Last night, 2006 Grammy Award winner Irma Thomas put on a fabulous nearly two-hour show, singing her throaty up-tempo rhythm and blues, bare-footed through the second half, her plain black dress shimmering in the stage lights, her voice bringing tears to my eyes. And the songs: "After the Rain," "In the Middle of It All," "Another Man Done Gone," "These Honey Dos," and my favorite, "Time is on My Side." Unforgettable, the Soul Queen of New Orleans, there on the stage, glittery lights behind her, stomping on the stage in her bare feet, her entire body quivering with the emotion behind, "If you don't know love, you don't know, you don't know, you don't know."

Irma Thomas, personable, approachable, immediate, told a story about shopping in Wal-Mart right after Katrina. A woman said, "You here?" And Irma replied, "Yes, darling" (everyone says darling or dear or honey here). The woman said, "But you're Irma Thomas." And Irma replied, "That's right, honey. But if they've got something that will cover all this, I'm here, just like everyone else."

This wonderful, unforgettable artist, 67 years young, celebrates her creativity and her life with pure exuberance. What a memorable night and what a memorable close to our month in New Orleans.

Today was a magical day. We began in the morning, loading up a 40-gallon pot, frame and butane tank in our trusty Toyota, with many oranges, onions, potatoes, lots of spices, and then drove out to the bayou for a crawfish boil. We were visiting Georgia, our friend we haven't seen in nearly a decade, since San Miguel days.

Georgia's house backs up on a bayou, so after greeting four dogs, unloading the cooking supplies, and admiring the view, Georgia and I hopped into a canoe, loaded with crawfish traps, a bucket of fish heads, and oars, to bring home dinner. We poled through the marshy grass, got green slime all over ourselves, laughed a lot, but didn't fall in and brought home the biggest crawfish I've ever seen, some as big as my hand. One even pinched me!

Then the Guv popped all his special incredients into his giant pot, fired up the "boil", and the crawfish turned bright red for dinner. We sat out on the porch, tossing our shells over the side, and joked about how many crawfish we could eat as the sun set, the purple martins came home to roost, and egrets flew along the border of the swamp.

We drove back home along Interstate 310, up over the Mississippi River via the Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge, some 150 feet over the river, and admired the skyline of New Orleans. Tomorrow's our last day of volunteer work at the library where we'll say goodbye to new friends, and maybe, just maybe, tomorrow night we'll see Irma Thomas in concert.

Oak Alley Plantation, a sugar cane plantation established along the banks of the Mississippi about 35 miles outside New Orleans in 1835, welcomed us with a double-row of 28 oak trees some 300 years old. It was 79 degrees and sunny, but the breezes up from the river were cooling, and the grounds meticulously maintained. This old Greek Revival style mansion was furnished with period pieces, including intricately painted cypress wood fireplace mantles, made to look as if they were marble.

If you were an honored guest, you would be greeted with a fresh pineapple each morning. If you outstayed your welcome, your morning would begin with two pineapples, a subtle hint to take one home on your journey.

The entire house was built with slave labor. The owners kept some 20 house slaves and 93 field slaves, their names, ages, and values commemorated in a bronze plaque. As we read the names, it was hard not to draw conclusions about each person listed: Desiree, Creole (meaning born in the West Indies) female field hand aged 16, value $200; Louisa, female field hand aged 15, value $25; Mary, mulatto (meaning born of Caucasian and Negro parents) female aged 35 with her five children, seamstress, value $1,500. Four slaves were over the age of 60: Mary, aged 69, cook for the Negroes, value $50; Mercury, age 62, African Negro field hand, value $100; Louis, age 62, American Negro, one-armed field hand, value $50; and Leandre, age 63, Creole Negro field boss and driver, value $500.


This undated photo above, most likely late 19th or early 20th Century shows the former slave quarters, now burned down. You might recall the threats Southern slave owners made to sell their slaves down river to the cotton and sugar cane plantations. This is that land, and a way of life that ended with the coming of the Americans, the Civil War, and the civil rights movements of the 1960s.

