#108 /2009 Tour 5 Spring: The Maple Leaf

THE MAPLE LEAF

#108

We entered New Orleans petticoat level off of Highway 90 intent on seeing old friends at the Maple Leaf Bar open mic poetry readings, hosted by Nancy “Ape Woman” Harris. We have only the workings of our imaginations as to what has happened to those friends since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

I also want to check out Mazant & Burgundy, an address and the name of the mansion where I used to live and serve as a concierge when it was converted into a 14-bed hostel back in the 80s. My friend Dana Kemp owned the place. We had plans to reconvene in the Crescent City as well; we haven’t seen each other in seven years.

We pass intriguing towns with names like Houma, Boeuf, Chacahoula. Out the window of my van the ships, the water, and the sky bridges let me know I’m drawing nearer. After living in the desert for seven years a return to the south has been a sensory overload.

The assault of green - slap, slap, slap - grass, trees, bushes, understory, upperstory, limbs and leaves amass into a canvas of chartreuse and emerald. The onslaught of rain - drown, drown, drown - we’ve seen more water in one week than in the last seven years in the Chihuahuan Desert. “Welcome home, sucker!”

The honeysuckle vines, night blooming jasmine, and magnolia blossoms permeate the oxygen. It’s like being embraced in the ample bosom of some well-powdered old aunt. And I must have simply forgotten how loud New Orleans is: the lumbering trolleys, honking cars, music blasting all day and night, buses and trucks honking up the inevitably cracked and uneven pavement of the New Orleans streets.

The Café du Monde holds about half the number of people I remember from the past. The shops are all open on St. Peters street in the Quarter, but few people are shopping for masks and trinkets. Bourbon Street is packed as usual, Canal Street looks the same, and a cursory bus ride through the Bywater shows little damage on the side of the Ninth Ward where I lived.

But over the Industrial Bridge in the Lower Ninth Ward is where all the devastation is still so apparent. The St. Claude bus continues to runs out there, but not far. We ride past closed fast food franchises, block after block, then run into a lone open barbershop. Six more blocks gets you to Rally’s Pit Stop. Then more blocks of emptiness.

This is the neighborhood where Brad Pitt set up his Make It Right Foundation and offers environmentally friendly, architecturally interesting housing to residents of the area. But according to a recent article in the Times-Picayune many residents who have survived and live there are being inundated with gawkers, international film crews, and folks wanting to see how their donated dollars are being used. “Sometimes they come in and don’t even knock,” complained a local preacher.

The wheels of change grind exceeding slow here. It’s depressing. Back in the Bywater the old mansion has returned to a private residence. It’s beautiful, better than ever, and the neighborhood looks spruced up with all the fresh paint. I feel a lot better about that. Reconnecting with Dana was a lot of fun, too.

We met at the Columns Hotel on St. Charles. We were parked in the parking lot of the Nix Library on South Carrollton so all we had to do was hop the cable car and it took us right there. Dana was thin, beautiful, and elegant as ever. She’s a retired school teacher and professional photographer now based out of Atlanta. She commandeered the table for the small group of her friends to critique her new book of photography. All of us, except Joe, were former members of the Institute for Self Actualization, an EST-like group out of the 80s.

My god the fried oyster salad was delicious. We had Heinekens, oysters, chocolate cake and the bill was under twenty dollars. I couldn’t believe it. Somebody must have made a mistake but I didn’t point it out.

For three days Joe and I roamed the Quarter, rode the trolleys, ate pralines, beignets, and French bread po’boys until we were stuffed. We passed on the $50 a day JazzFest activities and listened to them on the radio.

By Sunday I was ready for the poetry reading and the ride out of town. I saw a lot of familiar faces around the bar, it was comforting. These people have suffered so. They aren’t complaining though, they are getting back to the business of partying. A little knot of poets was out in the alley toking up on some good pot. Everyone was drunk and the bartender told me she couldn’t remember my name because she was too high.

They have a saying around here: Decadence - mother’s milk of New Orleans society. I used to fly down from Nashville to go to the Decadence Balls with Dana.

The feature for Sunday afternoon was Bob Goodman, a New Orleanean who now lives outside New York City. He was in town and brought another New York poet with him to share the bill. Two more Manhattanites in their poetry critique group flew down as well - poetry groupies. It was great. And the editor of the Maple Leaf Anthology invited Joe and I to submit to the next publication due out this year.

And the whole town is hustling and bustling to get back into party mode. But these folks have been kicked in the gut, then abandoned. I feel so bad for the way this government has left New Orleans stranded. Most of the recovery here has been done through dogged self-determination. Every neighborhood has an office storefront that does nothing but coordinate non-profits that have sprung up to set things right.

The Maple Leaf will be ground central for the Po’Boy Festival, a new initiative the neighborhood has come up with to help fund their restoration. I highly encourage everyone to make a trip to New Orleans and help this town get back on its feet.

 www.poboyfest.com