Mr. Rod

My final duty station when I was in the military was at the Hale Boggs Federal Building in New Orleans Louisiana, the eighth Coast Guard District Office, somewhere high above the City.

I was flying a desk. Processing travel and flight orders.

My direct supervisor was a civil service employee, Mr. Rodriguez. Mr. Rod was a coonass, a true Louisiana Cajun, and as cynical and crusty as they come. I had just arrived from Alaska, with a fine ghostly pallor from not having seen any prolonged sunshine for almost three years, and New Orleans was culture shock. The City was a unctuous caldron of humanity, oddball history and poverty bound together by the oppressive swamp humidity, each lung full of air redolent with the odor of gasoline, automobile exhaust and moldering buildings was excruciatingly painful, as the body struggled to assimilate it into its own depths.

I had been busted just before transferring and reduced two pay grades, and money was tight. Stupid adolescent behavior. I lived in ancient quarters with no air conditioning just outside the Vieux Carre, so working in a climate controlled office was almost like a reward. To pass the time, I practiced pen and ink sketching, and it wasn’t too long before some of my work caught the attention of Mr. Rod, who asked if I would do an eight by twelve pen and ink of an eagle sitting on the limb of a tree. No problem. Mr. Rod was pretty benevolent to me, even before that, so with gratitude I got to work. The day came when the drawing was finished, and I presented it to Mr. Rod unceremoniously one morning before work. His eyes grew wide, and he asked me how much I wanted. I refused, hell, it was just some spare time anyhow, and I figured that it would always be remembered.

That day, at lunch, Mr Rod asked me if I had ever tried a muffalata sandwich before? I didn’t even know what that was, and he said “just follow me”. We walked outside into the blazing heat of the mid day, and over to the French Quarter, Decatur Street, to a store called the Central Grocery, where he ordered two muffalata sandwiches. The woman behind the counter split the round buns, piled them high with meat, cheese and a curious looking green dressing, wrapped them up in wax paper and put them into a paper bag. We walked over to Jackson Square, and sat down on ancient iron benches, and I enjoyed for the first time a muffalata and a Barqs root beer, digesting that wonderful sandwich along with the flavor of the French Quarter in springtime. In the following days Mr. Rod took me to places like Antoines, Furdys and Galatoires for epic lunches, and quick street meals, always reveling in showing a newcomer how good the food was in the City, always giving a bit of history as if throwing largasse from floats during Mardi gras.

It wasn’t long before the sitting eagle, now framed and hanging on one of Mr. Rod’s office walls began to get the attention of other civil service employees on the floor where I worked. So I began to trade artwork for food. Wonderful New Orleans food. One big black woman, kindly took me under her wing, and each Monday would bring me a generous portion of red beans and rice, on special days, jambalaya, gumbo and etouffee. Everyone treated me with kindness and respect, adopting me into that strange gris-gris of Nawlins culture. I learned to eat crawfish (mudbugs) the right way, sucking the pungent juice from the head, gorged on oysters, drank countless hurricanes and juleps, all accompanied by the hypnotic, chaotic jazz that was everywhere in the quarter.

All the while, I did more and more artwork at the eighth Coast Guard District, sometimes for civilians, sometimes for the other Coasties. I did party invitations for the Vice Admiral. I worked by request and suggestion, never charging, knowing that maybe I was going to leave behind something good in New Orleans.

Soon the day for my discharge came. I had made no secret that I just wanted to be a civilian again. During my final week, I was called into the main mans office, the eighth district admiral. I thought maybe I had done something wrong, but he kindly gestured for me to sit down across from a small coffee table in his outer office, as he took a chair directly across from me. He began with; “I’m going to dispense with the re-up talk, because I know that you just want to be a civilian again”. I nodded. He went on; “I don’t know why they had a problem with you in Kodiak, and frankly, I don't care. Here we’ve enjoyed having you aboard, and as a small token of our gratitude….”. He produced two roof slates off of the ancient French Quarter buildings, upon which were decoupaged street scenes of old New Orleans, and handed them to me. “We wanted you to have these”. I was caught by surprise, and could feel pride welling up inside, I knew these were treasures to hold onto. I don’t remember much of the rest of that conversation, other than there was a feeling of warmth and respect between two very different people and ages.

In the ensuing years, most of the artifacts of my life have been lost, carelessly strewn like so much flotsam and jetsam on the beaches of time, but one of those tiles still follows me around as a reminder of my time in New Orleans. I worry each time we move that it might somehow get broken or left behind.

I made gumbo the other night, something that felt strange and yet familiar in light of all of the recent tragedy there in New Orleans. In it’s essence, I remembered my time in the French Quarter, my friends at the Hale Boggs Federal building, and most of all, the experience that was New Orleans, the experience that was the food. I have never lived in another place where food attained a status as holy as there.

Mr. Rod and many of the others are probably long gone, long before Katrina wrought her wrath on that place, because they were old even then. Somewhere out there in the stars though, they watch us and smile each time we do things like make gumbo, red beans and rice or boil up a pot of crabs. New Orleans is by definition a geographic location, and one which will never be the same now that the river and the sea have taken their toll.

For me, that swampy Cajun City will always be the same, an immutable force, a spicy, mischievous cosmic roux of history, people, music and most of all, food.