Melanie Plesh and the Great Escape / August 2016
LEJ's Louisiana
Yours Truly in a Swamp
Yours Truly in a Swamp
Leonard Earl Johnson,
of Lafayette and New Orleans
August 2016
* * *
Melanie Plesh
and the Great Escape
and the Great Escape
* * *
© 2016, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved
Melanie Plesh,
teacher, writer, traveler, photographer, seeker.
Lifelong resident of New Orleans.
Died of cancer at sixty-three,
May 18, 2016.
Her passing cut a new wound,
and opened the old one named Hurricane Katrina.
Melanie and I escaped together during The Storm's early first half.
* * *
Some of her Douglas High students loved her for bringing Shakespeare
where never before the boards had been so trod, she said.
"Mostly they ignore me, but I'm doing good anyway."
Katrina washed Frederick Douglass away.
Melanie was easy to like. A do-gooder, who actually did good.
A lovely spirit who left a comfortable North Shore school,
where students drove nice cars, and came to Douglas...
"Where they steal them!"
L. A. Norma said, making us all laugh,
that day.
By the time Katrina hit, Melanie had moved to Marigny Street,
near the Friendly Bar, in Faubourg Marigny.
* * *
When hurricane people say a storm, "takes landfall," they are talking about
the middle of the storm ~ the eye.
Next comes the calm, then the second half of the storm, with winds coming from
the opposite direction.
Katrina's landfall was early Monday, August 29, 2005.
Sunday, August 28 began as calm, clear, and blue as the Lord ever gives.
Near the coast Katrina crept towards us like Carl Sandburg's little cat's feet.
In a few hours She would be roaring down the streets of New Orleans
like a Pride Parade on steroids.
Melanie's Son, Timothy Lachin, lived in Paris, where he taught English.
He had been phoning
across the Atlantic for days.
"This is the big one, Ma," he would say, "you've gotta get out!"
But Melanie was one of those burned by the huge, slow evacuation of the year
before, and vowed not to evacuate again.
I, too, had foolishly decided to ride out this storm because of last year.
By the time the error of judgement hit me, Melanie was the only person I knew
still in Town with more than two wheels.
She was thinking it over.
teacher, writer, traveler, photographer, seeker.
Lifelong resident of New Orleans.
Died of cancer at sixty-three,
May 18, 2016.
Her passing cut a new wound,
and opened the old one named Hurricane Katrina.
Melanie and I escaped together during The Storm's early first half.
 |
| Janice Becker* and Melanie Plesh photo credit: David Gabe Friend Judy Collins and Leonard Cohen: ~ Hey, That's no Way to Say Goodbye ~ 🔊 News of Melanie's death reached me on a day when Art Garfunkel was giving a $120-ticket fundraiser at the Acadiana Center for the Arts, Lafayette ~ eleven years after Katrina. |
It was a traveling show billed by its promoters as Katrina-inspired.
Its purpose was to raise funds for art and craft supplies.
Its purpose was to raise funds for art and craft supplies.
"Dream Boxes,
for children displaced by disasters like Katrina and Rita."
for children displaced by disasters like Katrina and Rita."
* * *
Melanie and I met a few years before Katrina, on Bourbon Street, at a
Tennessee Williams Festival party. She taught English at New Orleans Frederick
Douglas High School, she told us, and lived on the North Shore.
Tennessee Williams Festival party. She taught English at New Orleans Frederick
Douglas High School, she told us, and lived on the North Shore.
where never before the boards had been so trod, she said.
"Mostly they ignore me, but I'm doing good anyway."
Katrina washed Frederick Douglass away.
Melanie was easy to like. A do-gooder, who actually did good.
A lovely spirit who left a comfortable North Shore school,
where students drove nice cars, and came to Douglas...
"Where they steal them!"
L. A. Norma said, making us all laugh,
that day.
By the time Katrina hit, Melanie had moved to Marigny Street,
near the Friendly Bar, in Faubourg Marigny.
* * *
When hurricane people say a storm, "takes landfall," they are talking about
the middle of the storm ~ the eye.
