The tuner is sounding erratic
And putting out way too much static
Let’s turn off the stereo
And listen to Dario
Whose piano makes us ecstatic
In honor of my nephew, Dario LaPoma, on his 18th birthday!
All posts by meps
The Cajun Food Crisis
I was lying in bed last night, thinking about the devastation of New Orleans. Our five months there, just over a year ago, seem like yesterday.
Suddenly, my thoughts turn to mustard. My eyes pop open and I am wide awake.
What does this mean to the distribution of Zatarain’s Creole Mustard, my favorite condiment in the whole world? What about Tabasco? And Louisiana Fish Fry products? Will there still be Luzianne tea?
Forget about the strategic oil reserves. We have a Cajun food crisis.
The destruction of New Orleans’ infrastructure means not only houses are gone, but jobs. The people who worked in those factories, who lived paycheck to paycheck, have no paychecks now.
Where Barry and I lived, in a boatyard in an industrial zone, was surrounded by black neighborhoods. To the west were tiny houses, black folks trying to move up the ladder. To the east, on the other side of the canal, were vast tracts of subsidized rentals with weedy lawns and abandoned cars. We came face to face in the grocery store, the gas station, the post office. These are not people who could load their cars and flee north. They are the ones who were left behind, because they couldn’t afford a car or a bus ticket to get out.
I wonder what became of Darren, the young black felon we met at Mardi Gras. We’d made the mistake of parking in a desolate spot, and he followed us to our car, high on drugs and drinking Thunderbird out of a paper bag. He showed us his scars — knife wounds, bullet entry and exit holes. He badgered us for a lift across town, but we refused, afraid we’d never be able to shake him. When the hurricane came, I doubt anyone would give him a ride.
These people can’t leave New Orleans and make a fresh start somewhere else. It’s been their home for generations. There are vast networks of siblings and cousins and grandparents, people who gather for barbecues, parades, and birthday parties. You can’t just pick that up and move it to, say, Peoria.
Lying there in bed, thinking about the upcoming mustard crisis, I thought of a way to help.
What we need to do, as a country, is help New Orleans reconstruct their economy. Forget tourism. When New Orleaneans finally go home, it’s going to be a smelly mess of garbage and rubble. Instead of jazz funerals, there will be mass burials. These folks won’t want visitors for a long, long time.
Instead, they’ll need to rebuild their factories and export stuff. Blues, gospel, and jazz music. Cajun, Creole, and Southern ingredients.
So run out today and buy a Henry Butler CD — poor Henry’s really got the blues now. Pick up some Zatarain’s Jambalaya mix, which we’ve seen for sale as far away as Alaska. Replenish your supply of Tabasco, Crystal, or (in our case) Melinda’s XXX hot sauce. Check your local grocery store for blackened spice mix, marinades, gumbo file, cornbread mix, and dacquiri mix.
This Monday, and every Monday, serve up red beans and rice to all your friends. Take up a collection for the relief effort. And remember: The more New Orleans products you buy, the more jobs you make.
A limerick containing Dad’s favorite phrase
There once was a fellow named Hank
Who said, “Let’s be perfectly frank
“This party’s OK
But, please, don’t say ‘birthday'”
“POO POO!” cried the guests, as they drank
In honor of my Dad, who retains a prodigious vocabulary in his later years, but has added a number of phrases like “poo poo” and “toot toot.” Friends and family members find such words charming in such an erudite individual, but wonder what the words actually mean.
Formerly known as Nereid
Her shape is quite beamy, not narrow
Her mast is as straight as an arrow
With her Cap’n, named Jac
We are glad to be back
Aboard Nereid, now known as Sparrow!
We were glad to meet Jac, face to face
So we signed on as crew for a race
But the gods were unjust
“Around Shaw” was a bust
Of the wind, there was nary a trace
***
Of the 68 boats that started the Around Shaw race, we were among the 63 that did not finish. Still, a bad day racing beats a good day working, any time!
Well, *I* thought it was funny
There once was a cruise ship in Hoonah
Whose passengers hated canned tuna
“If we wanted such fare,
“We’d go over there
“And sail with the folks on that schoona’!”
When I read this out loud to the folks on Indigo, it went over like a lead balloon. What, don’t schooner and tuna rhyme?
The truth is, we only ate tuna on Indigo once. And that time, I disguised it so well that Barry later asked me if my tuna salad actually had tuna in it!
Zipping South on Indigo
(Originally posted as written by Barry, but that was a technical boo-boo. Definitely a Meps original: Barry never uses colons.)
It feels strange, not to be moving every day. Stranger still is the feeling I have when I lay down in bed at night: My bed’s not moving. And I’m not in a tent. Hey, where the heck am I?
And how did we get from our last web entry, at Craig, to Puget Sound in only two weeks? As Indigo’s skipper, Paul, said to us in Campbell River, “This is the delivery portion of the trip.”
Back up with me, all the way to Juneau, on July 5th. When Barry and I returned there from our side trip to Dawson City, we had to find a needle in a haystack. Or, one 42-foot boat out of thousands. We were looking for Indigo, and her crew was looking for us.
We got off the ferry from Skagway at 3 am, after about four hours of sleep. The terminal was miles from town. A couple of other backpackers were standing around, so we asked what their plans were. “They said we can pitch our tents right here until morning. We’re just waiting, um, for the dogs… ” “Right here” was the patch of grass in front of the terminal, where ferry-riding dogs were doing their business. We found a clear spot, pitched our tents, and turned in until 7.
