There was a large Baptist Church out on the Airline Highway that sent its blue and white busses all over the city of New Orleans..."The Church of the Open Bible". It had a big open neon Bible on the roof and a sign..."God said it, I believe it, That settles it."
One of those busses passed through the Iberville Housing Project...my mother and I and a lot of people we knew rode that bus three times a week to services. Hunched Mr. Tweety, my jazz hero, was there, and Miss Margie, a big woman, who Mr. Tweety knew from the old days when the speakeasies heated up the city.
I loved that big church. It was, in many ways, my family. Sure there were a lot of rich members, but there were also a lot of folks exactly like me, my mom and the rest of our bus from the projects. And people cared about us...really cared.
That Baptist church was also my social life. There was a gym, a bowling alley, and a youth program with lots of activities...and we fit. People saw to it that we got there...and when we missed a service, there was always somebody that found out why.
But I probably liked the rides to and from church more than anything else. These were my people...
Tweety told me that Miss Margie was really something back then...quite a singer. But it was not easy to look at the older lady on that church bus and connect her with the hot music of the 20's. It was great when these two got started unearthing their part of the jazz age on the way to church...and I just sat quietly taking it all in.
Back in Philadelphia, I made the first spiritual decision I remember. My mother took me once to this huge church...my overall memory of the place takes in a gray stone exterior...with an interior of dark wood and dim light.
I don't remember what the sermon was about, but toward the end of it all, the preacher invited people to say "Yes" to Jesus. That pulled at me...the idea of saying yes to Jesus, and I told my mother so. "Mom, let's say yes!" And we did!
I had no idea what I was doing, but I think it was important.
Retarded is not a word we use much anymore. There are much more polite, kinder, politically correct ways to refer to people who are slow...but back then when people spoke of Miss Margie's son, they just threw it out there..."You know, Rodney...that retarded boy!"
I remember Rodney as very good looking and well dressed. He looked sharp...Miss Margie saw to that. But he had a lot of the mannerisms of his mother...a guy in his 20's or 30's acting like a woman in her 50's or 60's. Rodney got on the bus with a hanky in one had, dabbing his eyes and face, clutching a huge Bible in the other arm...holding the book close to his chest, like it was precious to him. And even though Rodney couldn't read, it was precious.
Rodney was merely imitating the only adult he was with most of the week.
Nobody made fun of Rodney much...who would want to make fun of this gentle soul?
In the way of a small child, Rodney loved everybody. But the thing that Rodney was most known for is that he said "yes" to Jesus at every service....every time there was an altar call.
When Bro. John-Paul would wrap up his sermon, he would step down from the pulpet and invite people to come, and Rodney was most often the first to go and take the pastor's hand...dabbing his eyes, looking broken and grieved...hungry for healing in his life...responding to the same sort of pull I felt as a small boy...
That's what Rodney did.
Who knows how many other people reached out to God during those sevices because of Rodney?
He went first.
As the congregation sang, "...Open wide Thy arms of love. Lord, I'm coming home." ...Rodney couldn't go home fast enough!
Rodney's gift was saying "Yes".
Monday, June 29, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
The Trunk
In the corner of my study is an old steamer trunk covered with wood-grained adhesive paper...and it's very precious to me because it goes back as far as I can remember...linking my infancy and early childhood in Philadelphia with my life in New Orleans..the city that crowds my sensory memory with its earthiness, its funk.
I arrived in New Orleans by plane when I was seven to stay with my grandmother Emma. Where my mother ever got the money for that ticket...and why she felt so motivated to get me out of Philidelphia, I will never know.
The trunk that had moved with us from apartment to apartment in Philly came to New Orleans a year later than me...along with my mother, Martha, and Eugene, my father. It arrived, along with everything we had ever owned, but I didn't see any of it for months and months.
With no employment waiting in New Orleans, no place to live, and no cash to speak of, Eugene had the trunk and everything else we owned shipped south. He and Mom rode the Grayhound.
