One Universal Song

            My intentions of visiting New Orleans were to reconnect with former students and faculty.  I wanted to interview them for my memoir.  I spent endless hours of research trying to find these people after Katrina had stolen their homes, their lives, and their phone lines.  My constant “people searches”  netted few results. 

            However, by the grace of God, one phone number had not changed.  It was Arthur McClain’s.  I left a couple of messages that went like this.

            “Hello, I am Mrs. Baron, your former Speech teacher at Carter G. Woodson.  I am coming to New Orleans and would like to meet with you.  If you are the Arthur I taught in 1967, please return this call.”

            I had left many such messages to several other numbers to no avail.  I was getting weary and asked God to intervene.  As I came in the door from my walk, I heard the phone ringing.  I hurried to answer it and the softest, Southern drawl said, “ Ms. Baron, this is Arthur McClain.  I can’t believe you still remember me.  I thought I would never see you again. “

            I squealed into the receiver, “ Arthur, Arthur, it is you.  I can’t believe I found you.  Oh, Arthur, I have the poem you wrote two days after Martin Luther King was killed, and I would like to return it to you personally.”

            At first there was silence.  “You mean you still have my poem.  Really?  I can’t wait to show it to my kids.”

            “Tell me about your kids, your life.  “

            “I was relocated by Katrina for a couple of years, but I am back in New Orleans now.  I have three kids.  One graduated from Tulane and my daughter is in college and her younger brother works here in the city.  I have changed since you knew me.  God is first and foremost the center of importance in my life.”

            All this information was found jewels.  I talked to him about loving Jesus and made an appointment to meet him the last week of January.

            I was ecstatic.  I called my writing friend, River.  I called my neighbor.  I called my sister.  He was my first contact from our teaching experience of being the token integrators for the city of New Orleans.  This black community had shaped Denny and me and I wanted to go back and thank them.    “ Thank you, Jesus,” I repeated at the thought of actually seeing and interviewing Arthur for my memoir.

            Finally, the time to see Arthur had come.  Denny and I sat on a bench waiting for him, and my heart was thumping and my mind trying to recollect what Arthur would look like as a fifty seven year old man.  My student, Arthur. It seemed surreal.

            Denny spotted a couple coming up the escalator.  It was them.  Arthur sported a sassy, straw hat.  His smile was contagious.  I grabbed him and hugged and hugged him.  I reached to hug his wife and then just stood back and looked at Arthur and then kissed him on each cheek.

            “Ms. Baron, you look just as I remember you.”

            “ Arthur , I was 23.  Now, I am 67.”

            “I don’t care, I would still know your smile and those blue eyes.”

            “Lets’s go to Acme and have some good Cajun food.”  Arthur suggested.

            He was amazing.  Arthur could remember stories that I would tell to keep the class’ attention.  He remembered the first day he came in his room and saw a white teacher.  He couldn’t believe his eyes.  He said all the kids were talking about the two new white teachers at Carter G. Woodson.  He laughed and reminisced about the first play I directed with such a large cast.  I admitted that I had written new dialogue into the play so everyone who tried out could get a part.  His wife was so grateful that  I cared enough to keep his poem and return it.  Our evening was filled with long conversations, Cajun food, and laughter and one song.  Arthur taught me no matter how we might separate into individual notes, we still are involved in one song.  Arthur and the faculty and students at Carter G. Woodson showed me I was a part of that uni(one)versal melody of hope , love, and  relationships.

HHH

            

New Orleans' heroes

Learning  About Heroes

I have been in New Orleans doing research for my memoir.  I reconnected with former colleagues and students.  Since it had been forty-five years since I had seen them, we had all changed a bit.  It is interesting how the outer body changes, but the intellect, the spirit, and personality stay the same.  As I met with each person, I learned new things and reminisced old memories.  This last week really touched me.

I will be writing posts on my interviews and discoveries and share with you my new epiphanies.  The first couple we visited is eighty-five years old.  Sarah and Jason stand about four foot eleven in heeled shoes.  I seldom have felt the love I received from them.  They insisted we come over for breakfast.  Jason picked Dennis and I up at our hotel and drove us carefully through the busy streets of New Orleans. 

As we drove , Jason told us their house had been ten feet under water , corroded with mildew, and had many broken windows and most of the roof removed by Katrina.  He explained that he and Sarah were so delighted to be one of the lucky few that returned to their original homestead.  Friends, volunteers, and their church folks totally restored their property after Katrina tried to destroy it. 

When we arrived,  Sarah opened the door and gave me a loving embrace that lingered.  She kissed my cheeks, my hands, and then my face all over.  I was overwhelmed with such an outward, loving greeting. She whispered in my ear, "This is how it should be." I smiled and kissed her all over her face and hugged her tightly.

Jason insisted we sit at the breakfast table while they prepared fried eggs, bacon, toast, and grits.  That is not an easy menu for a lady with Alzheimer’s that kept forgetting where the instant coffee was, to turn the stove on and off, and how to get the toast in the toaster.  Jason assisted her kindly and never spoke of her losses.  “Here, Sarah, the butter is to the right of the stove.”

“Oh, yes, Jason, I know that.”

“Here, Sarah let me help you put the bread in the toaster.”

“ He’s my boss,” she said as she peaked around the corner and gave me an exaggerated wink.

Watching them gave greater  importance of their sixty plus year old wedding vows.  “ For better or worse,” were those words Denny and I had recited, but at that time we had no understanding of what the future might hold. Jason and Sarah were teaching us a deeper meaning of wedding commitments. 

The eggs were all done the same.  Sarah was careful to ask each of us how we wanted our eggs, yet all were over with yokes broken.  I may have memory loss too.  I often get so carried away trying to fill breakfast orders that I too serve eggs all done the same.  Sarah forgot to toast all of the bread, and the grits just wouldn’t thicken.  She lost the instant coffee and sugar several times, but she was so happy.  She talked about her handsome man and how he helped her.

When we sat at the breakfast table, Jason began to tell me his life’s journey.  He was an exceptional black man.  His mother taught him the only way to have a better life is to get educated.   He majored in Social Studies and minored in English.  He paid his own way and jumped through a lot of racial obstacles.  I asked him how he continued and why he felt no anger or resentment.

“I just tried to do my best, work my hardest, learn the most of anyone there, and I just kept going forward.  “  Ahhh, a philosophy that many young people today would find foreign and obsolete.

Jason served in the Army and is still suffering from post dramatic stress from how he was treated as a Negro in the Army.  He said his most humiliating experience was while he was in the Army in 1951.  He had received word that his younger sister died of pneumonia, and the Army was making provisions for him to go home.  The Red Cross made all his accommodations and helped him make hotel reservations in Kansas City.  Jason arrived at the hotel and the clerk told him, “You can’t stay in this hotel.  You have to stay with other colored folks.”  Jason explained that it broke his spirit because he had been fighting for this man’s freedom, and this was his reward. 

The amazing character trait of Jason was he climbed over every obstacle.  If it was racism, he just went on.  If it was Katrina, he just went on.  Now, Sarah’s declining memory made him know that each day is more precious than the last.  Jason affected me in 1967 when we taught together and in 2012 he was still teaching me how to handle life's valleys.  He revitalized my spirit by being the strong person he had become through adversity.  Just a short little old man to some became an instant hero to me.  Sara was right, " This is how it should be."