Louisiana

Thursday, November 5
In 2009, at the New Deal Cafe in Greenbelt, "An old guy (probably 10 years younger than me),
said his nephew had described me as "Richard Widmark crossed with Mose Allison."(!)
(I had Widmark's moves and Allison's lyrics.)
Alabama line to Slidell, La.

    Over the Pearl River into St. Tammany Parrish, La. at 11:10 on the Stephen E. Ambrose Memorial Parkway (I-10), 70 mph speed limit. Bienvenue a Louisiana; Welcome to Louisiana. It's still overcast with tiny patches of blue. I get off at US 190 at 12:01. After a bit of hassle I check into the Euro Inn & Suites ($39.99+tax = $45.69) around 12:30, after the usual difficulty finding things, the odometer at 109047. I get a ham and cheese po boy and sweet tea at the Big Easy Diner.
    In the evening, I'm on the road to Mandeville, first on US 190, past Daiquiris and Creams with a drive-through, then up to I-12, getting off at La 59 into Mandeville for the songwriters get-together at the Beachfront Bar & Grille. 9 of us perform, all men, all but one probably 40 and above, the exception (Buzz Jackson) probably in his 30s. One guy plays some pretty tasty mandolin behind others and another guy plays tasteful guitar behind others although his own performance is on the raucous side. In addition to the performers, there's a guy who tries to play harmonica behind others, the wife of the tasteful guitar player (she puts $10 in my hand when she leaves), 2 middle-aged women from Spain, and another couple (she was quite attractive). Everybody who stays to the end gets to play 5 songs. I do "An Anonymous Alba," "The Last of the Outlaws," "This Old Van," "On the Road to New Orleans," and "The Parting Glass." A very nice group of people. They told me about another open mike tomorrow night in Madisonville.
    Then it 's down that long dark empty US190 to my motel, past the L.P. Monteleone Junior High and back to the motel at 11:40.
    The foot feels better when I walk on it. Endorphins kicking in? The tendons leading to the ankle from the foot and calf muscles are sore, probably from walking flat-footed on that foot. There's an area of redness behind the big toe with a sore spot in it.

Friday, November 6
In 1981, I went "out to Curtis Bay to clean out my poor sad Porsche."
Slidell     Up at 7:50. The toe still hurts though it seems better, easier to walk, the redness down a bit. Paid some bills by email.
    Off to the Big Easy Diner at 11:05, a guy up on the 2nd floor balcony in a wife-beater undershirt swigging a beer. Steak & eggs cost me $15.35, including tip. After 2 tries, the 3rd bank I go to cashes a credit card for me. Temp 85. Called Burrie and he called back and we talked for a while. He's getting work, busy playing music, enough to break even last month.
    Off to the open mike at the Abita Roasting House in Madisonville. Many of the same people last night, including Buzz Jackson, who ran things last night--an interesting songwriter with a voice that sometimes (not always) reminds me of Peter Brown, Mike Bush with his nylon string guitar (he has traveled all over the world, South America, Asia, a lot to London, Cayman Islands) and sweet classical stylings, another great lead guitar player, a fine mandolin player, and a fine bass player.
    This and last night are the 3rd highlight of my trip so far, the first one with people in it. I did "Hard Travelin'," "The Belle of Bourbon Street," and "All Night Diner," which go over very well, all accompanied by Glen on bass. There was an elderly woman up front who really enjoyed everything.
    Burrie would have enjoyed it and would have loved the marina nearby. Coming in, my way was blocked briefly by a pickup truck towing a cabin cruiser. A hard time finding parking but I wound up in front of a small shed in the parking lot of the Abita.
    I leave at 10:06, the temp still 78. I-12 at 10:11. Back to the motel at 10:50, my foot much better, able to walk almost like a human being, but pink all over and slightly swollen on top.
Saturday, November 7
In 1966, I drove up the Sur coastline.
Slidell      Up at 8:40 on another gray day that became rainy in the late afternoon, temp 80. The color on my foot is pretty much back to normal although it's still sore. Breakfast is a waffle at the Big Easy Diner. I call the Avenue Inn on St. Charles Street and take a room their tomorrow night, thus totally demolishing my budget. But, what the hell, it's New Orleans. Finished reading Growing Up in Hollywood by Robert Parrish. Dinner is a Philly steak sandwich at Hooters. It was either them, Popeye's, or the Waffle House. I really didn't feel like going to the Big Easy Diner again.

