"The August Month of August"

Great hot month in le Swamp. And I gain my sixtieth year on its twenty-second day. Sigh!!! I mean, hooray!!! For my Birthday I want rain.

When first I came to New Orleans, some thirty years ago, my landlord observed that we have but two Summer forecasts, "might rain and will rain." Not so the past ten years. A Swamp drought means no rain for days in a row, sometimes as long as a month. That might not sound like a drought to drylanders, but it is in a Swamp. Each day without rain it grows hotter. Each night it cools down less. As long as tropical storms are no worse than Bill, embrace them like old lovers. Lift your glass to them, and toast this rainy old life.

It seems we have slapped the tar baby in Iraq. Nothing we do will make this war good for America. Not staying. Not leaving. Nothing. We have followed the worst possible leadership into the worst possible situation.

Warlord? Warlords used to put heads of their deposed enemies upon a stick near the city gate as a sign they had felled their evil ones, and might do the same to you if you step out of line. In all of history no such actions have led to peace, but for some reason today's sanitized and televised twist on this theme is expected to do so. How?

Vietnamese who saw their bodies counted daily did not gather round our skirts in belief they were now free to be just like us. If it worked that way we would not have to give such an obscenely bulging purse (dipped from our newly deplumed national wealth) to finger those sons of Saddam. The opening volleys over Baghdad would have toppled him as well as his statue. Iraq is said to not be about oil. Iraq is said to be about peace, freedom, justice and sometimes-mindless revenge. Forget Saddam Hussein is not Osama bin Laden. Forget that Iraq did not bomb the World Trade Center, and never mention the Saudi Arabian family - who did - aided afterwards in escaping the United States by whom? Why? Cover-up? Oil? What?

"At least Republicans aren't having sex in the White House," L. A. Norma snickered, peeling a stamp and placing it on an envelope addressed to her Uptown waiter friend. They have been feuding over tax cuts. His is nothing. She is sending him a portion of hers. In return he is taking us both to Frenchmen Street for my Birthday. Sounds like a great economic system. Pass the medicinal red and forget the economy is withering under a "jobless recover." Hell, forget that "jobless recovery" is as delusional as "waterless rain!"

Can it be sixty years since I joined Spaceship Earth, as Buckminster Fuller called it? I joined in nineteen forty-three, at the upriver town of Cairo, Illinois. My parents lived in tiny nearby Ullin, population eight hundred. They operated a locally famous road house named Porky's (my Father's nickname) with slot machines, dance floor, tablecloths, steak dinners and pretty pink waitresses with blond hair. When an Ullin child was born the village fire whistle blew a second time after the noon whistle. Occasionally it blew for fires, too, and all the volunteer firemen would get a phone call from Uta Ehrenhardt, the voice at the telephone company's "Central" office, advising them where to go. She also blew the whistle. The first to reach the Village Hall got to drive the fire truck. This competition was eventually amended to one designated driver.

Ullin had no city water, so after the tank ran dry the men and their followers would stand about watching the burn while the driver went to Atkins' Pond for more water. He would return, usually too late to do much more than steam the ash.

Illinois is not always a popular place with some New Orleanians. It was, after all, the "Land of Lincoln," and even brags about it on its automobile plates. Illinois is ok, but I choose to live here. Why? For the port, for the life, for the people, including those - mostly black - who liked Lincoln.

Note: The first Saturday of the month, Josh Clark, Lee Grue and I will sign FRENCH QUARTER FICTION at the Old U. S. Mint for Satchmo Summer Fest.

Keep the faith, speed the day, at least take a coffee break, and come dance to the memory of Satchmo, in the shadow of Landslide's war.

"Dance on down to the government and tell them you're eager to rule because you know what's good for you" - Red Hot & Blue (1936) Cole Porter