While on the road, we needed groceries and couldn't find a grocery store. So we broke our own guidelines and yes, we shopped at Wal-Mart, the store that has a history of mistreating its employees and providing shoddy benefits. I was shocked at the prices. A box of my favorite cereal cost $2.50, well under the $4.59 at traditional grocery stores. A typical weekly shopping that cost us $60-$80 at a conventional grocery store came in under $40. I thought at the time that Wal-Mart would do very well in the coming months as the recession worsened. Some people have no choice; they have families to feed.

But then I heard about Debbie Shank on Keith Olbermann last night. Here's a woman who stocked shelves at Wal-Mart in a small town in Mississippi. She was severely injured when she was hit by a truck and won a lawsuit against the trucking company. The money was put into a trust fund for her long-term care. Using a provision in the Wal-Mart health benefits, Wal-Mart sued her for $470,000 and won. The complete story is at this link. The week following Wal-Mart's victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals, this brain-damaged woman (who can barely understand what happened) lost her son in Iraq.

It's time for Wal-Mart to say we won a victory in court but decided not to take the money. Otherwise, I agree with Keith Olbermann. Shame on you, Wal-Mart. For now, I absolutely refuse to shop at Wal-Mart. I've sent a letter to Kit Bond, the U.S. Senator from Mississippi, and hope you will follow some of these links to take action.

Additional links: You can sign a petition at http://action.walmartwatch.com/page/s/debbieshank, or read the original article in the Wall Street Journal that tells Debbie Shank's story and summarizes trends in the insurance industry at http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119551952474798582.html

It's the morning after the day before, Easter parades, that is. We all walked through the French Quarter and along the Garden District to watch Easter finery in two parades, one featuring white convertibles and the other a small marching band and mule-driven carts. Both featured beads and bunnies thrown to the admiring throngs. My favorite moments came, though, when we walked atop the levee along the great Mississippi River, passed the Natchez steamboat complete with a calliope concert. Click the PLAY button!


New Orleans is a city of joy and celebration, hope and mystery, a love of life, yet a history of hidden lives. Now, post-Katrina, fearsome challenges remain that call for a community dialogue that stretches throughout the city and across our country.

Red beans and rice! This traditional Cajun recipe comes from the Guv. He made it right in a 10-gallon pot in our kitchen. The result was heavenly, and I think would feed 20 or so. Bring a little New Orleans into your kitchen!

When I was 15, my sister, cousin and I went on a blind date to a high school dance. There, in the small California town of Millville (just outside of Redding), I experienced Fats Domino. He played one riveting song after another, "Blueberry Hill," "Blue Monday," and "When the Saints Go Marching In". It was the summer of 1958. We danced so close to the piano, I could reach out and touch him, but I didn't. I just danced and danced and loved every minute, never realizing that this great musician was a human being instead of some marvelous god of music.

Fats Domino lives in New Orleans. At 79, he played a benefit concert recently here, all those greats from his long career. I wish I could have been there to cheer him on and to say how much I've loved his gravelly voice, his heavy-beat stride piano playing, his songs, and his joyous music. For Fats Domino was skittish about coming on stage. Apparently he suffers greatly from stage fright, but this was a fund-raiser for rebuilding New Orleans, so he went on.

A few weeks ago, our friend the Guv of WWOZ fame took us through the Lower 9th Ward here in New Orleans. Wow! Fat's Domino's house. But you can still see the four-foot high water line mark on his garage. Early reports had him dead, along with 1,000 others. Today, a sign on Fats' fence says "Tipitina's Foundation proudly helping Fats Domino Rebuild his neighborhood." But the Tipitina Foundation does more. It's raised $1.5 million for musical instruments for school bands and has been at the heart of efforts to support the music community here in New Orleans.

Still so much work remains to rebuild this beautiful city. The French Quarter, downtown, the Garden District, the neighborhoods of the privileged: all these are coming back. Yesterday we walked all along the levee, Jackson Square, and had cafe au lait with powdered-sugar-laden beignets at Cafe du Monde with our friends from Oregon. The sun was out, making another memorable day for tourists and residents alike.

But here's a picture I took of the house directly across the street from Fats Domino's house.



We can drive through, we can volunteer, but we don't really know the back story of what happened here during Katrina. But we can see what remains to be done and come to New Orleans to be a part of the rebuilding. John Edwards talked about the need to put in a hand, ending his campaign here by working on housing. Put in a hand.