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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.

Sunday, September 01, 2024

⚓ A Dream Train Makes Good Walls / September 2024

 

~ Fiction ~

Roman à clef, cher.

Created A. I. free

by Leonard Earl Johnson 

of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

 www.LEJ.world 

© 2024, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved 

⚓ 

September 2024

💀💀

💀

💧

 A Dream Train Makes Good Walls 

Continuation of the Red Women Warriors Series

BY  Leonard Earl Johnson


💜 💚

💛

💧

🗣😷

© 2024, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved

Your comments and corrections

are welcome

click here

~ * ~     ~ * ~     ~ * ~


(The Dream)

Aboard the Sunset Limited, dozing in our recliner seats during the last hour before reaching Lafayette. We dream of Gandy Dancers. 

Gandy Dancers definition ~
Gangs of mostly black men using muscle alone, dancing heavy iron rails into an alignment that joined the nation by an iron umbilical cord linking West Coast gold to East Coast greed. 

"Why not," 
tweets The Donald, "a wall 
Gandy Dancers
of rails stretching from California to Florida?  S
trung with trains thick as jungle bamboo and wartime lies!"  

The Donald offers
 to show his bone spurs to assembled reporters. They turn him down. 

"See, folks, fake news!" he tweets. "If  the Dem's V. P. demonstrated how to clean an assault weapon, press rats would be on it like editors on cheese.

"But my war wounds?  Nothing!"

A tuft of grey-gold hair blows down from atop his head and hangs by a thread before his open mouth. His eyes cross to focus on the tuft. Then, he commences chewing on it. "Move over, Mexico," he speaks between the strands.

Image result for Sunset Limited amtrak images
"Let's see'em beaners cross that," he twitters, as Ivanka brushes his hair and strokes his wallet. Her husband, Jared Kushner unspools backchannel lines to the Kremlin, shielded behind his genetically pure and self-proclaimed uber-patriotic leader and Father-in-law, "The Donald."

"A Supreme Court protected back-channel, too!" boasts Stephen Miller, balding head-gargoyle to The Donald.  

William Barr, one-time U. S. Attorney General, and sometimes Trump Family consigliere, nods agreement on both sides of his face. 

Behind them a righteous chorus of Evangelical Preachers sings in hypocritical jubilation, "Heaven's Just a Sin Away!"🔊

Our dream family tableau descends on a golden escalator in a manner befitting American nostalgia:  

"Streets paved with gold," 
Barr calls out, like some dreamy field hand of yore.

🎵

Miller responds, 
"Immigrants done been told."

Out in front of them, bent-back and whisking away obstacles in their path, are Republican Party regulars led by stunned-face Moscow Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky. Pulled behind him on a velvet pedestal stands Nikki Haley, of South Carolina, wearing a Cheshire Cat grin and a tarnished golden leash. Next, rolling about on the pavement giggling their patriotic support, comes Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and George Santos, New York Republican once removed. 

Toe-and-heel men follow, then spokes-critter lawyers for powerful chambers of yes-and-maybe contributors. They clear the walk as it grows more shadowy with each step of their boots and sweep of their brooms. 

"For the goal of smaller decentralized government," Moscow Mitch laughs, s
lapping the fat former Attorney General across his ample back. The fat former Attorney General shakes his wattle and hoots puffs of laughter. The two look rather like broken-down old steam engines loping along the rails.

"After us? Who cares what floods!" they giggle, waddle, wobble, and fart off down their goldbrick road.

Kushner's 'backchannel cable' spools on then off again ~ fully out of anyone's oversight.

A mustachioed face claiming 
National Security Portfolio opens an electric notebook.  A Google map glows
 into focus showing Roseate Spoonbill migration routes.

Roseate Spoonbill
"With no fear of blow back," the mustache whispers in The Donald's ear. 

"We can lace migratory feeding sites with chemical-castration drugs that will threaten a final solution to their endangered numbers!

"This," he tells The Donald while leaning so close his mustache takes on moisture from The Donald's nibbled hair.

"... this will convince the last doubters that America means business. 

"Mad business, yes, but business!" he adds.

"A plausible crazy man can win the game!" The Donald twitters, "Ask those New York bankers."  

Ivanka brushes and speaks not.  The Son-in-law spools and speaks not.  The escalator escalates.

Amtrak 🚅

We awake from our dream with the real Conductor calling: 

"Lafayette next stop!"