Sunday, November 8
In 1966, I came to San Francisco for the first time.
Slidell to New Orleans Up at 8:30 and out of the motel around 10:00, temp 57. It's Sunday morning and it looks like the fleet came in at the Big Easy, a full house, no parking available, so I go the Waffle House for for ham, eggs with cheese, raisin toast, tomatoes, OJ, coffee. $10.00 worth of $1.799 gas at a Race-trac. It's pretty damn windy.
Onto I-10 at 11:05 and across the Pontchartrain Causeway to US 90 across Arts Street, Music Street, Elysian Fields. I overshoot Avenue Inn by quite a bit and have to go back quite a few blocks. I finally get here around 12:15. It's not the place I stayed in 11 years ago, which may be just up the next block. The room is tiny and there's offstreet parking.

    I take the trolley to downtown, the first time I've ever taken it. It seems to take forever and I get off it too early but find Bourbon Street with a little help from my smart phone. It's tawdry and garish, a lot tackier than I remember. It was probably tackier then than I remember now but not this tacky. There are 3 Hustlers locations ("Relax It's Just Sex") and a Hard Rock Cafe. Sad, sad, sad. Bourbon Street seems a lot longer, there are a lot more strip joints (only one in 1971), music of different types (but not Dixieland), recorded and live, coming out of every door. I recognize nothing. A woman stripped to the waist except for black stars over her nipples walks down the street. A fiddle player on the corner of Dumaine and Decatur, some "hippies" (2 guys and a woman) with bulldogs and guitars, a very good lady singer with a guitar player. I can't find where the Seven Seas was or Andy's or the Witches Workshop. A bunch of pennies in the cement of the sidewalk at Decatur. At Jackson Square across from the Cabildo and St. Louis Cathedral where Pope Francis led mass just a month or so ago, there are 10 or so fortune tellers, tarot card and crystal ball readers, psychics ("Dispensing Wisdom Is Not Government Approved"). The ride back on the trolley car is much quicker and it's herky-jerky, with jolts at stops and starts that threaten to throw me all the way to the back of the trolley.
    I'm glad I came but I'm not sorry to be leaving after only a day. The French Quarter is not what I want it to be. I needed to come here if only to realize I didn't need to come here.
    In the evening, I go to the open mike at the Neutral Ground Coffee House (opened in 1977) not very far from the Avenue Inn. Phil, the owner, and Mike, who ran the open mike, and several other older people enjoy the idea of my traveling and say they had always wanted to do it too. I do "I Never Should Have Left New Orleans," "St. James Infirmary," "All Night Diner," and "Here." Phil likes "St. James" and "Here." His wife, Heidi, gives me $5.00. I also get several other good comments, all from older people. Most of the people are in their mid to late twenties. Some are pretty good, some not so good. Niko plays mouth percussion, interesting but not very entertaining, guitar, harp, some magic tricks; Kiko plays some of the best piano I've ever heard, Lillian reminds me of a young Greenwich Village folksinger, and there's a guy who plays ukulele. He has a very good smooth voice but, like voice percussion, ukulele gets monotonous after a while. His songs aren't very interesting either, relying on a bit of cleverness and repetition. There's also a duo who are one of the worst acts I've ever heard, flat, not in tune with each other, and shouting lyrics as if that made them better (and they weren't very good). On the other hand, all their songs were only about a minute long. I finally leave at 10:45, on side streets that are the worst streets I've ever been on, getting to bed at 11:15.

