On Metairie Road in New Orleans |
Ghosts wander through these swamps. On Metairie Road in New Orleans on the banks of an old Bayou stands a cemetery surrounded by iron fence. A statue of a Confederate officer stands at the gate, ready to read the roll, Southern men left dead by the American Civil War. Ghosts surround the cemetery, running on the old carriage road, huge stallions and diminutive jockeys. This burial ground was once the Metairie Race Course, now the great oval is the cemetery roadway system. Charles T. Howard came down from Baltimore and was refused membership to the track's Louisiana Jockey Club. "Ah hah," says he, "Lock out the likes of me?" He bought the track grounds and converted it into a cemetery. Ghosts wait in line at the tomb of Storyville madam Josie Arlington. General Beauregard, stands next to John Bell Hood. A high hatted men sneaks in the rear, as many a politician would. Marguerite Clark, actress and dancer twirls on an invisible stage while Al Hirt's trumpet whips the crowd into a rage. Dix and Grace King write on ghostly parchment, while Mel Ott looks for the home run ball his bat sent. The ghosts of Capital Lake stand debating the future of our great state, Here Hahn and Heard expound their views, but Garrison, the District Attorney says it is all absurd. Lech and Sam McEnery, tell each other the good things they did for the state, but Chep and Toni Morrison, remind them that in New Orleans those things just don't relate. The ghost of Andrew Higgins, softly mourns for those lost in the Second Great War, remembering, but for his boat we would have lost many more. They all turn to welcome the new kid, with a quiet subdue, Al Copeland, who invented Popeye's. Fried chicken smells waft from his store just down the avenue. There are ghosts wandering through the swamps, but here on Metairie Road, on the banks of the old Bayou Metairie they stay surrounded by an iron fence. |