The House on Poop Corner

Even the dogs are laid back here. 

After a few days in New Orleans, I've slowed down. Maybe it's the heat, or maybe it's the grits and the overabundance of all kinds of fat in even the simplest meal, but I barely even flinched when a car spun around the the corner behind me and screeched to a stop within inches of ending my life. The driver seemed far more rattled than I -- he must have just arrived from parts north. 

I was lost in a reverie of dog wisdom. Strolling back to my hotel with a coffee, I passed a large and, given the wooden signs placed at regular intervals along the fence making it quite clear that many dogs lived there and they made their own rules, strangely quiet house. I was skeptical, but realized that over the course of three days, I had encountered dozens of local dogs and had not heard a single bark, not even a whimper, had not witnessed even a small tug on a leash. I took photos of the pearls of wisdom lining the perimeter. If your dog doesn’t like someone, you probably shouldn’t either. I feel sorry for people who don’t have dogs…I hear they have to pick up their own food if they drop it on the floor. Lesson from a dog: No matter what life brings, kick grass over that shit and move on. Handle stress like a dog: If you can’t eat it or play with it, pee on it and walk away. 

Dog wisdom and plenty of people wisdom to go around.  Yesterday, an elegant black lady had watched me and my daughter as we lowered the box spring we had inexpertly tied to the top of our rental car for a precarious ride through a sea of potholes to her new apartment. She was still outside when I emerged, drenched in sweat after we had somehow managed to hoist the unwieldy load up the long narrow stairs into the bedroom and onto the shaky frame we had assembled at great risk to our fingers. 

She was ageless, with a frizzy, close-cropped cap of gray hair, smooth cheeks the color of rich honey, and full lips tinted red. Her ample but solid frame was tucked neatly into a bright, tight yellow top belted over equally bright green slacks. Not a bead of perspiration on her in the eighty-degree heat, not a hint of discomfort despite her high heels. "Don't forget the lessons you taught them when you sent them out there," she told me when I confessed this was my baby, the last of the brood escaping the nest at breakneck speed. "You'll be fahn, honey, you be just fahn." I had been kidding myself, thinking I was worried about my children, the ones who are way better equipped to handle new adventures than I am. 

We old folks, we resist dipping our toes in new waters. My Uber driver was smiling and patient in his gleaming Escalade, even though he had to wait while I went back upstairs to get all the things I had forgotten. Within seconds, we were chatting like old friends. His wife hates it he says, referring to his relatively new stint with Uber, but he loves the freedom and the unpredictability. He’s owned a barber shop for twenty-five years, wouldn’t trade it for anything, but this is new and different. He and his wife have raised five kids, and he doesn’t really get what they do sometimes, but they’re good people and he’s proud of them.  His child rearing philosophy: No whippin, just a lot of teachin. Not as clever, perhaps, as dog wisdom, but wise all the same.

He told me about his barber shop clients, the ones who are down and out, but not so down and out they don’t pop in for hair cuts. He reminds them how quickly time passes, and how priceless life is, no matter how bad things seem. Like the sign said, at the house on poop corner: Some days you’re the dog; some days you're the hydrant.