The Usuals:
1. Best Non-Fiction Book: Why New Orleans Matters by Tom Piazza (this book created a deep desire to move to New Orleans).
2. Best Fiction Book: Confederacy of Dunces by John Kenndey Toole (this book was so good I had to come see the town for myself. I spent at least a half an hour just on the title).
3. Best Children's Book: Who Needs Donuts by Mark Alan Staymay (I took this to #2's class and read it, man was it a hit! I had a blast reading it and they had a blast listening to me read it and looking at the pictures).
4. Best Meal: Going Away Meal at Nancy's. Afterwards me and four other men sat in Adirondack chairs, drank single malts and smoked cigars - it was really something.
5. Best Worship Service: My last Sunday at Lime Rock Baptist, it was unbelievable - the best goodbye of all time (folk are still talking about it).
6. Best CD: Jazz from the Soul of New Orleans by Dr. Michael White.
7. Best LP: The Holy Land by Johnny Cash (I have been looking for this for a couple of years and just found it last week. I also wonder how great the heart attack would be if I asked the choirmaster and organist to have the choir sing He Turned the Water into Wine.)
The Not So Usuals
1. Best Moments as a Father. The first two are closely related. #1 informed her music teacher that her father played the violin - then she volunteered me to come to her class and play. Even though on my best days I am an advanced beginner, I thought okay I'll do it. As I entered the school the secretary casually told me how the music teacher was going to teach her violin. She then casually told me that the music teacher is second chair flutist in the symphony. I about died. I only wish I could have taken pictures of the music teachers face as she winced when I played the notes wrong. Last week #2 informed his class that he was not a Saints fan, he was a New England Patriots fan. The kids started to tease him but the teacher jumped in to assuage the situation. #1 then confided to his teacher that I played for the Red Dragons. In his mind the fact that I played high school football was the same as playing in the NFL. And of course the daily rounds of "tickle time mania."
2. Best Moment as a Husband. An after dinner walk with the VOR around downtown Providence shortly before we left. We held hands looking at the water, the skyline, Le Reve, The Man in the Water. Then I grabbed her tight and kissed her. It was pure bliss.
3. Hardest "thing" to depart with: My Gravely tractors - man that was difficult. Non-things: fiddle class, lunches and hanging out with Darin, five o'clock Scotch with Raymond, laughing with Joe, messing with the SEVN, spying on my neighbor Kevin, and time spent at the Providence based office.
4. Funniest Moment from Craigslist: when a person named Scout came to buy our Davenport. After looking the piece of furniture over she put her face down in the cushion, took a gigantic whiff, then came up and said when you buy a couch it is all in the cushions. How the VOR and I held it together I have no idea.
5. Best Facebook Moment: after I read a NY Times article that one can only keep up with about 100 friends I went through and purged my friend list, (this was before I knew about the "Hide" button). Since then one person has tried to refriend me five times. I know this person is just a facebook harlot, the person has something like 500 friends or something like that. I cannot recall my ever saying one word to this person.
6. Best New Beer Discovery: Red Stripe. For whatever reason I never tried it. After I saw Henry Louis Gates, Jr. drinking one with Obama I thought hmmm I may give it a try. What a great beer.
7. Oddest Occurence: the vendor in Rouses (like a Kroger's for those in WV, or a Wegmans for those in upstate NY or like a Stop-n-Shop for those in RI) who offered me a Rum and Coke sample, at 10:00am. Of course I accepted it, without the Coke.
8. Most Bizarre Pastoral Moment: one day, shortly after arriving in New Orleans, I went to visit a parishioner. Since this person only lived a few blocks from the church I decided to walk. Being new to the city I had yet to fully appreciated the ramifications of tropical humidity and how dangerous it would be to not wear an undershirt. The walk was a little further than I imagined it would be. As I cut through Audubon Park I knew I was in trouble and saw spots developing all over my shirt. I thought if I took off my tie and unbuttoned my shirt I would be okay. Needless to say I was wrong. I arrived at the parishioner's house looking like I had ran back and forth through a sprinkler about ten times. The parishioner offered to take my shirt and put it in the dryer. I contemplated this but thought it a little odd to be sitting in a new parishioner's living room topless. My initial fear was quickly subdued when the parishioner offered me another shirt to wear while the other dried. I simply sat in front of a fan and within a half hour or forty-five minutes I had partially dried out.
