Living Around the Bayou
Down the street, rather along Highway 165, I turned off at Cross Keys Bank to open an account and deposit a check from West End Press in payment for my trip to the Albuquerque Cultural Conference. (Maybe my life is changing.) Cross Keys is a local community bank with origins in St. Joseph, Louisiana and was founded […]
Mosquitoes Create Jobs
It’s been a year since I arrived in the northeastern portion of Louisiana, a wilderness and a wonderland to a northerner who has never lived south before. I’ve been introduced to crawfish or “mudbugs” and the proper way to eat them. This involves grasping the outside shell of the tail joint firmly with a thumb […]
A Person of Carriage
–for Aunt Jeanette She spoke with a Hungarian accent, her speech bordered on vines and blue forget-me-nots dropped her w’s in soft cushions beneath my feet, took a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast with cottage cheese. Mid-morning she drank orange pekoe tea in a glass, prunes and pears spiked with cloves, anointed herself in the […]
The Morgue, the Merrier
Satchmo, of course; the Marsalis family, naturally, even Ann Rice, and her vampirish underground. But me living in Louisiana? You’ve got to be kidding! I got here on subways and BART trains, sidewalks, public parks, and noise made by people, not insects whining for hours in the summer heat loud enough to drown out a […]
On Eastlake Road Thinking About Marie Richard
I’ve passed through a rite of motherhood that has spanned some twenty years. No more deadlines, meetings, no project emails that must be answered. I’ve retired from the every day world to enter a different one. And with the gift of quiet has come clarity. What do I want to do now? I’ve always wanted […]
Welcome to the Sterlington, Louisiana Dirt Track Races
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined I’d be living in the rural south. When I say never, I really mean never. I’m a city girl whose horizon has always been shaped by buildings, never trees; secondly, I’m a Jewish girl, which means that large urban centers are the places where the majority […]
Beauty and the Bugs
When I first moved to Monroe, Louisiana from Oakland, California, I was cautioned about becoming a bug activist. Instead I was advised to think about mosquito repellent, ant poisons, moth balls strategically laid out in garden beds to discourage the appearance of moccasin snakes, and cans of hornet zappers placed on patio tables. Speaking of […]
Biking Around the Upper Ouachita
I took a bike ride this morning around Bayou Bartholomew, which is not quite as Lance Armstrong as it sounds, a five-mile pedal around a stretch of houses that hug the bayou. Bayous conjure up memories of Roy Orbison crooning about his bleu bayou. It turns out that technically a bayou is a sluggish body […]
A Jew in Monroe, Lousiana
This is my first season in Louisiana. I came here in triple digit heat, sweat beading off my arms by just standing outside, an occupant of cold suburban caves and icy cars who was admonished not to roll down windows, driving back and forth along highway 165 transporting a young friend to and from the […]
Hopping Over Hurricanes
We watched news reports about Hurricane Isaac as it churned over Plaquemines Parish and spun toward the oil refineries of Baton Rouge. I flew to San Francisco to get the rest of my stuff to bring back to Monroe, glad the scab of purple clouds which covered the moon the night before didn’t mean my flight […]