 
 

Sylvia stretches her arms overhead, and steps off the train and to the side ~ away from the traffic pouring out behind her. Lafayette is the train's only smoke-stop between New Orleans and Houston.  
Sunset Limited, Amtrak #1 
New Orleans to Los Angeles
 
Smoke Stop, Lafayette Louisiana

👒

"And there are good people on both ends of the lynch mob's rope," a large woman wearing a big red hat tells a small following of similarly crowned women. They are smoking cigarettes and heading to the train bound for Houston.
~ www.LEJ.world   
✍️

 Copyright, 2024, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved


~ to be continued ~

🗣😷

Your comments and corrections

are welcome

click here

~    ~    ~

Lagniappe du Jour

💜  💚  💛

💧

 
💜 💚

💛


~    ~    ~

💜  💚  💛

💧

The Ladies Wore Red,

July 2021

Origin Story

 

If you wish to read any month's column go to www.LEJ.world anytime. 
They are posted on the first of each month and polished for the next few years.
~   ~   ~
 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
 www.LEJ.world 


Wednesday, July 31, 2024

✍The Huey P. Long Bridge / August 2024

~ Fiction ~

Roman à clef, cher.

Created A. I. free

by Leonard Earl Johnson 

of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

 www.LEJ.world 

© 2024, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved 

⚓ 

August 2024

💀💀

💀

💧


⭐ The Huey P. Long Bridge 

Continuation of the Red Women Warriors Series

BY  Leonard Earl Johnson


💜 💚

💛

💧

🗣😷

© 2024, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved

Your comments and corrections

are welcome

click here

~ * ~     ~ * ~     ~ * ~


The Sunset Limited blows its whistle.

The Conductor lifts onboard his little yellow stoop, clicks shut the door, and we are off. 

Ole #1 rolling West ontime at 9a.m., over tracks gleaming in the morning sun. A ribbon of Union Pacific Railroad's wobbly old 1894 Iron Road ~ passage today profitably leased to Amtrak.

  Amtrak 🚅

We circle wide. Starting from the profoundly named New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal, on Loyal Avenue near the Superdome. We are rolling out through a part of New Orleans that was shabby before the winds of '05, and is still a bit shabby twenty years later. Here and there colorful flags and painted porches declare a day care centre. Nearby a four story brick apartment building still shows a waterline.

 The Huey P. Long Bridge hoves into view on the offing. Rising from Sea-level up a long curved grade. 

Seabirds the size of my bicycle fly overhead, while off our starboard a mast-broken yacht ~ with a long faded name ~ continues its two decade drift through gunnel high sea oats. Forever off keel. Forever forgotten. Like us, post-Katrina flotsam seen from this train's windows since 2006, the year rail service reopened in coastal Louisiana.

☝ photo credit: 
 
👆
Photo credit: 
👇 

T
he Bridge Huey P. Long built,
one of one hundred and eleven.

The train is bound for Los Angeles and points between. Our destination is Lafayette, 117 train miles across the Great Atchafalaya Basin

The Sunset crosses the Mississippi River at Westwego, first so nicknamed by train workers as,"west we go," for being the spot where early ferry boats dropped disjointed trains to be re-
complemented on the West Bank, in the days before Huey P. Long (construction began in 1932, completed 1935). This bridge and others were funded by taxing Standard Oil. 

Standard Oil has never forgiven Louisiana for this sin of taxation, and Louisianans have never stopped lusting for the pennitant's lash.

For a few years Huey P. Long, a.k.a., The Kingfish built a dynasty, from Railroad Commissioner, to Governor, to U. S. Senator and threat to the powerful throne of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.

The Kingfish called his reform program, SHARE THE WEALTH / EVERY MAN A KINGRandy Newman sings a stellar ballad or two about this 

Long built more bridges, roads, schools, and a tall Yankee-looking skyscraper for our state capitol in Baton Rouge. Where in 1935, he was assassinated behind a blinding cloud of gunsmoke. 

Though the only entity in the state with a motive, we all agreed Standard Oil need not be investigated and hung the assasination on a passing physician with a parking dispute.

Slowly the Long Dynasty faded away, populism got rebranded by Republicans as nothing-needed but lining up the pigeons.

 Again we stand empty pocketed at the voting booth making sure such future expenses for bridges, roads, and schools are redirected to prisons, football gambling, and Texas/Middle Eastern style colonial government. Making us the Nation's biggest harvester, refiner and shipper of its most profitable product, oil and gas. While leaving us the poorest population of all the fifty states, with the possible exception of Mississippi.