Monday, November 9
1966: "Both Pam and Jim suggested I go to Haight Ashbury" where I read poetry at the Blue Unicorn and met Irene Kitagawa.
New Orleans to Morgan City, La.
    Up at 8. Raisin toast, bagel and cream cheese, yogurt, apricot and raspberry Danish, orange juice, coffee at the Avenue Inn, leaving at 9:43 under a gray sky, 61 degrees.
    Down St. Charles Street to Leake Road along the levee into Jefferson Parish. Under the Huey P. Long Bridge then up side streets to US 90 west onto the bridge and over the Mississippi River. Saint Charles Parrish. A lot of water and marsh grass alongside the road, businesses on the left, swamp growth on the right. Mimosa Plaza, Dot's Diner. A railroad on the right and businesses on both sides at Boutte. Des Allemandes, a bayou (maybe) with little islands, Fourche Parish, The Bourgeois Meat Market, Since 1891. Past Raceland, it's flat, almost featureless (savannah?), with a scattering of solitary trees, in all directions, left, right, ahead, behind, just flat, marsh grass. A marsh hawk (?) or a heron (?) flies over the highway. US 90 becomes an interstate style road with a grass divider, southern growths 10-15 highon either side, some Spanish moss. Vultures circle the highway.
    I stop for a coke at a Waffle House and head down Louisiana 24 south, a very divided road, with a waterway and some businesses between the lanes going in different directions. The Sugar Plum Cindy's Designer Cakes, Billy's Best Brands Plus, It's Five O'Clock Somewhere, Special Chicken of the New Orleans Saints, Miracle Ear, "We Don't Sell Homes We Sell Dreams", Crawdaddy Seafood, New Vision Worship Center, Salty Dog Vapor, Brook's Snow World. The Christmas Place. The Wedding Place. "Why save hundreds when you can save thousands." An above the ground graveyard.
    How far we've come, good or bad, in 2000 years. All this stuff would be totally incomprehensible to someone from 2000 years ago.
    Into bayou country, heading toward the gulf. Working boats tied up along the waterway. Each boat with a name, God's Kids, Daddy Bucks, houses are small, mostly just one story, some are shacks, some built up on stilts aboveground, no first story, a car port underneath. Some of the houses are just trailers on stilts.
    A rotating draw bridge. There are wonderful weird-shaped trees alongside the road, leafless. Louisiana 57. Just savannah as far as the eye can see, lots of houses on the left in distance (Cocodrie?), over the prairie grass and water, waterways through the grass close to the road. Beautiful desolate country. A large stand of some kind of growth like very tall reeds. A small sparrow flies across the road, then a marsh hawk. There are all kinds of contstruction equipment but no one is working (Veteran's Day). There's one lonely tree in the near distance, too far away to take a picture without a telephoto lens. It's one trunk and one branch twisted into a question mark. A big white bird flaps across the highway. There is one after another of these naked twisted trees alongside the road. A white ibis, heron, or egret stands motionless in the canal. This road goes on forever, 10 or 15 minutes with no other cars except a few parked alongside, some with boats.
    The road turns and I take a left turn past a group of real fishing boats including Moonlight. A tugboat, Miss Ramona, chugs by. The road comes to a dead end at the water, a gull sitting motionless on a piling. Once again I took the wrong fork. First you screw up, then you screw down. I turn around and head back through Grand Caillou. Another white egret or whatever alongside the canal. Back on to 57 (I should have taken a left). Gasoline here is $2.299! There are lots of boats on the shore, the canal is now to my left. It's a different canal from the one I followed down to 57. A lift bridge (this county, I mean parrish, sure gives a lot of jobs to bridgetenders), another above-ground cemetery, tin rusting shacks, moldering tanks. Clouds are breaking up, there are patches of blue everywhere, the sun manages to come out from behind a cloud occasionally. I get back to 24 and then 182. For the first time, I notice palm trees. 182 is 2 lanes, one each way, houses on the left, trees, canal, and houses on the right. At 2:20, I stop at the Mandalay Wildlife Refuge. I hear blue jays, crows, bullfrogs, distant Canada geese, a catbird, but I only get glimpses of some small birds and some kind of large brown bird flies away. Oh, yes, and mosquitos.
    182 is a long boring road. On to US 90 west again to stop at the Red Roof Inn in Morgan City, La. at 3:35, temp 71, odometer. 109372. At 5:00, I go over to the Lotus Asian Cuisine for kung pao Shrimp.

Tuesday, November 10
1966: I spent the night on Irene Kitagawa's couch and met Makoto (Mike) Shiota in the morning.
They suggested I go to Muir Wood: "I wandered that pine forest just like a child."
Morgan City to the Texas Line.
    Up at 8:30. A sunny day with lots of clouds. Leaving the Red Roof at 9:35, temp 73, odometer 109375. Over the Atchafalaya River on US 90, lots of clouds, pretty high, in clumps, none very big, the sun shining without any trouble. There are red banners ("Seasons Greetings") with wreaths, and it ain't even Thanksgiving. Two lanes each way, a grass divider, an old concrete road, with clicks, bumps, and patches, highway slabs ticking under my wheels. US 90 alternates being a limited access highway and one with cross traffic, access from side roads. The Hollywood Casino, the Cash Magic Casino, 4 casinos on US 90 west of Morgan City.
    It's flat country again, what is probably sugarcane, 3-4 feet tall. Another river, a rusted girder railroad bridge to my left. An egret standing in water alongside road. Pretty empty territory, flat, not a house in sight, lots of sugar cane, water and woodlands, those strange gnarled southern trees. The sky is getting more and more cloudy. A ramshackle building, 3 trailer homes.
    I leave US 90 for route 14 at New Iberia at 10:37, the sky very clear with mostly cirrus clouds, some puffy cumulus. I pay $20.25 for $1.899 gas with spillage at a Chevron then go to a Waffle House for ham, cheese & eggs, raisin toast, tomatoes, coffee. Along 14, they're harvesting the cane with tractors and hay ricks. 14 is a divided highway, 2 lanes each way, lined with small houses. The clouds are beginning to be medium-sized cumulus, lots of sun. Lots of Dollar Generals and Family Dollars in Louisiana. A very large redwing blackbird on a wire; at first I thought it was a small crow but red epaulets do not lie.     Delcambre. A few businesses alongside the road, gas stations to the right, a railroad track to the left with houses on the other side, an above ground cemetery. So much for Delcambre.
    On to Louisiana 82 south at 11:47 at Abbeville. "Merry Christmas, George Bailey, December 5." Iron filigree on one building. Suburban Abbeville, one-story ranch homes, a lot of them in brick, one house with three-story southern columns. A liftbridge over Vermilion River.
    Sometimes it's so flat I feel I might just as well be in Kansas or Iowa instead of Louisiana. Southern Louisiana has so much water. I'm not used to it, something I'm just not used to.
    Lots of fields with standing water. The cumulus getting bigger though still medium-sized. An area with lots of trees standing in water. A high bridge over the Intercoastal Waterway, a big barge down there, way up, looking down on flat plain. Little ponds, a building falling apart, half of it already in shambles, fields on both sides in water. Crossing the Intercoastal Waterway again at Little Prairie. Oh that sun!
    Out onto a savannah again on 82 (the Creole Scenic National Park Byway), canal on either side of the road. I scare up a white egret. There are a lot of dead animals in the road. At a pullover with a little dock kind of thing into the canal, there are dead ducks on the railing. I scare up a grackle and a brown bird, maybe a female grackle but probably a female redwing. There's a lot of water off to my left, twisted trees on the other side of the canal, an egret sitting in one, a bunch of birds, maybe cormorants, maybe not, sitting on a tree on the other side of the canal. Gated dirt roads off the highway and then over the canal into the savannah. There are a couple of houses or shacks, one out of tin, prairie or savannah to the horizon on my life, flat, endless, probably to my right also but I can't see through the trees, flat, endless. This road just goes on and on and on; this would not be a good place to break down. That road yesterday back from the gulf was nothing compared to this.