Next comes the calm, then the second half of the storm, with winds coming from
the opposite direction.
Katrina's landfall was early Monday, August 29, 2005.
Sunday, August 28 began as calm, clear, and blue as the Lord ever gives.
Near the coast Katrina crept towards us like Carl Sandburg's little cat's feet.
In a few hours She would be roaring down the streets of New Orleans
like a Pride Parade on steroids.
Melanie's Son, Timothy Lachin, lived in Paris, where he taught English.
He had been phoning
across the Atlantic for days.
"This is the big one, Ma," he would say, "you've gotta get out!"
But Melanie was one of those burned by the huge, slow evacuation of the year
before, and vowed not to evacuate again.
I, too, had foolishly decided to ride out this storm because of last year.
By the time the error of judgement hit me, Melanie was the only person I knew
still in Town with more than two wheels.
She was thinking it over.
By then, City Mayors and Parish Presidents from every town and parish around
were pushing each other off the tv-podium to tell their citizens that
if they planned on staying they should get an indelible marker
and write their Social Security number on their arm.
Merde!
were pushing each other off the tv-podium to tell their citizens that
if they planned on staying they should get an indelible marker
and write their Social Security number on their arm.
Merde!
L. A. Norma had flown to California earlier, and NOLa was nearly a ghost town.
Everything was boarded up. Anyone still here was boarded up, too.
Everything was boarded up. Anyone still here was boarded up, too.
Or floundering about trying to get out.
Armstrong International Airport and the Union Passenger Terminal
no longer picked up the phone.
I was getting calls
from all over the World promising shelter
if I would just come join them.
I could not.
I did not drive, and
Feather Bike was no match for such a storm as Katrina.
 |
| Feather Bike / Photo credit: Melanie Plesh Melanie to the rescue. We loaded her little red truck with supplies for a day or two, and her two feral cats, safely caged and spiting angry. Once Melanie chased these cats with rocks and taunts, and then she came to love them. We would not be leaving without them. Melanie alone could touch these wild beasts. In a flash, as I held open a pillow case, Melanie dropped in the cat named Orange, who instantly came ripping out the bottom, and streaking across the kitchen linoleum like Katrina's pilot fish. His partner, Red, stood frozen next to the stove, then joined the screeching race. Melanie brought up the rear. By the time we left Town, The Storm was licking the wheels of our little red ride. We skittered across the Rigolets. The cats inside their cages fainted into the arms of catatonia. The Storm behind us stood halfway up to its eye, and the bridges we were crossing were literally washing away behind us. Had we understood all this at the time, we likely would have fainted too. |
We fled along the very path of The Storm.
Because a uniformed policeman told us we could only go East.
"The West full?" Melanie asked the policeman, as
rain sprayed him from every direction including up.
"Just the road to it," he said.
We landed on the North Shore, in Hammond,
at the hearth of a kindly fallen monk.
Weeks later we decamped to Lafayette, Louisiana.
"Where the English isn't English and the French isn't French," detractors say.
Somehow we communicated, lived well, and grew happy.
"Not a bad outcome for a serendipitous old scribe like you,"
Norma says, when I tell this story.
"Not to mention," Melanie used to say,
"all those train rides snaking in-and-out of Big Swamp City!"
* * *
Before leaving the kindly fallen monk's hearth we agreed that
Because a uniformed policeman told us we could only go East.
"The West full?" Melanie asked the policeman, as
rain sprayed him from every direction including up.
"Just the road to it," he said.
We landed on the North Shore, in Hammond,
at the hearth of a kindly fallen monk.
Weeks later we decamped to Lafayette, Louisiana.
"Where the English isn't English and the French isn't French," detractors say.
Somehow we communicated, lived well, and grew happy.
"Not a bad outcome for a serendipitous old scribe like you,"
Norma says, when I tell this story.
"Not to mention," Melanie used to say,
"all those train rides snaking in-and-out of Big Swamp City!"