The train reached its apex atop The Bridge Huey built and paused for a backward glance.  Then whistled off to Lafayette, our Texas-governed Hub City of Cajun French Louisiana.


~ to be continued ~




🗣😷

Your comments and corrections

are welcome

click here

~    ~    ~

Lagniappe du Jour


🔊DIXIE FLYER / Randy Newman

YouTube


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💜  💚  💛

💧

 
💜 💚

💛


~    ~    ~

💜  💚  💛

💧

The Ladies Wore Red,

July 2021

Origin Story

 

If you wish to read any month's column go to www.LEJ.world anytime. 
They are posted on the first of each month and polished for the next few years.
~   ~   ~
 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

Monday, July 01, 2024

⚓Part Three, Snowball in the Sun / July 2024

 ~ Fiction ~

Roman à clef, cher.

Created A. I. free

by Leonard Earl Johnson 

of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

 www.LEJ.world 

© 2024, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved 

⚓ 

July 2024

💀💀

💀

💧

Dedicated to 

Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson 1936-2024

New Orleans City Council, District C (French Quarter and Algiers), plus At Large.

PART THREE

⭐ Snowball in the Sun

Continuation of the Red Women Warriors Series

BY  Leonard Earl Johnson


 
💜 
💚

💛

💧

🗣😷

© 2024, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved

Your comments and corrections

are welcome

click here

~ * ~     ~ * ~     ~ * ~



His Grace, the elderly TV-preacher from Baton Rouge

"Morality is doing what is right, regardless of what you are told.
Religion is doing what you are told, regardless of what is right."
~ H. L. Mencken

  
🌐


Sylvia and Balthazar balance the green alligator briefcase on gray rick rack at the foot of the Moonwalk Steps leading to the Mississippi River ~ from The Battery atop the levee with its never used Civil War cannon.

  Sylvia washes the Republican Snowball Cube in the muddy water, while Balthazar shares a joint being passed between two Vietnamese-creole skateboard boys. The boys ask Balthazar why Louisiana does not celebrate Bastille Day. Balthazar does not really know. 

 The boys, who speak English, French, and some Vietnamese, say their Fathers, who speak only French and Vietnamese, brought the holiday with them to Louisiana from Vietnam. Balthazar thinks, how crazy that sounds. Then, how crazy that war was.      

A giant ship from the Port of Shanghai heads upriver to the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal. 

His Grace, the elderly TV-preacher from Baton Rouge, and Stormy Daniels watch from the levee, standing next to the virgin cannon. 

He speaks to a flock no longer visible nor inclined to listen:

"A.I., Artificial Intelligence is nothing less than the epiphany of a new religion. Presented by priests cloaked in the white vestments of science. The World's newest Saviors." 

Stormy Daniels sneers:
 
"Or perhaps its newest serpents unveiling Truth from behind electronic curtains."

 🍎🐍
 😎

The New Orleans Beltway train sounds its whistle and pulls its impenetrable iron curtain into view. Routinely momentarily separating each side of the levee.

 "Almost never running over a tourist," Stormy says.

  This short line rail system runs up and down The River connecting warehouses to outbound rail yards. It carriers no passengers. Not since some Yankee-hire director used railway funds to outfit a posh carriage, hire a Pullman butler, and take his family and friends on riverside rides, with wine and boudin sausages served on silver trays.  

Balthazar cocks his ear at the train's whistle, and reckons they should be making their reservations west. On Amtrak's ole number one, The Sunset Limited, America's oldest continuously operating train, since 1894, and the first to bear a personified name.

🚬

   "Republicans and their traveling snowball,"
 Balthazar snorts.

    "Their problem is they don't know how to govern. Only how to wedge and fight. 

"Then scavenge the rubble, leaving their superstitious followers angry and bewildered on a field of broken pitchforks and fallen torches.
 
"What profit thee, if you scuttle your own ship to steal your own brass."

Balthazar is not only a fisherman but also a poet. In a land where still today poets commonly walk the levee.

The whistle blows again and the train pulls away.

~ to be continued ~




🗣😷

Your comments and corrections

are welcome

click here

~    ~    ~

Lagniappe du Jour


💜   💚   💛

💜  💚  💛

💧

 
💜 💚

💛


~    ~    ~

💜  💚  💛

💧

The Ladies Wore Red,

July 2021

Origin Story

 

If you wish to read any month's column go to www.LEJ.world anytime. 
They are posted on the first of each month and polished for the next few years.
~   ~   ~
 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