We wound up in a tiny, furnished apartment on Magazine Street. All our stuff, including the trunk, went into storage. The shipping company wanted the freight charges before releasing anything...and the company also planned to charge us storage fees on everything that had been shipped. And we really didn't have room for the stuff anyway.
Rolling around in my kid's brain were visions of all the wonderful things that were waiting for me...toys I had left behind when I left Philadelphia...including my very first bicycle...clothes...stuff.... And the longer I waited, the more glorious the dream of being reunited with all of it became. I think this was true for my mother too.
I remember that apartment on Magazine very well...it's where I came down with the chicken pox...it's where I learned my states and capitals...and it's where I saw more roaches than at any other time in my life. The cans of roach spray my mother bought did very little good.
With a broom stick and a spring clothes pin, I made a rubber band gun...and with it, I had a lot of fun picking roaches off the walls.
My mother cried in anger and frustration at all of it...especially the roaches, I think.
My mother and father both managed to find jobs...Eugene even kept his for a while before my mother wound up supporting us all...again.
It took a very long time...maybe a year or so, but my parents made payments to the freight company...and finally we got another apartment near Louisiana Avenue...and we got our stuff, including the trunk.
My heart broke.
It all looked like junk. Many of my mother's things had been broken in shipping, I had outgrown the clothes..my bike was too small for me, and I was too old for most of the toys. Our dreams had been handled too roughly and they had been in storage too long.
Out of all it, the steamer trunk still survives...
Years later, my mother bought some contact paper with a wood grain and spent hours applying it to the trunk. But it wound up looking exactly like an old trunk covered with contact paper.
Of all the things from my childhood, this trunk is the only thing that has always been there. It's ugly and grungy...tacky as the contact paper that covers it...but it's tough...and it survived.
It's my link...
I arrived in New Orleans by plane when I was seven to stay with my grandmother Emma. Where my mother ever got the money for that ticket...and why she felt so motivated to get me out of Philidelphia, I will never know.
The trunk that had moved with us from apartment to apartment in Philly came to New Orleans a year later than me...along with my mother, Martha, and Eugene, my father. It arrived, along with everything we had ever owned, but I didn't see any of it for months and months.
With no employment waiting in New Orleans, no place to live, and no cash to speak of, Eugene had the trunk and everything else we owned shipped south. He and Mom rode the Grayhound.
We wound up in a tiny, furnished apartment on Magazine Street. All our stuff, including the trunk, went into storage. The shipping company wanted the freight charges before releasing anything...and the company also planned to charge us storage fees on everything that had been shipped. And we really didn't have room for the stuff anyway.
Rolling around in my kid's brain were visions of all the wonderful things that were waiting for me...toys I had left behind when I left Philadelphia...including my very first bicycle...clothes...stuff.... And the longer I waited, the more glorious the dream of being reunited with all of it became. I think this was true for my mother too.
I remember that apartment on Magazine very well...it's where I came down with the chicken pox...it's where I learned my states and capitals...and it's where I saw more roaches than at any other time in my life. The cans of roach spray my mother bought did very little good.
With a broom stick and a spring clothes pin, I made a rubber band gun...and with it, I had a lot of fun picking roaches off the walls.
My mother cried in anger and frustration at all of it...especially the roaches, I think.
My mother and father both managed to find jobs...Eugene even kept his for a while before my mother wound up supporting us all...again.
It took a very long time...maybe a year or so, but my parents made payments to the freight company...and finally we got another apartment near Louisiana Avenue...and we got our stuff, including the trunk.
My heart broke.
It all looked like junk. Many of my mother's things had been broken in shipping, I had outgrown the clothes..my bike was too small for me, and I was too old for most of the toys. Our dreams had been handled too roughly and they had been in storage too long.
Out of all it, the steamer trunk still survives...
Years later, my mother bought some contact paper with a wood grain and spent hours applying it to the trunk. But it wound up looking exactly like an old trunk covered with contact paper.
