Well That Was Different

It is finished. While I'm a bit annoyed with the fact that I stopped at New Orleans instead of going down to the gulf, there was nothing for it. I can handle wind and waves but the 95 degree heat (heat index 105) was more than I could safely handle. Pop, who met me in Baton Rouge last monday, and I made it to NO on thursday and spent all day Friday getting back to SC. I've spent the past few days doing a great deal of nothing, which I feel I've earned after 2180 miles and two months on the Mighty Mississippi. The trip was a blast and I'd like to thank all those I met on the river who were instrumental in helping me get so far.

The following is my journal entry from my next to last day out.

Wednesday, July 19

While is has been in the mid- seventies, at a maximum, so far this month, last night was at least 80 degrees and neither of us slept particularly well. As such, we were both of a mind to find a town in which to eat breakfast. We stopped several times, but each time either the town was too small to have a restaurant or it was too far to reach on foot, so, in the end, all we succeeded in doing was wasting an hour of prime morning paddling time.

The morning is usually good for paddling because it's cooler, but today it was plumb hot and worst of all we had no breeze. Our banter, which for the past two days has been ceaseless, dried up to grunts as we slapped the river inefficiently and our shirts soaked in sweat and stuck to us. My thoughts of quitting went from conjecture to resignation as it became more and more obvious that even a paltry 40 miles a day was too much in the face of the unyielding heat (I had been making 80 miles a day earlier in the month).

When I turned to face Pop to broach the subject, I was startled, as well as reaffirmed in my conviction that we'd have to stop short, by the blotches of red that had appeared on his cheeks and above his eyes. Those blotches were the tell-tale signs of impending heat injury I well knew, as I'd had them all over my forehead the day I called Al Lacour to come get me in St. Francisville last week. While I didn't have the blotchiness, it struck me that I'd stopped sweating; never a good sign.

"Pop, we have to get off the river. We'll never make it to Venice (the last town on the river) in this heat. We're 20 miles from New Orleans. I say we do that tomorrow morning and that's it."

"I didn't want to say anything, but, yeah, New Orleans is going to have to do."

We got to the ferry landing at Reserve at just after noon and pulled the canoe up. As we were making our way up the levees, I saw an old man in a denim shirt with the sleeves cut off peddling his bike along the bike path on top. I ran up and motioned to him but he looked at me warily as he passed by me. He thought better and turned around though after I hollered that I just needed directions; he warmed right up to me rather quickly as he gave the directions to the local eatery.

His name was Al Terrio; he was seventy years old; and he was, in his own words, a "registered coon-ass". I didn't know what that meant per se, but nodded approvingly. Pop had just reached us just in time to hear that and so inquired as to what exactly such a dandy epithet meant.

"It means I'm a muthaf#@!er," he bellowed before laughing.

That pretty much worked for me but Pop got him to explain that "coon-asses" were proud Cajun stock. As his last named seemed mighty Italian, Pop asked for clarification and all confusion dissippated as Al revealed that it was really Theriot from near Marseilles, but that his daddy spelled it Terrio.

Al pointed us on our way and off we went, but the lure of being our guide proved too much and so he came along five minutes later to escort us to the joint and put in a good word for us with the woman who ran it, before pedaling off again.

It was simply a short-order deal and had no indoor dining area but the picnic table was at least under cover so we were able to have shade; however, as per Al's request that we be shown "good Southern hospitality", the owner opened up her new air-conditioned annex party hall for us to dine in, which was a mighty glorious thing for her to do we thought.

As we were chomping down fabulous shrimp Po-Boy sandwiches, Al showed back up to inform us that in the heat he'd been rather foolish and if he'd been thinking straight he'd simply have gotten his truck and taken us to eat over at his daughter's restaurant farther away. Pop sprang upon the idea.

"If there were any way you could give us a ride to a motel, we'd like to go by your daughter's place and buy you a beer."

That seemed a good deal to Al, so after we got in his truck, we went back to the ferry, gathered our things, hid the canoe, and off we went. Al gave us the tour of Reserve, which had been named thusly when a businessman in the thirties or so had asked that the land be reserved for him until he came back with the requisite money.

The restaurant, Pirogue's, was pleasant and Pop and Al got to talking about music from when they were growing up. Without saying a word, Al got up, went to his truck and came back with a strange object in his hand. He opened it and pulled out a harmonica.

I've puffed on a harmonica once or twice and managed only to evict a sound that could only be matched by the simultaneous kicking of a thousand ducks in the testicles. Al put that thing to his lips and out came the most amazingly layered yet clear music. As his hands shuttled back and forth, cupping furiously to make the correct sounds, Al had his eyes closed and his suddenly elastic face poured every ounce of effort into the instrument. Pop and I were initially dumbfounded, nay thunderstruck, by such an unexpected virtuoso performance, but Pop found himself and began singing the words as I just sat rapt.

I have quite obviously exaggerated a great many happenings in the course of this narrative (the entire journal, not just this passage) for the sake of humor, but I wish to make absolutely clear that I am in no way, shape, or form exaggerating or being ironical. Al Terrio is flat-out awe inspiring with a harmonica. I am convinced that I have never heard, nor will I ever hear, a thing like it unless I should someday stumble upon some other misdirected genius who can play Beethoven's Ninth by blowing into a coke bottle.

After three or four songs, which stopped all activity in the restaurant, he stopped to applause and he apologized that his "wind" wasn't what it used to be. I assaulted him with questions and discovered that he was self- taught and that he not only was still in a band, but that he, as a harmonica player, was the lead. I'd like to know the tamborine player who could pull that off.

Shortly thereafter, Al took us to the town of LaPlace, where the Millet (pronounced "Meeyet" by the locals) Motel was. At $60 it was a tad expensive, especially as the motel office was located in the adjoining Citgo gas station, but we paid nonetheless. We bid goodbye to Al and made our way to our room.

Having spent a night in it, I can honestly say it was the worst motel room I've ever stayed in. No sooner did we walk in than we walked out, as the smell of cigarette smoke was overwhelming. I went to the counter/ office and asked for a non- smoking room. The clerk informed me there were none and handed me a can of air- freshener.

As I coated the room in Lysol goodness, we made note that the only light, besides the bedside lamp, was an exposed light bulb hidden behind the wall- mounted, non- functioning TV, that the smoke detector had been wrenched from the wall, and that the tub was covered in hairs and burn marks where persons enjoying their daily constitutions had set down their cigarettes. Actually, it was amusing, as the night wore on, to discover more examples of the room's decrepidness. The sink knobs were backwards so that hot came out cold and vice-versa; the bathroom doorknob had punched through the bathroom wall; the shower dribbled like a garden hose until I somehow magically convinced it to work by cussing and rotating the knob repeatedly; we had to request toilet paper; there was a sinkhole in the shower that felt as if it might give way at any minute; the telephone turned out to be covering a half-inch- long cigarette ash; the other functioning TV had no remote; the mini-fridge not only didn't work, but reeked; and, last of all, the floor was so dirty that Pop had to wash his feet again before he went to sleep, even though he'd showered only an hour earlier. My last discovery was that the comforter must not have been washed since the Ford administration, as the funk and stink of untold unwashed masses gagged me to sleep. I might have paid double to experience a room that bad.