You CAN Go "Home", Again..........

     The late, great American author and novelist Thomas Wolfe wrote a book that was published shortly after his death in 1940, which was called You Can’t Go Home Again; which is a story about a book author who has written a novel that makes frequent references to the little small town where he is originally from.  After the citizens of his hometown read the book, they take issue with the author’s characterization of the people and places of the town itself, and he begins receiving hate-filled correspondence, including threats of physical violence and death.  Wolfe (through the fictional character of the author in the story itself) explores themes of an ever-changing American society and culture, and also the seemingly unfair passing of TIME , which inhibits the character in the book (and Wolfe himself) from ever being able to go back to the place that he had always considered to be as “home”.

     “You can’t go home again” is a phrase that has since entered American speech to mean that if you have left your little hometown or provincial region / city that you are from, that you can never truly return to the confines of the life that you previously had; and even more so generally speaking, attempt to re-live the memories from your youth. And while for the most part I agree with Wolfe’s assessment, this past weekend while down in Louisiana on vacation, I decided to put that theory to the ultimate test. But to truly have an appreciation of the place that I refer to as “home”, I first have to provide a little bit of background about it first. The city of New Orleans, where I was born on a late October morning at a hospital called Touro Infirmary some 44 and a half years ago, is comprised of many different parts  ; consisting of people from a variety of different cultural and ethnic ancestries and heritage, each with an unique way of life unto itself. The surrounding parishes (known as a ‘county” in the other 49 states of America) are in effect large suburbs of the city, with each one having its own distinctive qualities that make it stand out on its own. My life growing up was actually split in half between two of these suburban areas :   as a small child in a little suburban township known as Chalmette (in St. Bernard Parish) from  my birth until 1973 ; and then following my parents’ separation and subsequent divorce, I lived in the largest suburban area (at that time), known as Jefferson Parish  --------  first in a little town that is officially referred to as Jefferson (but better known as “Old Jefferson”), and about a year and a half later moving to a little town further down the main highway that runs through the parish (Jefferson Highway) , that is called Harahan.



      It is in Harahan where the fondest memories of my youth occurred , growing up there during my years as an older kid and then entering into adolescence as a pre-teenager ;  in a tiny 2-bedroom apartment in the single-parent household that my late mother Marianne struggled to maintain and hold together , on an income of food stamps and a $140 monthly check from Social Security (surviving only through assistance from my Grandmother in Chalmette, since my Dad didn’t make his child support payments and was non-existent in our lives until she died in June of 1981). It was in that apartment and the town it is in, where my most treasured and fondest memories occurred. I got to participate and be a witness to moments in time such as “Disco” and “Saturday Night Fever”, “Star Wars” and “Grease”, Farrah Fawcett pin-up posters and Fleetwood Mac ; the “Spirit of ’76“ and the Bicentennial ;  ‘boogie nights’ and The Bee Gees ; crushes on the girl in math class and the girl next door ; great friends and schoolmates at  Harahan Elementary (the Home of the Hawks) and Fairchild Junior High (Home of the Wolves); the jukebox and the pinball machine at the Colonial Lanes Bowling Alley; green apple flavored sno-balls , soft-serve chocolate ice cream cones, and hot fudge-covered banana split sundaes topped with whipped cream and a cherry, from Robear’s ;  Hong Kong Phooey and Underdog ;  Wonder Woman and Shazam ! ; Charlie’s Angels and The Six Million Dollar Man;  a plate lunch to-go or a meatball po-boy dressed (with mayonnaise ,lettuce, and tomatoes) along with a Pop Rouge strawberry soda and a Marathon candy bar, from the locally famous Red Wagon Grocery and Delicatessen;  my Mom’s giant stack of .45 records ; “Pistol” Pete Maravich and Archie Manning posters on my bedroom wall, as I cheered for both the NBA basketball New Orleans Jazz and the NFL football New Orleans Saints ; sportscaster  “Hap” Glaudi and weather man Nash Roberts on Channel  4 ; “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow “ , “The Things We Do For Love”, and “Love is Like Oxygen” ;  radio stations WRNO 99.5 FM and WTIX 690AM, and the seemingly short days and the endless Summer nights……..……… It was actually the legendary rock band The Beatles that famously paid tribute to their childhood some 45 years ago with a song called “Strawberry Fields Forever”, followed by another one named “Penny Lane”, which was their recollection of the iconic places where they had grown up in the English city of Liverpool  ---  much in that same manner, that same little apartment that I grew up at has taken on a “mythical” status of legendary proportion in my own life, at the brown-bricked 2-story building at 217 Hickory Avenue……..

     Since we were short on both finances and time, our trip to Louisiana was a brief one. The first place we went to visit was the old street in Chalmette where I lived as a little kid, which is named Lena Drive. St. Bernard Parish took a crushing blow from Hurricane Katrina, and the neighborhood that I can remember as being alive with activity and life, seemed hauntingly vacant and eerily hollow. Where houses and entire neighborhoods once stood, instead now remain empty lots and abandoned buildings (my Grandparent's old house where I lived as a baby, was actually GONE, as well as my childhood friend (Mary Dalon)'s old house on the opposite end of that same street). Some of the natives of St. Bernard Parish have come back home to try and return to some sense of normalcy, while others have relocated within or out of the state, altogether. It was absolutely gut-wrenching to see ……….

