New Orleans is my beat. This is the city. A couple hundred thousand stories unfold in New Orleans, many of them interwoven into a twisted tale that makes sense only to the cognoscenti who understand what it is like to live in this wonderful city New Orleanians call home. Home is where the heart is. This is New Orleans. Mine is one story among too many to bother to keep track of.
Everyone who spends time in New Orleans has a New Orleans story. Some of them involve ululating. Most do not, at least in the short term.
I am a private investigator. Not official. I do not have a license from the State of Louisiana, yet. All I have is a TWIC card. I have subscribed to PI Magazine. It is semi-official.
I do not know the owners or editors of PI magazine but I have spoken with them on the telephone in the past. Talking to people is what I do. Moving to my own New Orleans rhythm the way I do, I talk with all sorts of improbable people, connecting dots and picking up pieces.
If Ed is right about one thing, Ed is right when he comments on my modus operandi. I tend to haunt the fringes of New Orleans life. If you have followed along this far, you already know that.
Do you know about Melba’s? It is a po’-boy shop/laundromat/daiquiri shop/who knows-what-else in the 8th Ward, and now there is a new outlet on Tulane Avenue, right in the sweet spot where d’Hemecourt Street branches off Tulane Avenue. Like I said, this Melba’s is in a sweet spot.
The other Melba’s is in a sweet spot, too, between North Claiborne Avenue and North Robertson Street. Melba’s has got you covered coming and going. You should visit Melba’s. They have fried chicken wings, too.
I am told Melba’s fried chicken wings are the second-best in New Orleans, after Manchu Chicken. There is no resisting that Manchu Chicken. Manchu Chicken is also on North Claiborne Avenue, and on St. Bernard Avenue.
Manchu Chicken’s location on North Claiborne Avenue is in a sweet spot. The one on St. Bernard Avenue is less sweet. Melba’s has the better deal but we live in a big city with room for all and sundry.
Melba’s runs a literacy program.
Melba’s hosts book signings every week that authors are available to sign their books. Books are better than phones. No other source of news beats the Wall Street Journal in its paper edition.
New Orleans is a city. A city is a community. We do not all have to get along but we do need to be here for each other. A city without people who care about each other is not America.