You Must Remember This / August 2018
LEJ's Louisiana
Yours Truly in a Swamp
by Leonard Earl Johnson,
of Lafayette and New Orleans
You Must Remember This
by
Leonard Earl Johnson
August 2018
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A letter from back in the day when America "Liked Ike," for winning the Second World War, and made him a Republican President more long-sighted and patriotic than. . .
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| "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody ..." ~ Donald Trump Courtesy New York Daley News * * * |
U. S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
in a letter to his brother, David,
8 November 1954 ~
✍️
in a letter to his brother, David,
8 November 1954 ~
✍️
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The View from Squalor Heights
by
by
Leonard Earl Johnson
Copyright, 2018, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved
www.LEJ.org
My Father owned and operated a roadhouse in Ullin, Illinois, a tiny village along U. S. Highway #51 ~ a roadway he had helped build in his youth, driving a yellow truck hauling red bricks to the work site. The original roadbed, at least in Southern Illinois, was / is redbrick.
All his Life he was proud of that roadway, and called it the nation's first transcontinental highway. Not entirely true. But almost. It did cross the continent from the upper middle west to lower Louisiana.
It was one of the first such hard roads, and it led to New Orleans ~ a storybook journey since the days of Native mound builders ~ European explorers ~ Lewis and Clark ~ Mark Twain ~ and my Father.
Think back further, to Ronald Reagan's clever quip, "The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Copyright, 2018, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved
www.LEJ.org
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| Porky's, beside the redbrick-road / Ullin, Illinois |
All his Life he was proud of that roadway, and called it the nation's first transcontinental highway. Not entirely true. But almost. It did cross the continent from the upper middle west to lower Louisiana.
It was one of the first such hard roads, and it led to New Orleans ~ a storybook journey since the days of Native mound builders ~ European explorers ~ Lewis and Clark ~ Mark Twain ~ and my Father.
He was a lifelong Republican, born and raised by self-reliant Republican Sons and Daughters of the Midwestern frontier.
Republicans still exist, of course, but they are not like my Father.
Today they are sycophants to Donald Trump's politics of mad night
tweets and smoke screen mini screeds.
They support wedge-issue politics ~ designed not for governing but for garnering power for power's sake ~ politics that callously damage their followers' interests (if not their own) and ultimately limit everyone's free choices.
Remember Harper's Magazine's Richard Manning article, February 2016: "The Trouble with Iowa / Corn, corruption, and the presidential caucuses" ?
Republicans still exist, of course, but they are not like my Father.
Today they are sycophants to Donald Trump's politics of mad night
They support wedge-issue politics ~ designed not for governing but for garnering power for power's sake ~ politics that callously damage their followers' interests (if not their own) and ultimately limit everyone's free choices.
Remember Harper's Magazine's Richard Manning article, February 2016: "The Trouble with Iowa / Corn, corruption, and the presidential caucuses" ?
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| New American Billboard |
Fast forward to today and those same words are twisted to support Russian objectives over American intelligence ~ in an assault led by Eisenhower's successor!
My Father loved IKE, and loved saying so ~ while sitting at the end of the bar in his roadhouse ~ criticizing F. D. R.'s New Deal ~ railing against centralized strongman rule ~ passing time with his friends.
He was the house floor-show, famous in his time and place ~ alongside the highway he helped build.
He was the house floor-show, famous in his time and place ~ alongside the highway he helped build.
One of his oft opined tales was about a crony of whom he said, "He wouldn't go to hell for a dollar, but he'd scamper around the edge till he fell in."
Sound like today's Republicans? They support concentrated ~ nearly one-man ~ centralized power in exchange for the pea-under-a-walnut-shell.
I think my Father is spinning in his grave. ~ LEJ.org✍️
I think my Father is spinning in his grave. ~ LEJ.org
✍️
* * *
The Calm Before the Storm.
L. A. Norma dropped a postcard on the kitchen table. It was from the United States Postal Service and she read aloud from it, "Just about anything you can do at the Post Office, you can do from your office, at www.USPS.com."
L. A. Norma dropped a postcard on the kitchen table. It was from the United States Postal Service and she read aloud from it, "Just about anything you can do at the Post Office, you can do from your office, at www.USPS.com."