Of all the things from my childhood, this trunk is the only thing that has always been there. It's ugly and grungy...tacky as the contact paper that covers it...but it's tough...and it survived.
It's my link...
The Trunk
In the corner of my study is an old steamer trunk covered with wood-grained adhesive paper...and it's very precious to me because it goes back as far as I can remember...linking my infancy and early childhood in Philadelphia with my life in New Orleans..the city that crowds my sensory memory with its earthiness, its funk.
I arrived in New Orleans by plane when I was seven to stay with my grandmother Emma. Where my mother ever got the money for that ticket...and why she felt so motivated to get me out of Philidelphia, I will never know.
The trunk that had moved with us from apartment to apartment in Philly came to New Orleans a year later than me...along with my mother, Martha, and Eugene, my father. It arrived, along with everything we had ever owned, but I didn't see any of it for months and months.
With no employment waiting in New Orleans, no place to live, and no cash to speak of, Eugene had the trunk and everything else we owned shipped south. He and Mom rode the Grayhound.
We wound up in a tiny, furnished apartment on Magazine Street. All our stuff, including the trunk, went into storage. The shipping company wanted the freight charges before releasing anything...and the company also planned to charge us storage fees on everything that had been shipped. And we really didn't have room for the stuff anyway.
Rolling around in my kid's brain were visions of all the wonderful things that were waiting for me...toys I had left behind when I left Philadelphia...including my very first bicycle...clothes...stuff.... And the longer I waited, the more glorious the dream of being reunited with all of it became. I think this was true for my mother too.
I remember that apartment on Magazine very well...it's where I came down with the chicken pox...it's where I learned my states and capitals...and it's where I saw more roaches than at any other time in my life. The cans of roach spray my mother bought did very little good.
With a broom stick and a spring clothes pin, I made a rubber band gun...and with it, I had a lot of fun picking roaches off the walls.
My mother cried in anger and frustration at all of it...especially the roaches, I think.
My mother and father both managed to find jobs...Eugene even kept his for a while before my mother wound up supporting us all...again.
It took a very long time...maybe a year or so, but my parents made payments to the freight company...and finally we got another apartment near Louisiana Avenue...and we got our stuff, including the trunk.
My heart broke.
It all looked like junk. Many of my mother's things had been broken in shipping, I had outgrown the clothes..my bike was too small for me, and I was too old for most of the toys. Our dreams had been handled too roughly and they had been in storage too long.
Out of all it, the steamer trunk still survives...
Years later, my mother bought some contact paper with a wood grain and spent hours applying it to the trunk. But it wound up looking exactly like an old trunk covered with contact paper.
Of all the things from my childhood, this trunk is the only thing that has always been there. It's ugly and grungy...tacky as the contact paper that covers it...but it's tough...and it survived.
It's my link...
I arrived in New Orleans by plane when I was seven to stay with my grandmother Emma. Where my mother ever got the money for that ticket...and why she felt so motivated to get me out of Philidelphia, I will never know.
The trunk that had moved with us from apartment to apartment in Philly came to New Orleans a year later than me...along with my mother, Martha, and Eugene, my father. It arrived, along with everything we had ever owned, but I didn't see any of it for months and months.
With no employment waiting in New Orleans, no place to live, and no cash to speak of, Eugene had the trunk and everything else we owned shipped south. He and Mom rode the Grayhound.
We wound up in a tiny, furnished apartment on Magazine Street. All our stuff, including the trunk, went into storage. The shipping company wanted the freight charges before releasing anything...and the company also planned to charge us storage fees on everything that had been shipped. And we really didn't have room for the stuff anyway.
Rolling around in my kid's brain were visions of all the wonderful things that were waiting for me...toys I had left behind when I left Philadelphia...including my very first bicycle...clothes...stuff.... And the longer I waited, the more glorious the dream of being reunited with all of it became. I think this was true for my mother too.
