R.I.P. Vespa

There is a corner in Desire that is called the Thinking Spot. I am not talking about your id. I am talking about a neighborhood in New Orleans.

Desire is one neighborhood, on one side of the train tracks, lakeside of the scenic Florida Avenue Canal. Florida is the neighborhood on the other side. Both are on the wrong side of the tracks, I say with a wink.

The Florida neighborhood is named after the avenue, not the canal. The avenue is named after the state. The canal is named after its water.

You don’t know this, but I have been without my trusted Vespa for a week. It died in Desire next to the neighborhood center. Some say that King with no Vespa is no King at all. Never let one attribute be your defining characteristic. That is a caricature.

I was, of course, on patrol. I was investigating some anomalies along Johnny Jackson, Jr. Boulevard. It was seven o’clock in the morning. No one was about. I was parked in the lot.

A lady pulled up in a pickup truck. I was a suspicious character. People like me are not usually seen in the 9th Ward. I keep a beetle in my breast pocket.

While I waited for the tow truck, the lady gave me a tour of the facility. She has lived in either Florida or Desire her whole life. I don’t mean that I cannot remember what she told me; she has never been abroad. I didn’t ask if she has ever been outside Louisiana. I respect my elders.

Without my asking, she told me the history of the community center, with incidental history of the two neighborhoods. She is on the Board of Directors and was instrumental in getting the funds to build it after Hurricane Katrina. It is very nice inside. The men’s room is spic and span.

There is a piano.

“What are you doing in this part is the city?” the lady asked me. She was very nice, as my tow truck driver confirmed later.

I told her that I was traveling Johnny Jackson, Jr. Boulevard.

“We don’t call it that here,” she said, wrinkling her nose. There was a whiff of sulphur in the air.

The stretch of Louisa Street that runs through Desire (though not Florida) was renamed by the City Council a few years ago. He was a Black Panther who was elected to represent the 9th Ward in the City Council. I am not going to repeat the things I heard said about Johnny Jackson, Jr. that morning. He is as dead as my Vespa.

It is illegal to name things after living people in Louisiana. Lakefront Airport used to be called Shushan Airport, after the man who was the head of the Levee Board at the time. After he was convicted of embezzling airport construction funds, the name was changed.

Johnny Jackson, Jr. was no Robert E. Lee.

It took a week to diagnose the problem with my 23-year old Vespa. It, like Marley, is as dead as a doornail. I have been riding my bicycle.

I am back in the saddle again, not on a Vespa. The new motor scooter looks a little to modern for my liking but I am sure it will grow on me. It has ample storage, which is why I don’t drive a motorcycle. I travel with lots of gear.

Be prepared.

So, I picked up the new motor scooter yesterday in Slidell, of all places. I very rarely leave Orleans Parish, let alone in that direction. There is a long, long bridge. It is not as long as the Causeway, but it is long enough. It is one long, boring straight line. I have already seen enough open water to last me the rest of my life. I went anyway.

I stopped at the castle in Irish Bayou on my way home.

The rest of the story to follow…