She read while exhaling Camel Cigarette smoke.
"Sounds like your Father.
"About all you do at the Post Office is toss your mail in the trash can. How you goina do that on the Internet?"
"Sounds like your Father.
"About all you do at the Post Office is toss your mail in the trash can. How you goina do that on the Internet?"
"Actually," I said, "that is about all anyone does do on the Internet. There is even an app for it."
We both sipped black coffee laced with chicory, and gazed through the kitchen dormer.
We were at Squalor Heights,
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| Photo credit: Frank Parsley |
We were eating beignets, in defiance of our cardiologist's advice, and starting a new day, in defiance of weather, subsiding lands, rising Seas, and Gott knows what else.
Behind Squalor Heights sits an historic Creole cottage that has spent the past two Summers building additions inside its courtyard ~ perhaps in defiance of cultural sensibilities, and maybe the law.
The renovation has sprouted a third floor above two older ones since last we looked.
"Where are those busybody saviors of our glorious historic past?" L. A. Norma asked, exhaling cigarette smoke out the open window.
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| Cabildo interior, second floor Courtesy Louisiana State Museum |
"The banners proclaim the joys of cell phones," Norma laments.
"On the front of buildings housing Napoleon's Death Mask and an original copy of the Louisiana Purchase."
Thankfully, the State Museum has hung up their cell phone on this shameful practice, in part, because of a visit to the Museum director’s offices by Norma, and her Camel Cigarettes. "An old lady's weapon of mass deconstruction."
* * *
Sometimes, men in suits can be seen scurrying about the work site with clipboards and tape measures.
Bankers, we both reckoned, when we first saw them getting out of big black cars, wearing dark suits and silk ties. The blue jumpsuited workmen stayed close on their heels all the while they were there.
Bankers, we both reckoned, when we first saw them getting out of big black cars, wearing dark suits and silk ties. The blue jumpsuited workmen stayed close on their heels all the while they were there.
"Surely they are not City officials openly inspecting and approving such violations," Norma said.
As if that could ever happen!
As if that could ever happen!
Approved or not, the old cottage has grown by fits and starts, over the past two years.
"le Frog slowly boiling," Norma observed, in her best Los Angeles French accent.
Hammers pounded in that new hydro driven staccato rhythm, while saws answered the call with their sweet waltz.
Sometimes the project falls fallow. Once, following a lengthy hiatus, a dormer window appeared looking squarely into Squalor Heights' dormer window. After that, the project went silent for over a month.
When it started up again, the window was taken down. Norma gloated for weeks.
She had phoned the Faubourg Marigny Association when she laid eyes on the new window. She also phoned the State Museum offices, in the Cabildo, threatening them with another smoke-filled visit.
Historic district "deciders," from City and State, appeared at the building site.
After that, a civilized spell passed, then a tiny outbuilding said to have once housed slaves, began growing towards the front. Halfway to the cottage fronting on the street it stopped.
Today, it has fully flowered, with sliding glass doors and budding balconies giving off the sweet aroma of corporate condos.
Norma blew Camel Cigarette smoke out the dormer window. It wafted towards the construction site and the men in blue. "Slavery may never be the same," she said. ~ LEJ.org
Copyright, 2018, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved
Copyright, 2018, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved
* * *
This story appeared, in a slightly different form, in June of 2005, in Les Ami de Marigny, New Orleans. Two month's later, on August 29, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.
100 photos of Katrina, The Denver Post.
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* * *
"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue
and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters"
~ Donald Trump / YouTube
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"Who knew he was talking about Uncle Sam!"
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| New York Daily News |
and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters"
~ Donald Trump / YouTube
* * *
"Who knew he was talking about Uncle Sam!"
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Go here For
 * * * If you wish to read any month's column go to www.LEJ.org anytime.
They are posted on the first of each month and polished for the next few years.
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| Royal at Kerlerec, Faubourg Marigny, NOLa / photo by Janis Turk |
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LEJ's Louisiana, Yours Truly in a Swamp
is a monthly e-column @ www.LEJ.org,
and periodically at
Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans,
publication of the
It is written by Leonard Earl Johnson
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
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© 2018 Leonard Earl Johnson,
All Rights Reserved
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posted by LEJ's Louisiana | 4:09 AM
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