tiles, one letter per tile.
Below on the left is a picture of my old house getting fixed up after Katrina. On the right is a picture of it as it looks now. I do not know who lives there. Before the storm, it had been painted a bad green and needed repair It now looks more like it did in the 1950s when we lived there except it was white back then.

On days off from school, we
went up two blocks to the Carrolton Cemetery. The tombs were raised above the swampy New Orleans water
table, providing a child-sized village, neatly laid out in grids with miniature
“streets” mostly made of chalky, crushed, white sea shells. The only grass in our playground came
up, unwanted, through cracks in the concrete. Grey and green lichen added texture to the family names
etched in the front of tombs, Glass jars, often filled with wilted flowers and
decaying brown vegetable matter, sat watch beneath the names. Here we re-enacted battle scenes from
World War Two, our combat de jour, less than ten years over. My father lent me his Army cap for our
play, along with some of his ribbons from the re-invasion of New Guinea.

About once or twice a month
in the late afternoon, a black jazz funeral procession solemnly passed on foot down
the middle of Lowerline, with a small
brass band playing hymns on its way
to the Carrolton Cemetery. My
mother and I would watch respectfully from our second
floor kitchen window.
After the person was buried, the band would strike a happier note. On the way
back the mourners would do a parade in celebration of the passed
person’s life and the expectation they were off to a better place. The band played more lively numbers. It was acceptable for neighbors to join
in the celebration and we sometimes did. At the time I did not know how special this was and just accepted this participation as part of our city
life. Now I sometimes join in a different type of parade with a brass band, second lines, with Social Aid
and Pleasure Clubs. To the right are the members of the Stooges Brass Band supporting the Pigeon Town Steppers going by the same Carrolton Cemetery this year.
On rainy days we crawled
under my friend Ronnie’s house, where we built a small city in the dirt, played
cars, and staged massive car wrecks.
Since no adult ever went under the house, we were able to keep our city
intact for days. After really big
rains, my friends and I played with our toy boats by the side of Lowerline Street as the poor drainage formed
a lake next to the curb. Tall
monkey grass grew in the space between the curb and the sidewalk. This area functioned as our jungle
alongside the boat traffic on the lake.
We hid toy solders under the grassy canopy and let them attack our
unsuspecting boats with the illegal firecrackers we bought without my parent’s
knowledge.
One day the city decided to
fix the drainage on our street.
They sent a crew of seven, armed with one pickaxe, to take on the
problem. Passing out coffee, the
six supervisors commented on the job while they alternated between standing and
sitting on the curb, smoking cigarettes and watching the work progress. After three days, they all left. Fortunately, our lake returned after
the next big rain and our boats floated again. The episode provided my father with another example of the
city waste that he liked to discuss.
He took great pleasure in repeating the seven to one ratio.
This easy going civic
approach also allowed us to buy fireworks, even though they were illegal. The dealer operated from one of the
long, thin shotgun houses like the one below, placed on the line dividing Orleans Parish and Jefferson
Parish. Whenever the Orleans
Parish police came, he moved his fireworks to the back, out of their
jurisdiction. Whenever the
Jefferson Parish police came, he moved them to the front. Apparently, there was never a coordinated
raid; perhaps these disconnected raids were more for show than substance. This is enough for now. I will continue
these reflections on Wednesday.