I remember that apartment on Magazine very well...it's where I came down with the chicken pox...it's where I learned my states and capitals...and it's where I saw more roaches than at any other time in my life. The cans of roach spray my mother bought did very little good.
With a broom stick and a spring clothes pin, I made a rubber band gun...and with it, I had a lot of fun picking roaches off the walls.
My mother cried in anger and frustration at all of it...especially the roaches, I think.
My mother and father both managed to find jobs...Eugene even kept his for a while before my mother wound up supporting us all...again.
It took a very long time...maybe a year or so, but my parents made payments to the freight company...and finally we got another apartment near Louisiana Avenue...and we got our stuff, including the trunk.
My heart broke.
It all looked like junk. Many of my mother's things had been broken in shipping, I had outgrown the clothes..my bike was too small for me, and I was too old for most of the toys. Our dreams had been handled too roughly and they had been in storage too long.
Out of all it, the steamer trunk still survives...
Years later, my mother bought some contact paper with a wood grain and spent hours applying it to the trunk. But it wound up looking exactly like an old trunk covered with contact paper.
Of all the things from my childhood, this trunk is the only thing that has always been there. It's ugly and grungy...tacky as the contact paper that covers it...but it's tough...and it survived.
It's my link...
Canal Street
I haunted Canal Street. There were so many places to go, so many things to see, but like most of my childhood I was alone when it seemed that everyone around me was in groups. And that's how I took it all in....alone. A kid in a bubble, floating along through downtown ...before the malls killed the central city.
There were so many places to go... At the International Trademart, I would go into the various travel agencies and come out with all sorts of posters and pamphlets of places far away. I would make up some kind of story about doing a project for school, and with that lie came tons of stuff.
The posters went up in my room, the pamphlets I would read...filling my in the blank places on my mental map.
And the Trademart was so conveniently close to the Algiers ferry...good for free rides to Algiers and back ...as long as I wanted to watch the barges and freighters push through the chocolate water.
There was Werlein's music store where I spent endless time talking to the instument repairmen on the third floor as they worked on all sorts of horns. These were friendly guys who put up with the endless questions of a curious kid with nothing to do but watch and ask.
One floor down from the repairs was a whole floor full of pianos. Kids would be walking in and out for their lessons...some were better than others. There would be families pricing instruments...huge grands that would never fit in our house.
At street level, the glass cases filled me with lust... There they were, brand new horns with no dents, no scratches, all sitting in plush cases of deep blues and reds.... Sexy before I knew what sex was.
And the sheet music for sale...with people I could tell were real musicians flipping through stack after stack...some carrying instrument cases, looking important.
When I got thirsty, drugstore soda fountains were good for a glass of water...Walgreen's, Waterbury's... Drugstores were different then...with lunch counters, small juke boxes every so often.
One time I saved up and bought my mother a bottle of Chanel #5 at Waterbury's.
If I was really broke, I would put a nickel in the paper machine, grab a big handful of the Times-Picayune
and become a newsboy.
I loved being downtown, playing some kind of role.... going to the Grayhound station and milling around being a passenger....going to the huge main branch of the library being a student...going to Charity Hospital's emergency room being a patient.... but the thing about the emergency room is that sometimes I saw and heard harsh things as people bled and moaned with pain.
Thom McAn Shoe Store was many times a stop because there was a machine that x-rayed your feet, showing you how your shoes fit. I don't know how many times I went in to see the bones in my feet.
And Woolworth's? Oh man, that store had EVERYTHING. Tropical fish, endless toys, a lunch counter... This store was a main stop. On Saturdays, all sorts of gadgets were demonstrated...things that sliced, diced, and were ready to change your life in significant ways.
Woolworth's on Canal was also the site of the first civil rights demonstration I ever saw. Black people serious about wanting to eat at the white counter were crowding the street carrying signs and singing.
It looked dangerous...like something bad could happen....like something fragile was about to get broken.
