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Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, United States

Leonard Earl Johnson (photo credit Frank Parsley) covered Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (2005), and the 2010 British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico for ConsumerAffairs.com. He is a contributor to Gambit Weekly, New Orleans Magazine, SCAT, Baton Rouge Advocate, Advocate Magazine, The Times-Picayune, Country Roads Magazine, Palm Springs Newswire and the anthologies: FRENCH QUARTER FICTION (Light of New Orleans Publishing), LOUISIANA IN WORDS (Pelican Publishing), LIFE IN THE WAKE (NOLAfuges.com), and more. Johnson is a former Merchant Seaman, and columnist at Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans; and African-American Village. Attended Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, and Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship at Piney Point, Maryland. Winner of the Press Club of New Orleans Award for Excellence, 1991, and given the Key to The City and a Certificate of Appreciation from the New Orleans City Council for a Gambit Weekly story on murder in the French Quarter.

Friday, August 01, 2025

✍Red Women Conflated, 20-Years Post-K / August 2025

~ Fiction ~

Roman à clef, cher!

Created AI-free

by Leonard Earl Johnson

of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

 www.LEJ.world 

⚓   

💜💚💛

 *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  


📖


🗣😷

LEJ's 
Louisiana

a monthly e-column at 



Yours Truly in a Swamp

August 2025


🌹


~  *    ~  *  ~   ~  *  ~



Red Women Conflated,

Twenty Years Post-K 

by 

Leonard Earl Johnson

© 2025, Leonard Earl Johnson,  All Rights Reserved
Best viewed for color contrast on a computer
or phone screen with a black background.



The Sunset Limited 
outbound from New Orleans to Los Angeles, 
and points between, is 
Amtrak's designated Train #1. 

 It is America's first transcontinental train, with once daily departures from the Eastern Seaboard to California's golden shore (a land cruiser, running time three days).  It is also the first American train to carry a personified name, e.g., 
Sunset Limited

"In August of 2005, Balthazar says, "Hurricane Katrina changed all that. All but name, number, and history."

Sylvia and Dillard are in the Observation Car having coffee and sandwiches they bought on Saint Claude Avenue in New Orleans. They are listening to Balthazar, who recently repatriated from an offshore oil rig job.  

He arranged to join up with the two 
Red Warrior Women, 
for the train ride back to Lafayette.
 

Mural / section

(Click for More)

Union Passenger Terminal

 New Orleans, Louisiana

 Commissioned 1951 / Completed 1954

 Artist: Conrad Albrizio (1894-1973)


They met at the Amtrak gate, under the nationally acclaimed murals of New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal.  

The murals, dating from the 1950s, were nearly lost to lime blooms 
after Hurricane Katrina, when the terminal was pressed into housing prisoners from nearby flooded 
Orleans Parish Prison.

🚉🚅
😇🚄🚉

"In 1934," Balthazar continues, "Myrna Loy and William Powell appeared in the wildly applauded film 

adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's mystery novel turned stylish black-and-white post-prohibition cinematic jubilation, 

THE THIN MAN.

 

"In the final scene, outside Lafayette, the train fades down the tracks flashing a spare tire round sign on its last carriage, proclaiming: Sunset Limited." 


Balthazar accepts one of the sandwiches and says, "Hard to believe that film was shot ninety-one years ago."

 The train is halted near Avondale. Outside the club car windows we see mounds of trash marching off to landfill eternity.

⛰ 

Sylvia points at the towering stacks, and says,
"Seems ninety-one years since we stopped on top'a ole Mount Katrina," 
as the mountain of debris is locally known.

Katrina is Hurricane Katrina, which evacuated New Orleans, August 29, 200
~ and opened the door on what the Donald-go-round Republicans refer to as 
'Non- Global Warming'.

Doors closed, keys turned locks, and Life ended as lived before. Both for the dead (1,392+), and for the living who later returned.
   
⛰ 
      
            ⛰     ⛰ 
       

🚄...............

"The dogs barked, 
but the caravan moved on.
 
"A Turkish proverb," Balthazar tells us.

Our train whistles. 

We roll on...

Along the tracks at a brownish green spot on the West Bank past the Huey P. Long Bridge, lays 
 a ghostly yacht beached
Sea Oats
 
by Hurricane Katrina.
 
Mast snapped off and lost. 
 Discarded vessel. Forgotten now, twenty years later. Hull so faded you can no longer make out her name.

Keel is sprung for sure. 
There she sits, someone's lost dream sailing along on sea oats grown up to her gunnels.
 
Further down the line, next to the Mississippi River levee, we pass a small Cajun farmhouse, with outside stairs and unpainted cypress walls. It is surrounded by flocks of grey and white geese. 

Foie gras

"Some French Quarter tourist will eat one of those birds' liver tonight,"
 
Balthazar tells the women. 

🌎

"In ninety-one years the Louisiana Life we live will be lived differently and by new carpetbaggers who will likely love it as much as we do now.

"Though your little ship has no anchor,

"and my little ship has no sail. 

"Still, we are here, 
and better off as Sailors than as geese."
© 2025, Leonard Earl Johnson,  All Rights Reserved

LAGNIAPPE DU JOUR:


💀🙏💀

...............................................

Next Month's Column

Continuation of the Red Women Warriors Series
            
         * * * * * * * * * 

© Leonard Earl Johnson 


If you wish to read any month's column go to 
 Archives: www.LEJ.world
~   ~   ~
 LEJ's Louisiana, Yours Truly in a Swamp
is a monthly e-column @ www.LEJ.world,
Hosted by GOOGLE BLOGGER,
and historically at
Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans
publication of the
It is written by Leonard Earl Johnson
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
 
Readers comments accepted after publication on the First of the month

🗣😷

© 2025, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved 

Tuesday, July 01, 2025

⚓Red Women Warriors, Redux The Third / July 2025

 

~ Fiction ~

Roman à clef, cher!

