Pollença Heading back from the Atchafalaya we had to stop to get gas. The gas station at the exit had a big sign which said “TIGER,” which I presumed was just a local filling station’s way of copying Exxon, which used (uses?) a tiger as its mascot. But this was Louisiana, of course, so it had […]
Monthly Archives: June 2014
The Tiger Truck Stop.
22-Jun-14Distributaries.
22-Jun-14http://intellivex.com/newsite/intellivex/data-center-products-represented/underfloor-water-detection-systems/ Heading back to New Orleans from the Atchafalaya I spoke with Randy about the possibility of the Corps opening distributaries from the Mississippi in order to build the coastline back up. The way he spoke had been encouraging. He spoke of the current model – channeling the river so it flows fast and deep straight […]
The Swamp.
20-Jun-14In the Atchafalaya.
20-Jun-14I think most people whose love of nature is undimmed by mechanized life fantasize about the swamp: paddling a boat beneath a dense canopy of trees; being watched by motionless reptiles and cunning panthers; feeling the thud of living motion against the hull of your boat and wondering what it is; seeing strange blooms deep […]
Into Cajun Territory Again.
20-Jun-14Randy and I had contacted Dean Wilson, the legendary founder of the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, to arrange a tour of the area. Wilson is a member of one of the most exclusive clubs in the world, the Louisiana environmentalists. Conditions in Louisiana do not tend to generate environmentalists. Not only is the state, which is one […]
Mississifalaya.
19-Jun-14As a person who thinks about things as opposed to just doing them, I generally understand human catastrophes. Human catastrophes are typically the result of thought – the result of some kind of understanding of the world. Any understanding of the world is necessarily limited, and when people act enough on such limited apprehensions, catastrophes […]
Looking over John McPhee’s masterful essay Atchafalaya – which if you’ve never read you should just go and do – I am struck by the improvements made by our computers’ optical-recognition software. Presumably the New Yorker will fix this at some point, so we must enjoy these nuggets while we can: Very early in the […]
Exile.
13-Jun-14Mystic Blue Signs, New Orleans.
The Lower Ninth Ward Redivivus.
13-Jun-14When I woke up on Sunday I realized I had another busy day before me: I was going to stay one more night with Johnny; and during the day I would be heading out to see the Atchafalaya River with an Army Corps engineer. But I didn’t want to leave New Orleans without seeing the […]
The Loose-End Men of New Orleans.
13-Jun-14Johnny had turned his place into a kind of refuge for the various flotsam and jetsam that floated down the river, of the male kind; I had been one of Johnny’s Boys for awhile, when I came down to New Orleans after my divorce. I had money in my bank account and had spent six […]