My first memory of my grandfather was a few weeks after my first memory of my dad. I was four years old, the first year that Stretch Armstrong toys were advertised on color television, and I had been in a hospital, Our Lady of the Lake in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, recovering from a head laceration […]
When I learned that mother was dying, I flew to Baton Rouge and went straight to her hospital. The night receptionist told me her room number, and, after I asked, directed me to a room dedicated to prayer and meditation. A few minutes later, I left the small chapel and rode the elevator to Wendy’s […]
I arrived at my grandfather’s funeral riding a motorcycle and wearing my high school letterman jacket. I turned off the motorcycle and took off my helmet, left it and my jacket on the bike, and walked past a crowd of reporters and the mayor’s police escorts. But I couldn’t get past the crowd of people […]
Andrea and I arrived at her parents house and walked in, barely able to squeeze in the living room because of all of her dad’s partially completed projects and her mom’s collection of things that she felt added decor. Her mom waved from the kitchen, where she was feeding the baby. Alice, Andrea’s younger sister […]
Judge Robert “Bob” Downing of the 19th Judicial District Court, East Baton Rouge Parish, State of Louisiana, peered down his nose at my paperwork then looked up at Wendy and me across the top of his reading glasses. He paused, then looked back down his nose and reread my request. A few seconds later he […]
Some time after I saw Stevie Nicks and single handedly helped deliver phone books to all of Baton Rouge, I stayed with Uncle Bob and Auntie Lo for a while, and they took me to Disneyland to see my grandfather. Not Big Daddy, but Wendy’s dad, they said. He was a cartoonist there.
The weekend after I saw Miss Nicks dance, Debbie and Wendy picked me up at Paw Paw’s and took me for a drive. The new phone books had come out and were piled so deeply in Debbie’s car that I had to sit on Wendy’s lap until we had delivered enough for me to have […]
I said goodbye to PawPaw and crawled into my dad’s truck. I was anxious to show him my award from school for having drawn the best art in Baton Rouge for my age. It had been all over the news, but he didn’t have a TV. Even if he did, it’s unlikely he would have […]
A construction site boss was interviewing men for a job, when along came Boudreaux. The boss thought to himself, “I’m not hiring that ole lazy cajun…” He decided to set a test for Boudreaux, hoping he wouldn’t be able to answer the questions, and he’d be able to refuse him the job without any problems.