Divorce issues characterize New Orleans

By Lynne Wasserman

NOLAVie

I figure that if NolaVie can print a NOLA love story, it might have room for a tale or two about how our favorite city does divorce. As with most other things, we put our own unique spin on this life event. Divorce is never easy, not even in The Big Easy. But, as with most painful events, a little levity can help.

For 35 years, I toiled as a divorce lawyer. I heard tales you would not believe, and you won't get the chance, because lawyer-client communications are confidential. But statements in a public court, or comments overheard in courthouse hallways -- those are fair game. Here are just a few, with, of course, a little embellishment and exaggeration thrown in. (And the names are changed, to protect the broken-hearted.)

Once, a divorcing couple came to court without lawyers. The judge asked them how their settlement talks were going. In his best Irish Channel accent, the husband replied, "We agreed on da house. We agreed on da kids. We even agreed on how much I gotta pay 'er every month. What we cannot agree on, Ya Hon-uh, is how to split up da Saints tickets."

It's true. Saints season tickets are often the most coveted asset in a property division.

Our beloved team comes up often in divorce court. Once, a judge was scolding a father who had been heard to use foul language in the earshot of young children.

"Mr. Beauregard," the judge  instructed, "cursing in front of children is unacceptable."

"But Your Honor," plead the man. "The Saints were playing the Falcons."

"Oh," replied the Judge.

And then there's Mardi Gras. The importance of each Carnival tradition has caused judges to concoct some highly Solomonic solutions, not too different from this one: "Mr. LeBlanc and Ms. DelaHoussaye, since you cannot agree, I am ordering custody on alternating holidays. The mother will have the children for Bacchus, Iris, and Hermes. The father will have the children for Endymion, Thoth and Muses. Mardi Gras Day will be split, with everyone meeting up at St. Charles and Ninth, neutral ground side."

Hurricanes create anxiety in adults, but why should the children suffer? The following is only a short stretch from what was actually said in court: "Your Honor, in case of hurricanes, my client wishes to evacuate the children to Baton Rouge. Her ex insists on Houston. Our position on this is that the children should not be forced to suffer the indignity of staying in Houston for what could be days."

Oh, families are special. I overheard this exact statement outside of a courtroom: "We actually had a pretty good marriage until his mama 'n dem got all up in my face."

And we cannot forget about sex, or the lack of it. There was the time a lady was relating that she and her husband no longer had sex. It was a medical problem, she said. "Nope, we ain't did dat in ye-ahs. He CAN'T. He's impudent."  

For some folks, there is never enough: "I told him I was going to be like the Picayune. I would only be there three times a week. I guess he decided to cancel his subscription."

But for many couples, it's the little everyday insults that just prove to be too much. Here are some of my favorite NOLA grounds of divorce:

• Improper driving: waiting a full two seconds after the light turns green to press on the gas pedal.
• Terminal idiocy: leaving the outside lights on during termite season.
• Extreme sanctimony: refusing to make your famous bread pudding for your spouse because it's "not healthy."
• Confused intemperance: stocking the refrigerator with Purple Haze when he's said a thousand times he prefers Jockamo.
• Abandonment: leaving the bar before the final set.
• And the ultimate insult, Infidelity: admitting out loud that you don't really hate Houston.

New Orleanians go out propped up

Photo: Matthew Hinton, The Advocate

By Andrew Vanacore, New Orleans Advocate
Most of those in attendance seemed to agree that Mickey Easterling went out Tuesday evening just the way she would have wanted to — well-dressed and in the thick of things.

Friends of the local philanthropist, socialite and party hostess packed the gleaming marble foyer of the Saenger Theater on Canal Street, plucking champagne and fried eggplant from the trays of passing waiters. Music sounded from a jazz combo parked on the balcony overhead.

And Mickey, as everyone called her, took in the whole scene from her perch on a wrought iron bench, her famous accouterments of hat, feather boa and cigarette holder all in evidence. She even wore a diamond-studded “Bitch” pin on her chest.