    Over the Superior Canal Bridge into Grand Chenier, Somewhat populated territory. A house on stilts has a sign--"A Cajun Highrise." The Roosevelt Wildlife Refuge. Lots of white egrets, grackles, and cormorants. A white egret on the bank to my left and another on a islet far off to my left, a large group of small duck-sized water birds, a great blue egret comes in for a landing, cormorants on a telephone wire, a solitary swimming grebe-like bird, 2 white herons, one smaller than the other, another white heron ignores the car as I drive by.
    Back to 82. Grand Chenier, Oak Grove, Creole. 82 goes to right at Cameron Prairie. What happens if I go straight ahead on 357? Will it take me to that free ferry to Port Arthur that Burrie told me about? I'm gonna find out. Rutherford Beach Road. I'm heading southwest, completely clear to my left, a big bank of cumulus to my right. Taking this road is definitely pushing my comfort zone to the edge. Some kind of seabird, not a heron or egret, flies across the road. Welcome to Cameron. I get a Danish and a York peppermint patty at a Shell station and learn the ferry's still ahead. There's a strange bird, thin and slender like a mockingbird, but with a russet color to it, like the fuzz on a peach.
    I find the ferry and have to wait. 2:21--The Acadia has landed. The ferry is now a buck. At 2:34, big thick heavy ropes are cast, the engines pick up tempo, we move away from the dock and turn around and soon are on the other side of the river. From what Burrie had told me, I thought it went all the way to Port Arthur.
    There is more savannah as far as the eye can see, off the horizon on my right, ahead of me and behind me, the gulf off to my left. Welcome to Holly Beach. To my right a bunch of trailers and campers and homes on stilts, the sky pretty much clear except for cumulus clouds off my left, to the east. I'm heading due north. Homes along the beach just go on and on and on. 82 takes a sharp right turn and now there is beach to my left, saw grass and savannah to my left. Rule #3: If you see something interesting, check it out. So should I check out the beach? I don't find it interesting but part of me says I should. I might. I finally pull over and check it out. It's not interesting.
    Johnson Bayou, 6 or 7 houses, more houses, 7 or more or so. The road goes on forever, the houses march along the gulf shoreline. Gulf Breeze Beach, Little Florida Beach, Black Elk Energy Company, Mae's Beach, Long Beach, lots of identifiable birds, some on the power lines. One of those twisted trees with a big hawk sitting on it. Johnson Bayou High School in the middle of nowhere as we come into a small town. A very small town. Mobile homes, one very impressive house, a church on stilts (Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church), mobile homes with roofs of them, like sheds, lots and lots of mobile homes. A two-story house on top of stilts. Can't see gulf any more to my left. A lot of cattle out there, brahman cattle.
    Ghostly buildings on the horizon, rectangular large buildings of several floors. A lot of towers like cell towers, not solid, more toward twelve o'clock, a bunch of lower large buildings ahead on the road, smokestacks and cranes. The sun in my eyes. Buildings to my left, 6-7 storage tanks, lots of cranes, smokestacks, metal girder type towers, at least 12 cranes. It's a Chevron refinery.