8 comments:
So glad you liked Confederacy of Dunces.
Me too. I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I found Toole's house while at for a stroll the other day. Thanks for the recommendation.
Try on some Walker Percy to continue your Louisiana indoctrination. I read "Love in the Ruins" a few months ago and was transported back to my time in St. Tammany Parish.
Red Stripe has been a staple of mine for awhile. It has never let me down. I just happened to have a few last night. Good times.
I'm glad you found Rouse's. They're based in Thibodaux and their corporate headquarters is at the end of the street we lived on (309 Julia). Emily still misses shopping there.
very touched that I got a mention. missing the lunch and beers with you also. give my best Christmas wishes to your family
Hawk -- I have only ventured to read The Moviegoer thus far but Love in the Ruins is on my 2010 list. The bookstore up the road from our rental chateau had a bond with Percy they have pictures of him up all over the place and a devoted section to his works. Red Stripe, I feel like I found a small gold mine! Bizarre that such a food town, on the whole, has terrible grocery stores. We have had to adjust the way we shop and cook here. We getting there.
Darin--soon we'll have a few rounds together if the snow holds off up your way. Merry Christmas to you and yours too. Hope the expectancy continues to go well.
Maybe nobody eats at home. I always thought the restaurants in Thibodaux were horrible with a few exceptions. Big quantities but lousy quality. Emily said it was because the locals were such good cooks that when they weren't having momma's cooking (or papa's) they wanted quantity. Maybe you'll have to venture out into Metarie to find a decent store. There are a number of specialty stores strewn about, but produce is a problem.
My encounter with Walker Percy:
While attending college in the late 1950’s, I discovered the writer, Walker Percy. After reading one of his essays in a journal, I took special interest in his name because I discovered that he had lived in Birmingham, AL. For the first 18 years of my life, Birmingham was my home.
By the time I entered my junior year in college (1959), my sense of identity with Birmingham was a growing embarrassment in my mind. The struggle for civil rights and the racism indigenous to the South was becoming a burden that would color my self-consciousness for the balance of my life.
After completing college, four years as a U.S. Marine Officer, and earning an MA degree and a Ph.D., I began my teaching career in 1974.
Along the way, I continued to read essays by Walker Percy from time to time. I was fascinated with the odyssey he had taken from the study of medicine, to reading theology, to an immersion in philosophical thought, to a vocational conclusion that he should become a novelist. His essays and journal articles were collected and published in 1975. In the academic year 1976-1977, while leading a graduate seminar in New Orleans, LA, I made one of my predictable references to his 1975 volume. After class, a student approached and asked if the W. Percy to whom I referred was the same W. Percy whose daughter owned the Kumquat Bookshop in Covington, LA. I was fascinated with the possibility!
On my next trip across Lake Pontchartrain, I drove into Covington, found the Kumquat Bookshop, walked in and perused its’ shelves. They were stocked with literary and philosophical luminaries and all of Walker Percy’s published works! Pictures and newspaper clippings of Percy were scattered about. It was truly a “eureka” moment in my life. One person was working at the small desk. I introduced myself and summarized my 20 year fascination with Walker Percy. The employee confirmed that Percy’s daughter owned the shop and then added the most incredible statement. She said, “You might want to walk upstairs and introduce yourself to Walker!”
Of course, with alacrity, I accepted the suggestion…and spent one of the most invigorating and provocative afternoons of my life in conversation with Walker Percy in the Kumquat Bookshop in Covington, LA.
“We love those who know the worst of us
and don't turn their faces away.” Walker Percy
Great list...even included Rouse's a lesser known secret....
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