Here was a wake — Easterling died April 14 after a long illness — that seemed in every way to confirm New Orleans’ reputation for enjoying a cocktail and some company, and for pursuing both in ways that tend to set it apart from the rest of the country.

No, this was not really a funeral, as Easterling’s daughter, Nanci Myke, explained in an interview earlier this week.

“There’s no program,” she said, “It’s really more of a …” She paused and searched for the words, then continued, “It’s a really nice way to say, ‘The party’s over.’ ”

There is a precedent for this type of send-off. Close observers of local funeral rites will remember “Uncle” Lionel Batiste’s wake in 2012, where the Treme Brass Band drummer leaned against a faux street lamp. Beer and barbecue were served at the funeral home on St. Philip Street while Batiste presided in a natty sportcoat and sunglasses.

Revelers at the Saenger on Tuesday gathered to honor an entirely different type of character — a Lakefront grande dame rather than a Treme jazz legend.

Sammy Steele III, a friend of Easterling’s going back three decades, handled her cosmetics and wardrobe for the event, drawing on Easterling’s own closet for a fluorescent pink boa, a black hat and a floral print dress by Leonard.

“My goal was to make her look even prettier than she was in real life,” Steele said, “because she was a larger-than-life person.”

To Easterling’s right, on a small table, sat a bottle of her favorite Champagne, Veuve Clicquot, and in her right hand was a Waterford crystal Champagne flute of the kind she used to carry around with her sometimes when restaurant glassware wouldn’t do.

The setting seemed appropriate enough. Easterling, whose marriage to local investor Vern Easterling ended in divorce in the 1970s, used to own a stake in the Saenger, regularly attended the Broadway shows that played there and usually hosted opening-night parties for the visiting cast, said Kathleen Turner, who managed the Saenger in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

“A lot of times, she knew these people already,” Turner said, mentioning Easterling’s frequent trips to New York and acquaintanceship with stars like Lena Horne and Richard Burton. “She was so welcoming and gracious and giving in opening her home. And they would come in and it was, ‘Oh Mickey, it’s so good to see you again.’ ”

And of course, Turner said, there would be the glass of Champagne, the cigarette holder, the waiter standing ready with a tray of refreshments and the band playing on the back patio by the pool. Everything came with a New Orleans touch.

Turner recalled a show’s chorus line once turning into a second-line as it exited the party and got back on the waiting bus.

The site for these parties reflected an eclectic, exuberant taste.

“Mickey was never afraid to display what she liked,” Turner said. “She didn’t care what was current. She didn’t care if someone said, ‘You can’t mix these periods.’ If it looked good to her, she wanted it. She would always say, ‘This is my house’ — actually, ‘This is my damn house.’ ”

On one occasion, Turner showed up to find Easterling out in the driveway unpacking crates full of new items for the decor, saying, “Oh, this is fun. Here’s an extra crowbar. Open a box!”

Where she found the time for all this outside of various civic commitments is unclear.

Easterling’s daughter recently came across an old curriculum vitae of her mother’s. It was four pages long, detailing involvement in everything from the Audubon Park board to Delta Festival Ballet. For years, she sat on the board of the Orleans Levee District.

For all of the celebratory mood at the Saenger on Tuesday, there was also a palpable sense of mourning for an era when women like this so seamlessly combined civic boosterism with a will to party.

“There were so many fabulous women in New Orleans who really had this mission to live life to the fullest and help the arts,” Marjorie Gehl said. “These grande dames are all sort of gone.”

Gehl sat with two other friends, Diane Fee and Betty Davidson, who used to accompany Easterling to the opera. All agreed that one last party seemed like a fitting wake.

Davidson recalled when Easterling used to ride around “with a trunk full of iced Champagne,” picking up friends. No one could remember if it was a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley she used to drive.

“You can’t expect the women to remember what type of car,” Fee quipped, but agreed that drinks at the Saenger would have pleased Easterling. “It’s very much like she would have planned.”