I watched.
The Roosevelt Hotel. I'm surprised I got in, but there were important things to do there. ....check out the rich people, walk on plush carpets, use a bathroom where there was a friendly black man to hand me a towel...a cloth towel. And the gift shop was a whole other world of china, sculptures, glassware, jewelry... And nothing was decorated for Christmas like the Roosevelt!
Kress', Maison Blanche, D. H. Holmes, Krauss'...all the workers in these huge stores knew me...and never lost patience with my aggressive enjoyment. I looked at everything, touched everything, and if at all possible, tried things out...electric putting machines, punching bags....
I could fill a whole day, moving from wonder to wonder...but alone. I would walk on the fringes of groups of strangers because I wanted so badly to be with somebody, anybody. I watched them enjoy my city, my street....talking, laughing, with the potential of carrying some of it home...the potential of making some of it part of their lives. But I was in my bubble with nothing comiing in and nothing comeing out.
My bubble... It was there even at home. I decided early on that nobody noticed me or gave me much thought. One morning, I got a red sticker, put it right in the middle of my forehead. ....just to see how long it would take someone to notice it. Nobody...not one person said anything about it all day.
That evening, I was in an evil mood... I was alone.
But the rhythm of Canal Street, noises like rumble of the street cars, my ritualistic stalking....As New Orleans gathered me up in her arms, rocked me, distracted me with her charms.... for a time I wasn't lonely...just alone.
There were so many places to go... At the International Trademart, I would go into the various travel agencies and come out with all sorts of posters and pamphlets of places far away. I would make up some kind of story about doing a project for school, and with that lie came tons of stuff.
The posters went up in my room, the pamphlets I would read...filling my in the blank places on my mental map.
And the Trademart was so conveniently close to the Algiers ferry...good for free rides to Algiers and back ...as long as I wanted to watch the barges and freighters push through the chocolate water.
There was Werlein's music store where I spent endless time talking to the instument repairmen on the third floor as they worked on all sorts of horns. These were friendly guys who put up with the endless questions of a curious kid with nothing to do but watch and ask.
One floor down from the repairs was a whole floor full of pianos. Kids would be walking in and out for their lessons...some were better than others. There would be families pricing instruments...huge grands that would never fit in our house.
At street level, the glass cases filled me with lust... There they were, brand new horns with no dents, no scratches, all sitting in plush cases of deep blues and reds.... Sexy before I knew what sex was.
And the sheet music for sale...with people I could tell were real musicians flipping through stack after stack...some carrying instrument cases, looking important.
When I got thirsty, drugstore soda fountains were good for a glass of water...Walgreen's, Waterbury's... Drugstores were different then...with lunch counters, small juke boxes every so often.
One time I saved up and bought my mother a bottle of Chanel #5 at Waterbury's.
If I was really broke, I would put a nickel in the paper machine, grab a big handful of the Times-Picayune
and become a newsboy.
I loved being downtown, playing some kind of role.... going to the Grayhound station and milling around being a passenger....going to the huge main branch of the library being a student...going to Charity Hospital's emergency room being a patient.... but the thing about the emergency room is that sometimes I saw and heard harsh things as people bled and moaned with pain.
Thom McAn Shoe Store was many times a stop because there was a machine that x-rayed your feet, showing you how your shoes fit. I don't know how many times I went in to see the bones in my feet.
And Woolworth's? Oh man, that store had EVERYTHING. Tropical fish, endless toys, a lunch counter... This store was a main stop. On Saturdays, all sorts of gadgets were demonstrated...things that sliced, diced, and were ready to change your life in significant ways.
Woolworth's on Canal was also the site of the first civil rights demonstration I ever saw. Black people serious about wanting to eat at the white counter were crowding the street carrying signs and singing.
It looked dangerous...like something bad could happen....like something fragile was about to get broken.
I watched.