* * *
Before leaving the kindly fallen monk's hearth we agreed that
Melanie would be first to make her way back in to New Orleans,
where she would retrieve select items from what she might find of
Squalor Heights, my Faubourg Marigny garret apartment.
Melanie was a seeker ~ who would save my treasures ~
a brave journeyman on her way through Life.
For over twenty-years she co-directed the
* * *
On my first trip back to New Orleans I found Melanie where we had arranged to meet,
sitting, sipping beer in the window seat at Molly's on the Market, Decatur Street,
one of two bars in the Quarter that did not close during The Storm.
This day.
The City is mostly empty of all but military
and a few stray folks like us.
"The army gives them ice," Melanie said,
pointing her thumb back at the bar.
I joined her for a cold beer.
She had my copy of the anthology,
FRENCH QUARTER FICTION, signed by all contributing authors.
And a silver medal given to me when a boy by Pope Pius, XII.
Melanie Plesh, thank you for the ride out of Town.
May you find among the billowing clouds
Shakespeare, Voltaire, Dante, Goethe, Twain, Sandburg
and Dostoyevsky.
Back home in New Orleans,
your memory takes us once more round the floor.
Merci, mon amie!
Your comments and corrections are welcome: Comments
where she would retrieve select items from what she might find of
Squalor Heights, my Faubourg Marigny garret apartment.
Melanie was a seeker ~ who would save my treasures ~
a brave journeyman on her way through Life.
For over twenty-years she co-directed the
Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project, and
in 1999, she traveled alone to Russia to visit the grave of Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
in 1999, she traveled alone to Russia to visit the grave of Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
* * *
On my first trip back to New Orleans I found Melanie where we had arranged to meet,
sitting, sipping beer in the window seat at Molly's on the Market, Decatur Street,
 |
| Boots on the Ground / Coleen Perilloux Landry |
This day.
The City is mostly empty of all but military
and a few stray folks like us.
"The army gives them ice," Melanie said,
pointing her thumb back at the bar.
I joined her for a cold beer.
She had my copy of the anthology,
FRENCH QUARTER FICTION, signed by all contributing authors.
And a silver medal given to me when a boy by Pope Pius, XII.
Melanie Plesh, thank you for the ride out of Town.
May you find among the billowing clouds
Shakespeare, Voltaire, Dante, Goethe, Twain, Sandburg
and Dostoyevsky.
Back home in New Orleans,
your memory takes us once more round the floor.
Merci, mon amie!
Your comments and corrections are welcome: Comments
* * *
Lagniappe du Jour
At birth a squawling, darling baby boy,
* * *
Lagniappe du Jour
 |
| George Dureau triptych, over bar at Cafe Sbisa, Decatur St., NOLa (*Janice Becker is in black in the first panel) All following photos are by Melanie Plesh or somebody else and are of the last Ralph Brennan's Bacco Ten-Cent Martini Lunches before Katrina.    |
 |
  |
Ralph Brennan's Bacco,
the Last Ten Cent Martini Lunches before Katrina
* * *
Sonnet for LEJ's Gold Tooth
or
Enamel, You Were Valiant, But You Succumbed
by
Melanie Plesh
 |
| LEJ with tooth / Frank Parsley |
Content to gum the nipple, lived content,
And morning noon and night he sucked in joy,
While father sold hot meals that paid the rent.
‘Til finally, one otherwise dull day,
When all was still, his mother hit the roof!
And screamed ‘til Illinois itself did quake.
Instead of gums, on mom he used a tooth.
You know the rest, how one tooth leads to teeth,
How meats replace the nectar that we’ve known.
But ersatz nourishment leads but to grief.
The food we hunger for remained at home.
However, now you sparkle when you walk
And all your words are gilded when you talk.
Love, Melanie, aka Clothilde Goldfarb
17 October 2004
Faubourg Marigny, New Orleans
Faubourg Marigny, New Orleans
* * *
* * *
Copyright, 2016,
Leonard Earl Johnson
All Rights Reserved
Leonard Earl Johnson
All Rights Reserved
Your comments and corrections are welcome: Comments
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posted by LEJ's Louisiana | 5:29 AM
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