Hail and Farewell

When I lived in Turkey on a U.S. military base in third and fourth grade, my parents often went to Hail and  Farewell parties. My mother -- chic and mysterious as Audrey Hepburn -- would dress up in fruit-colored concoctions she sewed for herself, complete with tight princess waists, flaring hips narrowed to a pencil skirts, and pointy breasts like bomb warheads jutting below scandalously bared shoulders. Hail and Farewells seemed like fabulous events where grownups engaged in nefarious activities, and the bits of gossip that floated down to the progeny like drifting confetti left us thinking the world of adults was both a good bit titillating and scary.   Shifting terrain, and no place you'd want to get lost.

The Hail and Farewells were about acknowledging journeys -- welcoming newcomers to the base and saying goodbye to those who were finishing their two year stint.  It was a life we knew well: We come and we go; we make friends, share ourselves for a time and move on.  The key was traveling with your family intact; this kept you grounded, held you firm.

Even though my recent journey was a short one, just a couple of weeks, it reminds me of what the military life was all about.  We -- my husband and I and our dog Keaton -- were going to hit the road, hail family and friends, see new sights, explore the world. Exciting, and with an element of the unknown.  I was eager to begin our travels, but knew there would be at least a tinge of heartache in the wake.

We loaded up the car with duffle bags, camping gear, an ice chest (with containers of too much potato salad and squash salad, fruit, cheese, milk and juice) and a bag of dry goods (chips, cookies, nuts, cereal, coffee), and a picnic basket with plates and utensils.  My big improvement over last year was the addition of an electric tea kettle with which to make our own coffee through a Melitta cone, and in case our campsite didn't have electricity, packets of cold-brew Starbucks.

We set off on a Wednesday morning, with plans to meet my son in New Orleans for dinner by 7 pm.  Our first night was to be spent in a B&B I reserved, since there is no place to camp in New Orleans.  I found a great place--The Chimes--which I highly recommend if you want to visit New Orleans and not stay in the fracas that is the French Quarter. It's uptown, and just a couple of blocks from the first place I lived when moving to New Orleans at 19 where I had 600 square feet of an old house with gracefully tall windows and hardwood floors, which I shared with a boyfriend who became my first husband and a black lab named Redneck.

The drive is one I've made many times, mostly with small kids in tow.  But it's been a few years, and the last time I drove it was before Louisiana welcomed gambling (legally) into the family.  Soon as we crossed the TX-LA state line, we saw huge billboards with hard-looking women luring travelers to stop by the local casino. Casinos seemed to be everywhere: gas station and casino; truck stop and casino; restaurant and casino.  When we pulled into Lafayette to find a place to picnic (since all those casinos don't seem to have provided Louisiana enough money to invest in rest stops), upon seeing business sign for a dentist's office, my husband quipped, "Dentures... and casino."  I wouldn't be surprised.

(P.S. Do not stop for a picnic lunch in Lafayette. The only park we could find was right next to an industrial enterprise on one side and, I'm pretty sure, a drug-dealing establishment posing as a neighborhood on the other. I was sort of wishing we were packing more than sandwiches. Upon visiting the park restroom, my husband turned promptly around and warned, You do not want to go in there.)

As we crossed the Atchafalaya Basin, I felt a new thrill rise from the swampy, mysterious forest of cypress trees and marshland.  It always felt other-wordly, traversing the wetlands over a bridge where there is too little land to sustain a terrestrial road.  But now I see this landscape with a new understanding of the ecological system and how it functions.  I work for a group that is helping to secure the policy support and infrastructure to rebuild the disappearing wetlands that are so critical for fisheries and wildlife and provide an invaluable service as storm protection to the Cajun communities that have lived there for so long. My teeny-tiny part in raising the funds for a project that is leading to major restoration initiatives is inordinately satisifying, and I am honored to be a guest upon the land, able to pay it a tiny bit of the dues it so justly deserves.

Upon arriving in New Orleans, we check into The Chimes, then head over to my son's house, which he shares with a couple of roommates.  I have to catch my breath, which sticks in my throat, when I see him. As happens everytime I see him now, it is hard to believe this man is my son.  And yet, in him I still see the little boy who told corny jokes and loved The Simpsons and Batman and baseball (for months, when he was five, he changed his name to Batman, though he would also generously answer to just "Bat").  He has a man's strong jaw, but his eyes and nose are still soft and gentle and carry his youth.

We have a fun dinner as he tells us about his new job and life since returning to his hometown, as we sit outside a cafe on Magazine Street, which I traveled most days I lived uptown more than two decades before. It looks much the same. 

So does the Bourbon Street, which we stroll after dinner with our dog Keaton, who is a big hit among tourists and locals alike.  They all smile and give him a pet.  A P. Diddy-looking fellow nodded at him (mistaking Keaton for a female, as many seem to do), saying "Fine looking lady you got there." He did not mean me.  There is heat lightning in the sky, and a cacophony of music flowing from every bar into the streets, mixing with the flashing neon, hanging in the humid air. Overwhelming the senses, begging you to forget your sensibilities.

However, the Ninth Ward, which we toured the next morning, is vastly different from pre-Katrina days.  While neighborhoods are being rebuilt, there are many many empty lots where houses once stood.  A few homes still bear the post-Katrina inspection tattoo:  the cross in the circle with cryptic numbers denoting the number of dead found within. Now the region is facing a fresh devastation with the BP oil spill. It will rebound, just as it always does, with a sense that life is hard along this stretch of God's earth.  However, there are plenty wrongs that ought to be righted, and I know good people are working to make that happen.

As I learned early on, with each hail comes a farewell.  No sooner had we arrived at this place I once called home, that will forever be home to my children, then it was time to shove off.  We left New Orleans at noon, crossing over Lake Pontchartrain and heading to Birmingham where my daughter is claiming her future.  I am giddy to see her, to reclaim her just a teensy bit for myself -- our mother-daughter bond, in which my past, present and future is so heavily steeped.

~~Stay tuned for Alabama into the Appalachians~~