The corner store is a New Orleans tradition

Every day, a colorful cast of local characters parades in and out of Singleton’s Po-Boys & Mini Mart, a bustling corner store tucked away on Garfield Street at the foot of the Mississippi River levee. Not one of them leaves without paying his or her respects to Beau Nguyen, Singleton’s personable proprietor.

“We really are a neighborhood store,” says Nguyen, known affectionately to his customers as “Mr. Beau.”  “We know everybody in this area by first name.”

Nguyen has owned and operated Singleton’s since Christmas of 1999. It’s located in the Black Pearl, a small, triangular neighborhood just south of the point where St. Charles meets S. Carrollton avenue. The area takes its name from the predominantly African-American community that first settled there, many of them originally servants following the movement of wealthy residents upriver along St. Charles as New Orleans expanded.

Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the Black Pearl experienced a period of marked decay. The community lost a sizable chunk of its inhabitants, and nearly all of the neighborhood’s commercial enterprises and corner shops were closed down.

Except for one. Singleton’s is the last corner grocery and kitchen in its neck of the River Bend.

In a city that, perhaps more than any other in America, prides itself on the character and community of its neighborhoods, the corner store holds pride of place. Corner stores, beyond providing basic staples to local residents, act as social nexuses, sites where neighbors congregate to eat, drink, and converse.

“This is a very close-knit neighborhood,” Nguyen says.  “[We’re] just like family.”

Nguyen is no stranger to overcoming hardship himself.  Born in 1961 in Vietnam, he and his family escaped Saigon in 1975, just a week before the fall of the city to North Vietnamese military forces.  Three refugee camps later, the 14-year-old finally arrived in the United States.

After meeting his wife, Laura (another Vietnamese refugee), in 1980 during his first visit to New Orleans, the two married and moved to southern California, where they opened a furniture store. A faltering economy sank Nguyen’s first operation, and forced a relocation back to New Orleans in 1993, where Laura’s family was based. The couple then bought a corner grocery in Gentilly, Will’s Market, where the seeds of their future business success took root.

After a year of financial difficulty, he says, he began looking at the business models of other, more successful stores and noticed a pattern.

“It’s the cooking,” Nguyen says, motioning behind him to his prep station and large, glass-cased food warmer, a 16-year-old holdover from the original Gentilly store. “It’s the food that brings the money in.”

Nguyen installed a kitchen in his store and he and Laura, with little prior cooking experience, quickly learned the tools of the New Orleans culinary trade, mastering one of the city’s most timeless dishes – the po-boy.

Roadblocks surfaced again in 1999 when the Nguyens lost the lease to their building. When they moved to the Black Pearl neighborhood, the couple had a more well-defined idea of their operations – Nguyen began envisioning how he would revise the layout of the establishment upon his first visit to the building.

“There was no window here,” Nguyen says, pointing to the window that now faces Garfield Street at the front of the store.  “It was just really run-down and dirty.”

After completing renovations, the couple opened their new enterprise, which has remained in constant operation ever since – barring an eight-week period of extensive renovation after a tornado strike in early 2007.

These days, Singleton’s is firmly entrenched in the fabric of the Black Pearl neighborhood, a prominent eatery and social spot for residents.

“We watch out for people,” Nguyen says.  “People know we help out a lot.”

That was true after Hurricane Katrina when, astoundingly, Nguyen was able to keep his store open on Monday, Aug. 30, 2015 – the day the storm passed over New Orleans – relying on a generator for power. Singleton’s remained open for more than a week in the anarchic aftermath of the hurricane, providing much-needed necessities to those who had stayed in the city.

“A lot of old folks around here stayed,” Nguyen remembers.  “They didn’t know how hard it would get. So during Katrina I would cook and bring food to them.”  When the water was shut off on Thursday, Nguyen made nightly rounds to the nearby houses, carrying 5-gallon buckets of water to elderly residents.

