Remembering New Orleans

MY annual trek to New Orleans begins to occupy my mind. City Park where I spent much time as a kid will be one the first places where I’ll return to sit under ancient live oaks remembering a grandmother, aunts, and uncles sharing family times in the beautiful park.

One family picnic under the live oaks still vivid I sat at the table across from my Uncle Lou and Aunt Margaret with potato salad and chicken on my plate.

“How do ya like yur chicken?” Uncle Lou asked in his deep Southern drawl. I loved my Uncle Lou as much as I did my daddy. Lean and fit with premature salt and pepper hair and twinkling blue eyes, he charmed everyone.

“Good chicken, Uncle Lou,” I replied with a big smile for my favorite uncle.

“Y’all like that chicken? It’s good, yeah?” He waited for my vigorous nod of approval.

“Ya remember the baby chicks y’all got for Easter?”

No reply; I didn’t remember.

“Ya don’t remember the colored chicks grandpaw gave you and your brother for Easter?”

Oh, yeah, I remembered how we and our cousins were given these colored chicks that the boys chased around the yard and after my little brother stepped on his, it ran with its head hanging down before it died and the adults gathered up the rest and put them away.

I shook my head; I remembered the Easter chicks, which felt kind of weird, but I didn’t know why. I wasn’t much more than eight.  

“Patty, how do you like your chick?”

I hadn’t seen the chick since Easter, so I looked as confused as I felt. I didn’t want to look stupid in front of my Uncle Lou. I didn’t understand a thing about the stress I felt and now the rest of the table had picked up on the conversation so all the adults were looking at me. City Park one the scenes of my early epic I don’t want to be in the spotlight moments, one of those moments when you just don’t get it.

“Patty, that’s yur Easter chick; how ya like it?”

Uncle Lou seemed to be so pleased to tell me. I looked at the tender thigh on my plate; my eyes felt like they popped out of my head, tears flew along with me from the table to the car where I sat bawling until my mother brought me back to the table to finish my plate.

Life’s teachable moments seldom went smoothly, but that’s how it goes. After lunch my dad and uncle to the kids off to explore the park, where I learned to never ever go near a gray goose nest again.