Nawlins

Of course I fell in love with Nan which should come as no surprise but these days I’m a little wiser than formerly, and her daughter was there every second so I was happily prevented from doing anything stupid even and I got out of there without embarrassing myself. Way to go.

And I fell in love with the life of the Keys all pastels and tropical foliage just a little sunburned and a little worn. I got on Craigslist last night and found me a sailboat I could live on for not very much money, and even an Ericson 27 like the one I have now up in Scappoose, for sale in Miami and for a brief moment I had the move in motion, to go there and no maybe about it once I would have been all in an uproar but not now, no, beautiful and warm and gracious as they are, I’m good.

24 hours on the bus, this was on my phone written yesterday:

Panama City in the bitch-pouring-ass rain wipers ripping cold white sheets into flung bandages silver dawn.

Betty’s Red beans and rice for lunch, gumbo for dinner, and crab claws in “The Quarter” with some little lambie ribs in Coops rundown all the wrinkly hipsters with their chin beards and slouchy hats but the Quarter, “kwahtuh” with the ironwork galleries and the leaning narrow streets and the age of everything showing on its face and I did feel the pull and the mystery behind all those shutters perpetually closed and what goes on in there in the dim daylight while the street swelters and tourists click their cameras?

Me and my pal Ish went on the Natchez, an actual steamboat paddlewheeler for the two hour cruise, steam calliope blaring to the lined-up tourists by their hundreds. That there steam whistle is just about the loudest thing I ever did hear and all the boats on the Mississippi south of Vicksburg knew we were entering the stream. We cruised on down the river and we looked at the battle of New Orleans and the Domino Sugar refinery and so forth, a crane bucket unloading bulk salt all white and shining into a lighter barge and all like that.  Beautiful day, just warm enough, with a bit of a breeze on the water.

 I like that steam propulsion business, it’s quiet as can be, even down in the engine room, and that’s a surprise, how quiet that is, and how little equipment it takes, just the boilers and the two big power piston expansion chambers driving the walking beam in and out. While I was down there by the paddlewheel shooting some video the walking beam stopped and then went backwards a little and the went backwards a lot and pretty soon the Natchez was shuddering and the water alongside commenced to boiling up and we began to swing off to one side to make our turn to go back upriver to town.   We had a good time It was money well spent.

We’re back at Ish’s place now, her little shotgun single in the Triangle neighborhood, a little gem of a home she brought back from all the misery of the storm. We looked at pictures from the aftermath, and we talked about Hoodoo and Voodoo and how one was dark and the other white and one good and the other bad. There’s kitty cats all over the place. I’m hoping that black one sleeps on the foot of my attic bed again tonight I liked the warm weight when I woke up a little to turn over. I know I will sleep good tonight, and that I am well loved.