The food at Singleton’s likely has an equally large stake in the loyal following that has formed around the corner store. Nguyen says that similarities between Cajun and Vietnamese cooking styles helped the couple adapt to the landscape of New Orleans cuisine.

“All the food is well-seasoned,” Nguyen says, speaking both of local Cajun dishes and of the food indigenous to Vietnam.  “You season it overnight – that’s when all the flavors come together.”

In the summertime, recalling a “cook-what-you-grow” ideology from his native Vietnam, Nguyen grows herbs, spices, and a selection of vegetables in a backyard garden, which he uses in his cooking for the store.

“When you get your bowl of pho,” Nguyen says, referring to a popular Vietnamese dish of rice noodles, herbs, and meat served in an all-important piquant broth, “you get a basket of bean sprouts, mint, jalapeño – everything is fresh.”  The popular dish, besides being a spicy Vietnamese staple, is also one of the best cures for a hangover, Nguyen adds with a hearty laugh.

The Vietnamese menu, added a little over a year ago when the Nguyens were trying to increase Saturday business, has wildly increased the store’s popularity.

“The Vietnamese food right now is really hot,” Nguyen says.  “It’s healthy, it’s fresh, and people really like it. Now Saturday is our busiest day.”

This article by Dalton Bender is published as part of a service learning partnership between NolaVie and the students of Dr. Diane Grams' sociology classes at Tulane University.

Tourist turns New Orleanian

New Orleans was such a nice place to visit, we decided to live here: Beau Tidwell

"Slowly falling in love with the city as an outsider, over years of visits, made moving in seem like the natural next step."

The recent announcement that New Orleans tourism posted its second-highest count of visitors on record in 2012 was unalloyed good news for the city and the people who love it. Reporter Mark Waller noted that 9.01 million tourists spent a record-setting $6 billion. According to the University of New Orleans, that's the third year in a row tourist spending has set a new record. And the trend lines are all headed in the right direction.

As a former tourist turned aspiring local, I can attest to the strength of the city's appeal to outsiders.

My wife and I made our first trip down here for our honeymoon two years after Hurricane Katrina. We were so enamored of the city, and were made to feel so welcome and at ease by everyone here, that we came back the next year on vacation. And every year after that.

Each time we had to leave, we'd ask each other, "Why don't we just move down here?" Last summer, our first child was born, and we finally elected to take the plunge and raise our baby in the place we'd always been the most happy -- in the city that care forgot.

Hurricane Sandy slammed into the Northeast just as we were trying to get out, and we did most of our packing in the dark with no heat and no water. So when we finally pulled into New Orleans last fall, we came as refugees -- camping in an empty basement apartment in Broadmoor while we waited for our furniture to catch up with us. We had no idea what we were doing or what we were in for, but we did at least know exactly where we were: right where we long wanted to be.

With a few months under our belt, we're starting to finally settle in. We've had our battles with Cox Cable (that has to be some sort of hazing, right?), we've gotten turned on to WWOZ, and we've discovered the wonders of king cake. We celebrated our first New Orleans Christmas, and we survived our first New Orleans Carnival season.

I paid a ticket I got for parking in front of my own house (on Mardi Gras, no less!), and I've paid local taxes since I started drawing a check.

But I still feel like a tourist.

It's been suggested, in the comments on Mark's article on NOLA.com and elsewhere, that New Orleans should put its efforts into attracting new residents rather than tourists. As my experience suggests, the two are not mutually exclusive. Slowly falling in love with the city as an outsider, over years of visits, made moving in seem like the natural next step.

But I'm learning that moving to New Orleans and being from New Orleans are two separate things entirely. For all that the city depends on tourist dollars for its lifeblood, there is a world of difference between making a visitor feel welcome and helping a new resident feel at home.

In our time here to date, I've been overwhelmed by the generosity and the kindness of our new friends and neighbors who have gone out of their way to help us settle in. The people of New Orleans have been patient and generous with their time, teaching us how to pronounce the names of streets so we don't sound like Yankees, and which areas of town you can drive through during Carnival (hint: none of them).