Next was a trip out to Kenner to see my dear friend, Walter Soto; an accomplished musician and guitarist (both on lead guitar and bass), Walter is now the bass player for a local New Orleans band called “Riptide”, and had just woken up after doing a concert gig at The Wherehouse Bar and Grill nightclub in Chalmette the night (and earlier that morning) before. A native of El Salvador but an American citizen dating back all the way to since he was just a little kid, Walter is one of the most intelligent and introverted  (as well as multi-talented) individuals that I have ever had the privilege of knowing. His perspective and insights on a wide array of matters ranging from politics, racism, work place discrimination and corporate management bias,  affairs of the heart, and (of course) music  ; made me stop and think about just how much that I MISS being around him  ------- I first met him back when he was driving for a local taxi cab company at the time,  and gave me a ride to my job after my car ‘bit the dust’ one day in late 1994 ; and now nearly 20 years later, Walter Soto is the one of the most special persons that I have ever known in my life, and I am honored to refer to him as “mi familia”……………

     The next day was spent up in Baton Rouge, where I lived as a teenager and went to high school (and had recently lived there again after Hurricane Katrina) ; and where my wife Barbara grew up as a kid and teenager in the nearby town of Gonzales (in Ascension Parish, which I refer to as “suburban Baton Rouge”).  I had originally moved up there from Harahan at age 13, following my mother Marianne’s death from pancreatic cancer in June of 1981; to go live with my Dad (who had since re-married) and his new family. That “new family’ of his soon became MY family, and they remain an integral part of my life to this very day (despite the fact that my Dad has re-married and divorced, yet again).  I first got to see and eat lunch with my step-mother  (my Dad’s then- 2^nd wife and the lady who raised me as a teenager) Genie Bruno, and my step-brother  Jerry Lee Scott (who is essentially just like a REAL brother, since he and I (along with my other step-brother Johnny Scott, who lives with his family in Jacksonville , Florida) were with me every step of the way, as I adjusted to a new life in a new town . Genie, Johnny, and Jerry are still as dear to me now as a middle-aged adult as they were when I was a teenager, and they will remain so ALWAYS……. We made a quick visit to see my Dad and his lady friend in suburban Denham Springs, followed by a pit stop at the Mall of Louisiana (to say hello to my old high school pal Joseph Simon), and then before we knew it, it was time to head back down to Harahan to spend some time with my “baby” brother Steven for his 37^th birthday. But there was still one more pit stop to make……………..

      It turns out that my little brother is not the only person that still lives in Harahan; there is one other person who still calls Harahan “home”, and she is a most special person indeed. Back in those days that I spoke of when I was growing up as an older kid and a pre-teenager, I was a gangly, shy , awkward kid with zero self-confidence and a couple of chipped front teeth , for good measure. Kids being cruel as kids can be (especially at that particular age), I was teased mercilessly, in elementary school and subsequently into junior high. But there was always one person, a classmate and friend of mine who would go out of her way to make me feel special; to let me know that that I wasn’t the person that fit those names that I was being called, and that I needed to hold my head up and smile ------ that special friend and old classmate is now a beautiful and wonderful lady, named Ms. Diane Elazab.  I was nervous about seeing Diane at first. Even though she had always made me feel at ease whenever I was around her as a kid, it still had been over 30 years since I had actually last SEEN her in person (when we were in junior high school).  I recently had re-connected our old friendship when I found her on Facebook (through our fellow classmate and Harahan native, Ms. Cristi Cross (Rogers) ), and she has been incredibly kind and generous enough to send me delectable food items from back home (to help me with my affliction of ‘homesickness’) up to me here in Indiana (packaged in dry ice), which have included some awesome items such as a Mardi Gras king cake, seafood gumbo, and her own fabulous homemade hot tamales (which I happily polished off in one whole sitting) After knocking on the front door of her home, there she was ----- and amazingly enough, it seemed as if she hadn’t aged one bit. She was still the same Diane that I remembered from 30 years ago, except that now she is a beautiful lady instead of that 13 year- old girl that I last saw in junior high. And what was even more special than her physical appearance was the fact that she was STILL as sweet and wonderful as she had been back then.  I am incredibly blessed to have had the privilege, both then and NOW, to call her my friend…………

After leaving Diane’s place, we headed back to my brother’s house, and celebrated his birthday with him (we had gone to dinner with him the night before, as well),and in the process bringing my little “trip down memory lane” to a close (as we had to leave early the following morning) ; and as we headed out on the road to make the long journey back to Indiana, I realized that the famous author and novelist Thomas Wolfe had been wrong ----- because even though I’m no longer there in person, I did discover one thing , which is that : You CAN go “home”, again ………………………………………………………….

"Home"....... 217 Hickory Avenue, Harahan, Louisiana