Under a Cherry Moon.
I was talking to Felicity at the witching hour last night. Her name means intense joy. I was telling her how I needed to go to the hardware store today. These are the kinds of updates free subscribers get.
I went to Mike’s Hardware + Supply. I have an account there. They call me Mr. La Belle there instead of Mr. King because my account’s name is under La Belle Esplanade. La Belle Esplanade is the name of my business. When you visit New Orleans, you know where to stay.
I wanted to buy a big nail. I got one that is twelve inches long. I hope it is long enough. I am mounting a statue of St. Ann in one of the trees in front of my house. I told the caretaker at the Historic St. Ann Shrine, around the corner from our house, that I am going to do. She keeps asking.
There is no time like next week. This is New Orleans.
We do not get paid for images of the outside of our business. It is a public view. Mrs. King is unamused.
I purchased other nails (a box of 3 1/2” framing nails and a box of brads) and a sash lock. Since I am not handy with anything but a paintbrush or a pen, I know little about hardware. Everyone is always very helpful at Mike’s Hardware + Supply.
It is always nice to be the best-dressed person in a room.
I rarely go downriver from chez King than Elysian Fields Avenue. I don’t usually go past St. Bernard. Mike’s Hardware + Supply is on Elysian Fields. So is the closest Robért, a local five-store supermarket chain. Robért is the only store in New Orleans that carries the Wall Street Journal. It is kept in a newspaper rack by the front door when you walk in.
This is New Orleans. Welcome to my world.
Robért is on the border of the Marigny. Mike’s is in Gentilly. The two neighborhoods are very different, though they are only about three miles apart.
In other news, I went to the Chee-Wee factory on Port Street. Unfortunately, it was Sunday so it was closed. Usually, the doors are open and you can stand on the sidewalk and watch the Chee-Wees get made. The aroma is ambrosia.
Kettle corn is made in the same facility.
Cheese curls were invented in New Orleans. They were Chee-Wees, still a New Orleans institution. You can pick up a bag at any corner meat market or gas station.
Two houses down, some neighbors were talking. The lady who lives in the green shotgun was sitting on her stoop, chatting with another lady who stood on the street, outside the four-foot-tall chainlink fence. There was no traffic. This spot is remote, even though it is just a couple blocks past Franklin Avenue.
Then again, Franklin Avenue is remote unless you live in that part of the city. I should have brought my passport.
I approached. “I know we are technically in the Bywater, but what do you call this neighborhood?”
The lady in the street said, “You can say it’s the Bywater, but it’s really more like the 8th Ward or the Ninth Ward.”
Your humble narrator: “But you don’t call it something like Japonica or Port or Chee-Wee?”
“No,” the lady who lived in the green house said. “I just say I live on the corner of Port and Rocheblave Streets. People know where I’m at even though it’s out of the way. It’s quiet here. My husband retired from the Chee-Wee factory. Thirty years service.”
“That was a short commute to work,” I said. “Did he come home for lunch every day.”
“He came home for some good home cooking and some loving,” she said. She laughed merrily. “Now he gets it all the time.” She clapped her hands, delighting herself.
“Do you ever smell the Chee-Wees?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” they both said in unison.
The lady standing next to me said, “I smell it all the time and I live two blocks thataway. At first, you love it, then, it becomes a part of you. You smell fresh Chee-Wees every day, it gets in your blood. It gets in your bones. You cannot live anywhere else.”