Created AI-free

by Leonard Earl Johnson

of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

 www.LEJ.world 

⚓   

💜💚💛

 *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *  ~  


📖


🗣😷

LEJ's 
Louisiana

a monthly e-column at 


Yours Truly in a Swamp

July 2025


~  *    ~  *  ~   ~  *  ~



Return of the Red Women Warriors,

Redux The Third

by 

Leonard Earl Johnson

© 2025, Leonard Earl Johnson,  All Rights Reserved
Best viewed for color contrast on a computer
or phone screen with a dark background.

The Rosa Parks clock Tower shows the time at half past 5 p.m.  

The Sunset LimitedAmtrak's train #2 is late for its 5:12 arrival from Los Angeles and points between.  No one waiting is surprised.

"If it were on time," the ten-gallon red hatted Trump Warrior Woman says, "It would be considered early." 

Amtrak regulars, 
Amtriklers have a jargon of their own for train schedules: Early-LateOntime-LateLate-Late, and Tomorrow

"On time, the old fashioned kind, is not in our vocabulary," she says, pulling down the front bill of her big red hat. 

👒🤠👒

Just now the train whistles in the near-distance, and the Red Women Warriors grab the green alligator briefcase and run under the clock and up to the loading platform.  Amtrak doesn't stop long in Lafayette whether on time or not.

Inside the last coach, the three shove their bags into the boarding deck's storage rack and scramble up the ladders to the top deck.  They rush along the aisle past the seated passengers, and dance down the steps of the forward car to the comforting snack, coffee, beer, wine, and whisky bar below.

The train jerks forward, then softly rolls off towards New Orleans, Louisiana's notorious Big Swamp City.

They are traveling to Big Swamp City after viewing America's July 4th fireworks display in Lafayette's Parc International.  Now they are going to celebrate July 14th's French National Bastille Day, by gathering in New Orleans with the masses, for free bread on Bastille Day at Café La Madeleine ~ free for those wearing the French tricolors.

🚩🏳📪

 Each Warrior Woman has added a red, white, and blue pompom to her hat.  

"If you dine in, they give you real butter and jam," the three tell each other, "and delicious coffee."

At a table set aboard the train under a huge glass canopy they open their green alligator briefcase and extract the clear plastic cube containing the frozen Republican Snow Ball, and fan out on the table a spray of self adhering lapel and bumper stickers. 

loud

Judge 

and his quieter Wife ~ on a grand tour from Sydney, Australia ~ pick out two of the Red Warriors proffered campaign stickers. 

One reads, Street Guerrillas for Peace, the other, Turn Back Voter Turnout.  Each sticker carriers a ghost outline of an assault weapon and a pair of crossed pistols.

🪐

"Traveling to the Upper Earth is a dream of most all Australians," the Judge tells the three women. "Isn't that right, Duck," he says to his Wife, who nods agreement. 

"We like taking Amtrak across America," Duck says, "after hanging sixteen hours in the air from Sydney to Los Angeles. 

She opens her blue Outback frontier-looking handknitted teardrop handbag, and extracts an airplane boarding pass to prove her point.

The big red hatted Texan holds up the frozen snowball to prove hers.

🎀

💧

 The Judge tells The Red Warriors, 

"We once took Amtrak's California Zephyr out of San Francisco to Chicago.  In the high Rockies, that run!"

Duck adds, "Unfortunately the train was very late and it was dark during our descent into Denver." 

The Aussies say they are "Smitten by  America's brazen Chainsaw Republicans."  Also, they admit to being connected supporters of Australia's rabid yellow journalism exporter to American politics and press, the old seven-hundred-eighty-seven million dollar elder settler from Down Under, Rupert Murdoch. 

"So pivotally important to your Donald Trump," Duck says. 

"We have two daughters working for Rupert Murdoch's American Dream.  Both live in Chicago."


💥 💣 💥


"We all know where this is leading,"

 the Jurist also from Down Under says to the Red Warrior Women 

"Still, here you sit doing nothing." 

💜💚💛

"US TOO," 

his Wife chimes in.

 "FOR THE MOMENT."

           ✈

🚄............

 "For the moment," the Judge smiles. 

"Soon we will fly back to Australia. Leaving America smack in the middle of Hurricane Season, with Republicans reducing healthcare, satellite weather coverage, and FEMA support!"  

😎
"A Hurricane without FEMA
is like a day
dangling from your rooftop without rescue!
"
~
L. A. Norma

💧💦
💧

The big red hatted Texan tells everyone not to worry.

"If left dangling from their rooftops,
 House Speaker, 
Piety Mike Johnson
 will pray for them in The Donald's private 
golden chapel.

"Besides, Global Warming is a hoax," she says, clinking her wine glass against the crystal cube and its Republican Frozen Snowball

💀🙏💀
...............................................
© 2025, Leonard Earl Johnson,  All Rights Reserved

Next Month's Column

Continuation of the Red Women Warriors Series




Leonard Earl Johnson


~  *    ~  *  ~   ~  *  ~
            
         
© Leonard Earl Johnson 

Your Comments and corrections are welcome
click here
If you wish to read any month's column go to 
 Archives: www.LEJ.world
~   ~   ~
 LEJ's Louisiana, Yours Truly in a Swamp
is a monthly e-column @ www.LEJ.world,
Hosted by GOOGLE BLOGGER,
and historically at
Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans
publication of the
It is written by Leonard Earl Johnson
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
© 2025, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved