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Probation, But Congo Square
Prior to actually having electricity in my neighborhood I received a bill for a couple hundred dollars and I bitched about that for awhile but then I just went ahead and paid it and then five and a half months after arriving back in New Orleans my block got back on the grid, and as my required electrical work had been done I just sort of assisted the energy company and switched on my own electricity and then about a week ago a new tag showed up on my meter, which made me feel all official, but the tag was purple, the same color as my expired break tag on the truck, instead of red, which is the normal color for active meters, as opposed to yellow which is the tag they put on meters to signify inactive accounts.
I just figured this new color was part of the new world order we exist in down here, welcome back to New Orleans and all that, but every time I mentioned it to someone they would say the exact same thing--what does that mean, this purple tag of yours?
Well, Phillis knows someone down there at the energy company and she said she would ask that person and yesterday she called out to me while I, after my nap after the day job, stretched beyond what is optimal on the too short ladder I am using to scrape the high parts of the Dumaine house. I climbed down and she told me that basically what this means is I am not a special person and I am not being welcomed back to the new New Orleans but rather that I am on a probation which at some point will end with me receiving either the proper red tag, or, having my purple tag replaced with a yellow tag and my electricity being shut off.
This is all to say that, hey you Jazzfests guests visiting me next week--Welcome to Louisville, welcome to New Orleans. Good thing one of you is an electrical engineer.
Mr. BC, you still got time to jump on that jet and get down here this weekend for the French Quarter Fest. If only for Sunday at noon in Congo Square where Wynton Marsalis with his Lincoln Center jazz orchestra will perform the 80 minute world premier of his new composition--"Congo Square." Congo Square is by the way, where, arguably, American music began. Not to be missed. See you there.
Letter To Clifford, 12
Dear Mom, Aug. 2, 2005
It is 5:30 in the morning and I am up listening to the birds chattering and wondering when the neighbor's dogs are going to start barking. I have a fan running in the room to drown out the noise a little but I can still hear them barking most nights. And then they start up in the morning. The dogs live down the hill a ways, about as far as Marsh Middle School is from you, but there are no buildings between this bedroom and the dogs, so the sound travels unobstructed. People say I should go talk to my neighbors but I am not aware of anything a person can do to make a dog stop barking, short of buying the dog a one way ticket to a land far, far away. I was talking to this nature-boy recently and this nature-boy doesn't kill snakes and gets out of his truck to remove slow moving turtles off the roads and generally is a friend to animals everywhere and he offered me this bit of insight--"It's not the dog's fault." What a wonderful insight, huh? I asked the nature-boy would it be, in his opinion, my fault, if I went down the hill and shot the barking dogs? Nature-boy did not even give me the benefit of a response.
I don't reckon I am going to shoot any dogs though. When I lived in New Orleans I slept through gunfire in the night on a regular basis and so I guess I can forgive the dogs their barking. You know mom, it's not the dog's fault.
I'm waiting for a slightly more respectable hour and then I will go over to T's house and wake her up so we can go on a hike in the woods.
I am still in Virginia. Haven't seen JF in a few weeks. Have talked to him once or twice recently and he said he may come out this week and talk to some of the townsfolk who are trying to convince him not to develop this property. He doesn't really want to develop it but the townsfolk are nervous about his potential to develop it and so have initiated movements to take away his rights, which means the property would be worth less money. So it's sort of like stealing, but in the townspeople's mind, for a good reason. The only legal way for Jeff to fight off the stealing of his rights is to actually initiate the movements to develop the land so it is a pretty pickle sure enough. I'll let you know what happens, if in fact anything happens. love, Jim