Born again in Black and Gold, it is sometimes easier to see the seams in the dream we sell to visitors. The French Quarter may be safer than it's ever been, but all over the city bodies are piling up at record rates. The area around the Superdome is repaved and revamped, but in some other parts of the city the roads are torn to pieces and the lights only half-work.

But for all that, the spell of New Orleans' allure remains unbroken, and the mystery of what exactly separates the city's 350,000 residents from their 9 million annual guests remains intact. What does it take to make a new resident a New Orleanian? Is such a thing possible?

I'm gambling that it is. After more than 1,300 miles on the road to get here -- and years of dreaming of it before that -- I'm more than happy to take my time learning exactly what it means to call New Orleans my home. I didn't move here because the food is amazing (though it is). We didn't bring our family across the country because the music scene is like nowhere else (it certainly is). We came down for good because something in the spirit of the city, its people and its culture, made us never want to leave.

Beau Tidwell works in digital operations at NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune. Read about his parenting experiences on the NOLA.com/family page and on Twitter @NewNolaDad.

©  NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

No such thing as "TMI" in New Orleans

By Brett Will Taylor, NolaVie.com

In many places, the phrase "rhetorical comment" refers to a statement that is not intended to elicit a response. But, of course, New Orleans is not like most places…and New Orleanians are not like most people. On today's Love NOLA, Brett Will Taylor notes how the rhetorical comments thrown around this city are often seen as invitations to share opinions, stories and, maybe, salvation.

Even after living here two-and-one-half years, I’m still adjusting to the fact that there is no such thing as a rhetorical comment in New Orleans. 

Take the phrase “How are you?”  In Boston, where I lived before moving here, you ask that question every day.  “How are you?” you ask when a customer walks into your restaurant or before you start a meeting.  “How are you?” you ask when a child comes home from school or when a parent calls.

You’re not looking for an answer.  Even from your own mother. 

In Boston, “How are you?” is a greeting.   A one-way greeting. 

Not so New Orleans.

In New Orleans, “How are you?” is an invitation to learn someone’s entire life story. Past, present and future. As my friend Renee says, in New Orleans, you don’t ask “How are you?” unless you really want to know. And have a few hours to find out.

Ask and we’ll tell you exactly how we’re doing, sometimes down to a level of intimacy that most people would take to their graves.  But, you’ll listen, not because you’re being polite, but because we’re all family around here.  And, when you’re family, you share.  Everything.

It’s not just the rhetorical questions that elicit a response.  We’ll give you an earful on rhetorical comments, too.  Even if you’re just quietly mumbling to yourself. 

For instance, one afternoon last August, I was in the checkout line at the supermarket.  From the looks of her frizzed out hair, smeared mascara and sticky clothes, the lady in front of me was not enjoying summertime in our fair city.  As the cashier scanned her items, the woman started talking to herself. 

“It’s hotter than hell out there,” she said, staring all glassy-eyed out the window at the sizzling cars and melting asphalt.  “I can’t go on.  Sweat is coming out of my bra.”

The cashier stopped scanning.

“Hey,” she said to the wilting woman.

The two locked eyes as the cashier leaned forward and pointed a gloriously long rhinestone-studded, yellow fingernail out the window.  “Look,” she said. “Have you ever stopped to think that maybe God’s making it so hot just to give you an idea of what it might be like down there if you don’t pull yourself together while you are up here?”

Well, now.  That made me pull my cart back, just in case the gates of hell were about to open and swallow this poor, sweaty woman — bra and all — right before my eyes.

Now, in Boston, this woman might have responded by asking to speak to the rather forward cashier’s manager.  But, this isn’t Boston.  This is New Orleans. 

As such, that woman responded as any true New Orleanian would.  She thanked the cashier…and made the sign of the cross.  Right there in checkout line #4.

