Getting Gerty With It.

I was walking past the old John Mac, by which I mean the former John McDonough High School, now the Bricolage Academy, a charter elementary school focused on the arts and technology. It was recess. Children were playing on the artificial turf that now carpets the school's grounds. When this was run by the Orleans Parish School Board, the playground was dust peppered with gravel and stray stones, and leftover Popeye's bones.

Children can be so cruel. A group of girls had gathered in a circle to taunt another girl. "Gertie! Gertie! Gertie!" they chanted. "She be a Gertie, girl," They told each other, speaking in dialect. It's a good thing there were no stray stones about.

A teacher, Miss Oglewhite, arrived by the time the mean girls started pulling the crying girl's hair. "Gertie, girl. Gertie, girl," they taunted. The poor crying girl had pigtails.

With semblance of order restored and tears dried, I asked Miss Oglewhite what was up. "I think of Gertrude as being a name of distinction," I said. "Who would make fun of a Gertrude?" I couldn't imagine it.

"Don't you ever listen to bounce music?" Miss Oglewhite asked. "They were saying that she’s gerty. They were calling her gert-y not Gert-ie. Like the Deslondes Girls' song, 'Get Gerty Wid It.' Have you heard Second Ward Randee’s ‘Daddy’$ Gerty Grrrl’ on the radio? ‘Gerty Olive?’ These are all popular songs, she said.

I don't listen to the radio, not even WBOK.

As Miss Oglewhite explained to me, gerty means something reminds the speaker of Gert Town. "If something is gerty, it's nasty in a way that you have to respect. It rhymes with dirty for a reason. If something is gerty, you want to keep your distance but you cannot keep away. There's a certain je ne sais quoi about it," she said.

Miss Oglewhite is not originally from New Orleans. She is teaching at Bricolage Academy at the behest of some domestic version of the Peace Corps. Teach for America? City Lights? She is a volunteer government do-gooder. After three years of living in New Orleans, teaching second grade, she thinks she has gone native. She drops French phrases into her conversation. She "makes groceries."

I've never spent a lot of time in Gert Town. I have never had a reason.

We talked through the fence. There never used to be a fence when John Mac was run by the school board. Everything changed after Hurricane Katrina, not always for the better.

"You should go to Gert Town. You'll fit right in there. You seem kinda gerty.” Miss Oglewhite giggled. Her face pressed to the fence as she spoke only to me.

Looking at her, her hands clenching the bars at either side of her face. She was wearing a wedding ring. I wondered if she knows why caged bird sings. Instead, I said, "Is it good to be gerty or is gerty bad?"

"Both," Miss Oglewhite said. "When I say I think you're kind of gerty, I mean that in a good way." She winked at me between the bars. "You can write a book about Gert Town," she added.

I blushed. Inow had a reason to go.

WBOK, 1230 on the AM dial, used to broadcast next to the Fair Grounds, the race track. When Gert Town calls, you have to answer. WBOK now broadcasts from the campus of XULA (Xavier University of Louisiana). You can watch the DJ from the sidewalk on South Norman C. Francis Parkway, right where the bridge touches down.

WBOK belongs in Gert Town. I guess that makes it gerty in a good way. To know Gert Town is to love it. I sat in the grass and watched the radio without the sound. Bright antennae bristled with the energy.

One one side of Gert Town, WBOK broadcasts songs and call-in shows. On the other side of Gert Town, there is a giant AT&T cellular transmission tower. In between, there are a whole lot of gerty things going on in both good and bad ways.

[Editor’s Note: I have decided that this will be the introduction to my new book about Gert Town. Become a subscriber. I am 47 pages into a 150 page book. Better yet, become a paid subscriber. I will sent you a token of my appreciation and you will get the whole story. No paywall.]