In the morning, we hiked into town and looked for Indigo. There was no sign of her, so we checked our bags at the Alaska State Museum and spent the day there. Actually, our bags didn’t fit in their lockers, so the kindly staff put them behind the front desk, and then spent the rest of the day tripping over the bulky things. That afternoon, I made a lucky call to the right marina. “I just talked to that boat on the radio,” said the harbormaster. “They’ll be on E-dock, out at Douglas.”
When we got off the bus in Douglas, the island opposite Juneau, there was a really weird noise from the other side of the street. “I knew that emergency whistle was good for something,” said Paul. He and the crew were waiting for a bus on the other side of the street.
It was a diverse group. Paul is a professor of economics at Seattle U., with two months off to complete the trip. His wife, Gayle, had a month of vacation from Vashon Youth & Family Services, but it was not a good time to travel: Her father was battling cancer back home and didn’t have long to live. Norm, recently retired from a government job, is a scuba diver, boatbuilder, and artist who signed on as crew for the whole trip. His wife, Linda, retired from over 20 years with the Department of Agriculture just before flying to Prince Rupert and sailing on Indigo for a month. Her first days of retirement reminded me of my own. You just can’t believe this vacation will never end.
At 42 feet and over 30,000 pounds, Indigo sounds like a big boat. But she doesn’t have a lot of interior space, and it was very crowded with all of us aboard. When the sun was shining and the glaciers were calving and the whales were jumping, it was glorious. When it rained for three days in a row and we started running out of fresh produce and there wasn’t enough room to dry 6 sets of foul weather gear, it was miserable.
Aboard Indigo, we went north and west, through Icy Strait to Glacier Bay National Park. Then we went back south, between Chicagof and Baranof Islands, to Sitka, where Gayle flew out just in time to say farewell to her father. We cruised along the Outside, enduring swells and seasickness and stopping at Goddard Hot Springs, the Maurelle Islands, and Craig, where we rented a Suburban to explore Prince of Wales Island. (I know, embarrassing, but it’s the only model of car they rent there.)
In one super-long day (19 hours), we headed back east to Prince Rupert, where Linda flew home, in part to care for their geriatric kitty. With a crew now numbering four, we made it to Friday Harbor in just ten days. That’s where Barry and I said goodbye and caught a Washington State Ferry. We’d been aboard Indigo for exactly one month of the ten-week trip.
This afternoon, we’re heading out for a weekend sailing trip with someone we only met a few days ago, when we were in Friday Harbor. There’s another story there, too long for now, but the good news is this: Tonight, when I go to sleep aboard Sparrow, nee Nereid, I know my bed will move. It will rock gently at anchor, and Barry and I will be off on yet another adventure.
Eagle doesn’t rhyme with seagull
He’s staring at me down his beak
Looking massive, ferocious and sleek
This huge awesome eagle
Is so goddamned regal
I feel like a featherless freak
We were paddling down the Yukon River when I wrote this. There weren’t too many eagles, about one a day. Lots more arctic terns and gulls, and a few kingfishers.
Barry and I actually call eagles “iggles” and seagulls “siggles.” It runs in the family: We recently heard that Barry’s 2-year-old nephew calls seagulls “e-gulls!”
Off-the-beaten-path points
Getting Indigo into the slip assigned to us was a bit hectic this afternoon. Once the boat was secure, the fellow on the dock looked up at the five of us. “Welcome to Planet Craig,” he said with a grin.
Craig, Alaska, is on Prince of Wales Island. The library computer has a waterfront view, looking across at green and blue mountains. There’s a street, with cars and trucks. But I’m sure their odometers don’t read much, since the road doesn’t go anywhere. There are lots of boats, mostly fishing boats and trawlers.
We measure places in Alaska by how far off the beaten path they are. Hoonah received a high score, when we stopped there on our way to Glacier Bay. On our way back out of Glacier Bay, we saw a cruise ship docked there, and Hoonah’s score slipped. Sitka got high points for the marina, where we met fascinating people. One fellow had sailed with Allen Farrell, one of our heroes. We grilled him for details. We chatted with a woman named Jackie, whose family of four had cruised the Pacific for seven years on a shoestring. She and her husband are working in Sitka currently, their two children riding up and down the dock on bicycles. Another fellow invited us to join him and his buddies for beers on his powerboat. Sitka is a friendly place.
But for off-the-beaten-path points, Tenakee Springs was best of all: No cars, only a wide path with bicycles and handcarts. I like the idea of life without cars.
In a few minutes, when the library closes, we’ll explore Craig and its totem poles. We’ll let you know what kinds of people we find here. Hope they’re as friendly as Sitka!
Whitehorse, Yukon, 1:30 AM
A few feet away from our campsite
Some people are having a fistfight
It’s pretty surreal
This kind of ordeal
Is not s’posed to happen at twilight
We were in Whitehorse, Yukon Territories, the day before the summer solstice. There were a couple of hours of twilight in the woods where we were camping, but it was light all night long. The lack of darkness made people stay up late, drinking and playing frisbee and then having weird middle-of-the-night fights.
Where we are
Hi, all! I have 45 seconds to write this, because I’m on a library computer.
We’re in Sitka, sailing on Indigo. We had a great time in Glacier Bay with icebergs, glaciers, whales, puffins, and sea otters. Now we’re heading south along Baranof Island for some hot springs. See ya!