b.rox

I was surprised to discover this morning that our one-way street had reversed direction overnight. Well, it wasn’t a big surprise really. The city had sent me a letter explaining the plan and polling our opinion, but I never mailed the form back in. After mulling it over a while I thought it might not [...]

When we got back from our trip Sunday, one of the first things I noticed was that damn canister is still sitting there next to the curb just a few feet from our house. The canister doesn’t directly impinge upon us, but it kind of junks up the area. I had hoped against hope that [...]

The damage to our car from running up on that curb has been repaired. The bill? $4,008.53. Xy’s response: Time to get a new car. My response: At least we met our deductible. On a related note, the future of Saturn appears uncertain at this point, so I’m rather discouraged about ever getting satisfaction on [...]

I was hanging out with the neighbors across the street one evening, about a month ago. I was mostly talking to this older gentleman, a guy about 80, nicknamed Easy. We were sharing some Crown Royal and talking about all manner of things. But as I was talking to Easy, I overheard a conversation amongst [...]

While my neighbor on one side faces an unwanted demolition, the house on the other side has been a completely different story. It was a small little two-story house, divided into two tiny apartments, one upstairs and one downstairs. It had seen better days and leaned slightly to one side. It was under renovation when [...]

My next door neighbor (now living in Texas) was a little skeptical when I told him that his house was slated for demolition. Where was the proof? An Excel spreadsheet e-mailed to me by a woman I’ve never even met. Sounds a little sketchy. And this list can’t be found on any official websites. Fortunately [...]

As I’ve mentioned before, a white Honda Prelude has been sitting on our block for over three months. It’s had debris piled on it. It’s been jacked up and cannibalized for parts. It’s had the rear window smashed out. The police came and looked at it on several occasions. But still it remained. I was [...]

Friday night I was hangin’ with the neighbs across the street. Everybody was joking and laughing and having a good time. I remember thinking it was odd when Debra took off on her bicycle. Where was she going so late at night? This morning (Saturday) I was awakened early by a knock at the door. [...]

In April I looked out my window and saw three white kids pushing a white car. They stopped just down the street from our house. I thought to myself, “Oh, they’re having car trouble.” An hour later I noticed they were gone but the car was still there, and it dawned on me: That car’s [...]

The neighbors across the street did it real big for Independence Day: a tent, two grills, and two pools for the kiddies. The party had a nice “neighborhood” feel. You would hardly guess that the blue house is still uninhabitable from the flood of 2005, or that the red house (a fourplex) is in such [...]

Some days I feel pretty gloomy about the way things are going in my little area of Mid-City. But on other days I feel much more optimistic. Today is one of those better days. For one thing, Charles is coming back. ACORN gutted his house today, and he’s doing right by Road Home. He’s going [...]

They’ve finally started work on the house next door to ours, which has been an eyesore for years. They’ve decided to renovate rather than demolish. If they demolished, they probably wouldn’t be able to rebuild according to modern codes and zoning, because of the extremely small lot. First step: Remove the contents from the upstairs [...]

I’m not certain, but it seems to me there is a dearth of summer camps and similar activities for youth in New Orleans as the school year draws to a close. The Urban League is providing a summer camp at Xy’s school, but that’s across the river in Algiers. That’s why Xavier University’s “Mardi Gras [...]

Xy came home from visiting with a friend yesterday evening to discover that our block was a crime scene. Police had the street blocked off and they were taking photos on the sidewalk, practically right in front of our house. Fearing that I might have been the victim, she parked on a side street and [...]

Here it is eight days later, and my head is still stuck in Easter Sunday. I keep thinking back to a conversation I had with Debra. Debra lives across the street. She’s a single mother raising children in difficult circumstances. Her oldest son was murdered in Central City last October. She doesn’t make much money [...]

The other weird thing about the yard work we did on Easter Sunday is that a lot of it wasn’t really in our yard at all. We’ve started taking care of our next door neighbor’s yard. Craig is not coming back to New Orleans. He’s built a new house in Texas. Meanwhile, his house here [...]

Easter Sunday. Xy and I spend the day engaged in yard work. Our “yard” is about 4′ x 12′ between the sidewalk in front of our house and the street. Obviously you don’t need a riding lawnmower to take care of this. Despite the incredibly small size of our yard, we’ve never had to cut [...]

Occasionally a single photograph captures the essence of a time and place, the zeitgeist as it were. click to enlarge

The neighbors across the street had a birthday party for their three-year old daughter yesterday. It brought a touch of color and festivity to our neighborhood which remains about 75% uninhabited. We gave the little girl a fiver. Later in the day they sent over some plates full of good home-cooked food: pork chops, jambalaya, [...]