Grateful that her groceries were bagged, her perspective restored, and, maybe, just maybe, her soul saved.

To read a related article written by Brett Will Taylor, visit Nolavie.com.

You can hear Will tell it on WWNO-FM, our public radio station. 

Artists visualize urban music box

Music Box could be permanent attraction

 By Doug MacCash, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune 

The Music Box was an elaborate trial balloon, meant to determine if music and architecture could really meld.

If celebrated New York street artist Caledonia “Swoon” Curry, New Orleans art impresario extraordinaire Delaney Martin and their circle of creative collaborators have their way, the “Music Box: A Shantytown Sound Laboratory” temporary performance space could become a permanent fixture on the Crescent City cultural scene.

The Music Box was an enchanting installation of musical sculpture on an empty Piety Street lot in the Bywater neighborhood. The installation became the site of a splendidly strange experimental concert series in 2011 and 2012. Avant-garde art lovers lined up for a half-block for a chance to sit in the rough-hewn stands – or on the cold bricks for that matter – to watch musicians coax cogent sounds from the clunking, plunking, whirring, plinking instruments, which were made from plumbing pipe, floor boards, a spiral stair and other architectural debris. Each eccentric music-making device was housed in an individual shack, crudely constructed from recycled wood and building supplies. Hence the name: shantytown.

What most onlookers didn’t know, was that the Music Box was a test run for a much more ambitious future project. Curry thinks big. Though she hadn’t been officially invited, she once sailed a wildly decorated raft made of junk through the Venice canals during an international art exhibit, pirate style. Before the Music Box took shape, Curry envisioned a three-story musical house to be built on the Piety Street space – where a blighted house once stood. To better envision the idea, she built a charming, three-story wedding cake–shaped miniature of the structure, which she dubbed the Dithyrambalina. Trouble was, nobody – Curry included – knew exactly how a Dithyrambalina was supposed to work.

The Music Box was an elaborate trial balloon, meant to determine if music and architecture could really meld. The balloon couldn’t have flown much higher.

Music Box art installation could become permanent fixtureWatch as artists Caledonia “Swoon” Curry and Delaney Martin discuss their plans to make the Music Box: A Shantytown Sound Laboratory a permanent New Orleans fixture. The Music Box was an enchanting installation of musical sculpture on Piety Street that was used to produce splendidly strange experimental concerts in 2011 and 2012. Even before the sold-out concerts and national critical acclaim, Curry, Martin and their cast of talented collaborators imagined a fanciful architectural building to house the odd instruments permanently. Now they’d like to make that dream a reality.

Now, Curry, Martin, architect Wayne Troyer and the marvelous gang of artists and musicians who produced the Music Box are back at it. On Tuesday (Jan. 22) they revealed a joyously rambling cardboard model of what the permanent Music Box might look like. The new model is even giddier than the original design. Outside, the dollhouse-sized construction is a delightfully dizzy array of sloped roofs, staircases, fairy tale balconies and thoroughly unmatched windows, all united in a vaguely Victorian style. The inside is a hive of small mezzanines, meant to contain individual instruments.

Bending down to peep in the windows and doors of the model helps you imagine the possibility that such a marvelously mad structure could someday be real.

That’s the desired effect.

Curry and Delaney remained rather coy when discussing the details of the project at this early stage. In scale, the building is meant be a neighborhood landmark, as large as, say, a church. Of course churches come in all sizes. The largish building, they said, will be placed in a still unselected neighborhood where they’re sure it’s welcome in advance. Curry and Martin are too clever to try to impose such an audacious addition to  the streetscape in neighborhood that doesn’t really want it. The design concept is meant to bend to fit the selected location, so, despite the laboriously made model; even the appearance is in flux. One thing’s for sure, the permanent Music Box will cost plenty. But just how much, they wouldn’t guess.At this stage, the Dithyrambalina is just a collective dream. 

Curry and Martin hope the dream is contagious.

