Thinking about New Orleans

Like everyone else in the U.S., I am thinking about New Orleans. It's a city that has been loved by many, me among them, characterized memorably by Faulkner as possessing "a faintly tarnished languor like an aging yet still beautiful courtesan in a smokefilled room, avid yet weary too of ardent ways."

Both my father's parents lie buried there, as does my father's older brother John Fraser. My Aunt Hattie, his widow, still lives -- lived -- on Wirth Place, near Audubon Park. We assume that she is safe with her son, Cran, and his family across the lake. My father first entered this country through New Orleans, in 1947--a skinny teenager from British Honduras embarking on a life among strangers.

Robert Nagle, of IdiotProgrammer, has posted links to a number of books about New Orleans--several of them public domain etexts. He originally published his remarks on Teleread.