The Roosevelt Hotel. I'm surprised I got in, but there were important things to do there. ....check out the rich people, walk on plush carpets, use a bathroom where there was a friendly black man to hand me a towel...a cloth towel. And the gift shop was a whole other world of china, sculptures, glassware, jewelry... And nothing was decorated for Christmas like the Roosevelt!
Kress', Maison Blanche, D. H. Holmes, Krauss'...all the workers in these huge stores knew me...and never lost patience with my aggressive enjoyment. I looked at everything, touched everything, and if at all possible, tried things out...electric putting machines, punching bags....
I could fill a whole day, moving from wonder to wonder...but alone. I would walk on the fringes of groups of strangers because I wanted so badly to be with somebody, anybody. I watched them enjoy my city, my street....talking, laughing, with the potential of carrying some of it home...the potential of making some of it part of their lives. But I was in my bubble with nothing comiing in and nothing comeing out.
My bubble... It was there even at home. I decided early on that nobody noticed me or gave me much thought. One morning, I got a red sticker, put it right in the middle of my forehead. ....just to see how long it would take someone to notice it. Nobody...not one person said anything about it all day.
That evening, I was in an evil mood... I was alone.
But the rhythm of Canal Street, noises like rumble of the street cars, my ritualistic stalking....As New Orleans gathered me up in her arms, rocked me, distracted me with her charms.... for a time I wasn't lonely...just alone.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Mr. Harry
Heat turns up often in New Orleans culture...in the climate, in the food, in the music, and in the way the people live their lives.
The summers were a blast from hell in the public housing projects. All the brick and cement, with very few trees, small patches of grass, and the humidity.... The heat made the asphalt soft. And we did battle with the sun using only window fans....this sun that stoked the inferno.
More than once I got fussed for opening the refrigerator, putting my head inside to feel the cool. Lots of people would crack open an icecube tray and rub the cubes on their arms and faces. Relief of a sort....
The afternoon rains helped some too. It's hard to forget the smell coming off the cement as the rain hit it. It sizzled like when you spit on a hot griddle.
The men who passed through the projects selling snow balls and ice cream from trucks were vicious in a way. Kids could hear the jingles bouncing off the boiling hot streets and buildings...and the tunes carried for blocks. There was a promise of some cold thing ringing out...for a price.
Children nickled and dimed their parents to death for change. And mammas, already short-tempered with the heat, grew to hate the ice cream man. "Mamma, it's just a time...!" But the dimes didn't come easy, and it made parents feel mean to push their kids away with a "No!"
Vicious, that's what they were. Stirring up the little ones like that!
People would seek out businesses where there was a penguin sticker on the front door or window. And just go in and chill a while. Play like you're shopping...or if it was a church say a very long prayer.
Mr. Harry was the manager of the meat department where my mother worked. Mom would come home sometimes and tell me stories of how Mr. Harry cheated customers...grinding up ice with the hamburger to make it weigh more, having the workers put a pair of shears on the scale as they weighed in hams, paying off government men with bags of steaks when they came to check the store's scales....
Mr. Harry won lots of awards for running a very efficient meat department. And I liked him because when I would visit the meat department in the summer, he wouldn't fuss me when he would find me standing in the meat locker enjoying the cold. He also let my mother carry home a lot of meat that would have been put on "quick sale". ( I'm smiling now thinking of the times I ate ground filet mignon on a hamburger bun.)
One summer, Mr. Harry invited my mom to babysit his children while he and his wife went on vacation...
me too! Mr. Harry stayed out near the lake in a beautuful brick house....like nothing I had ever seen before. His two children just had not wrapped their heads around what they had.
AIR CONDITIONING
He had an air conditioned house! And in addition to wall - to - wall refrigeration, he had a color TV! ...the first one I had ever seen. And Mr. Harry had an ice machine, a huge freezer full of ice cream, and ALL of the pop I wanted.