Money for art projects is always tight, never more so than since the 2008 economic downturn. Art institutions across the city have suffered. In this economic environment, finding funding for a presumably impractical project like the Dithyrambalina seems incredibly tough. But what a magical venue this could be? What a unique attraction? What a jewel in the Crescent City cultural crown?

They don’t call this place the land of dreamy dreams for nothing, right?

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Related Stories

 Masterpiece Music Box installation seeks new permanent home

 Pick of the Week: Music Box re-opens in Bywater

©  NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

Blackbirds fly, blackbirds fly

Several of us girls were driving through the Bywater and making a U-turn to go to the Country Club for cocktails, when we saw this house covered with blackbirds.

Of course, we stopped the car to take pictures. The owner came over and tried to explain it.

You have to admit, it is novel.

Paul Tamburello breakfasts at the Clover Grill

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

If you are not served in 5 minutes, relax, it may be another 5;  

This is definitely not New York City.

Every breakfast joint worth its salt has to have a wisecracking counterman to go along with the hash slingers and waiters. At then Clover Grill, that would be Robbie from Oakdale, Louisiana. A diamond stud in his left nostril, assorted tattoos on his arms and bowed legs, he fills the place with as much queenish attitude as the smell of bacon frying on the grill.

Anywhere before noon on Bourbon Street, the Clover Grill is the only place of business showing signs of life. Families from the Midwest and locals eat side-by-side, conversation often spreading between tables and counter stools, often abetted by something outlandish Robbie has just said.

The place is fabulously retro. If a film director wanted a period piece from the 1950s, he wouldn’t have to modify one damn thing here. This is quintessential Bourbon Street. We’re not changing anything, we are who we are, and if you don’t like it, go somewhere else.

Red counter stools, gray Formica countertop, gray and black tiled floor, a row of metal tables and chairs under the windows facing Bourbon Street, funky pinkish paint on the walls, it’s the kind of diner your grandmother might have frequented if she wasn’t too fastidious and had a yen for tasty and inexpensive food. My check for two eggs, bacon, a mound of grits, toast AND coffee with endless refills costs $6.83 with tax.

The “American range” grill and gas burners directly across from my stool are missing a knob or 2 and would win no awards for spotlessness but the food coming off of them looks and smells delicious.

The line cook at the grill has an economy of style and unflappable dispostion. Within five seconds she dips a long necked ladle into a metal pot, spills butter into a pan, pulls two eggs off the stacks of cartons, cracks each at the edge of a blackened skillet, slides them in and with a deft flick of the wrist pitches the shells into a trash barrel under the counter. Two minutes later she casually grips the skillet's handle and another flick of the wrist flips them sunnyside over, and slides them onto a plate to be loaded with the rest of the order. Watching her ply her spatula to bacon, burgers, hash browns, and grilled onions is to witness performance art.

The clatter of plates is punctuated by outbursts of laughter and welcoming greetings of “Hey, Baby!”

You’re in clover at the Clover Grill.

Letter to the editor re: historic preservation

As a new, frequent visitor to the city, I'm writing to compliment the work of the New Orleans Historic District Landmarks Commission as well as the citizens of this fine city.

I've watched their meetings on the local government news access channel with awe. The commitment of both the committee members and local people to preserve the historical integrity of New Orleans homes and businesses is impressive, especially considering the immense challenges presented in the aftermath of Katrina.

As anyone who has attended these meetings knows, this is a painstaking task. I grew up in a city on the shores of Lake Ontario where city planners didn't think twice before tearing down historical neighborhoods and replacing them with ugly, corporate, big box stores and dwellings.

The long-term economic implications of these rash decisions have been devastating. New Orleans is my new favorite city to visit, spend my tourist dollars and enthusiastically encourage my friends to see.

There is no city comparable in the United States, considering the unique people, culture and architectural aesthetics. Thank you to the committee and community members who sit through long meetings, treat each other with respect and work hard to keep New Orleans what it is: an amazing place.

Mary Schlieder
Holland, Neb.