For days, I camped out in the living room...in a soft, cool, leather recliner watching color television ...holding a real glass (not plastic) full of one iced drink after another. My mother was so afraid that I would wet the bed.... I did, once.
Mr. Harry's children thought I was crazy. Some people just don't understand, just don't realize. I have all of these things now...and more. But there was a first time for it all, and Mr. Harry allowed me to experience it.
But the crash came whem Mom and I had to go back to our apartment in the Iberville Housing Project...to the heat...to my black and white world where there was no ice machine and no real glasses.
Mr. Harry was not vicious like the ice cream man. He certainly was not perfect, but the cool he shared with my mother and me was so much more complete and lasting...and open. His sharing was quiet with nothing to announce it....it didn't need a loud jingle.
In hot New Orleans, Mr. Harry was part of the city's coolness.
The summers were a blast from hell in the public housing projects. All the brick and cement, with very few trees, small patches of grass, and the humidity.... The heat made the asphalt soft. And we did battle with the sun using only window fans....this sun that stoked the inferno.
More than once I got fussed for opening the refrigerator, putting my head inside to feel the cool. Lots of people would crack open an icecube tray and rub the cubes on their arms and faces. Relief of a sort....
The afternoon rains helped some too. It's hard to forget the smell coming off the cement as the rain hit it. It sizzled like when you spit on a hot griddle.
The men who passed through the projects selling snow balls and ice cream from trucks were vicious in a way. Kids could hear the jingles bouncing off the boiling hot streets and buildings...and the tunes carried for blocks. There was a promise of some cold thing ringing out...for a price.
Children nickled and dimed their parents to death for change. And mammas, already short-tempered with the heat, grew to hate the ice cream man. "Mamma, it's just a time...!" But the dimes didn't come easy, and it made parents feel mean to push their kids away with a "No!"
Vicious, that's what they were. Stirring up the little ones like that!
People would seek out businesses where there was a penguin sticker on the front door or window. And just go in and chill a while. Play like you're shopping...or if it was a church say a very long prayer.
Mr. Harry was the manager of the meat department where my mother worked. Mom would come home sometimes and tell me stories of how Mr. Harry cheated customers...grinding up ice with the hamburger to make it weigh more, having the workers put a pair of shears on the scale as they weighed in hams, paying off government men with bags of steaks when they came to check the store's scales....
Mr. Harry won lots of awards for running a very efficient meat department. And I liked him because when I would visit the meat department in the summer, he wouldn't fuss me when he would find me standing in the meat locker enjoying the cold. He also let my mother carry home a lot of meat that would have been put on "quick sale". ( I'm smiling now thinking of the times I ate ground filet mignon on a hamburger bun.)
One summer, Mr. Harry invited my mom to babysit his children while he and his wife went on vacation...
me too! Mr. Harry stayed out near the lake in a beautuful brick house....like nothing I had ever seen before. His two children just had not wrapped their heads around what they had.
AIR CONDITIONING
He had an air conditioned house! And in addition to wall - to - wall refrigeration, he had a color TV! ...the first one I had ever seen. And Mr. Harry had an ice machine, a huge freezer full of ice cream, and ALL of the pop I wanted.
For days, I camped out in the living room...in a soft, cool, leather recliner watching color television ...holding a real glass (not plastic) full of one iced drink after another. My mother was so afraid that I would wet the bed.... I did, once.
Mr. Harry's children thought I was crazy. Some people just don't understand, just don't realize. I have all of these things now...and more. But there was a first time for it all, and Mr. Harry allowed me to experience it.
But the crash came whem Mom and I had to go back to our apartment in the Iberville Housing Project...to the heat...to my black and white world where there was no ice machine and no real glasses.
Mr. Harry was not vicious like the ice cream man. He certainly was not perfect, but the cool he shared with my mother and me was so much more complete and lasting...and open. His sharing was quiet with nothing to announce it....it didn't need a loud jingle.
In hot New Orleans, Mr. Harry was part of the city's coolness.
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