< 45 >

Variety shook my shoulder and brought me out of my dark reverie. I looked around at St. Maddy's playground one last time. "Come on Uncle Tom, this white man's school ain't got no more use for black folk an hippys." She said gently. "Let's go home." I pulled myself slowly out of the swing and looked up into the noonday sky. The sun burned helplessly behind the thick grey clouds. "Light is everywhere," I thought "but nobody can see a damn thing."


I wrapped my right arm around John Sr.'s substantial shoulders. "John, I need to talk to you about proper etiquette when entering rooms unannounced. I do believe you might have offended that servant of the law back there." "Yes" he chuckled "Exits and entrances have always been difficult for me." Variety shook her head "I just can't take this ol' garbage man anywhere. I swear I think he was raised in a barn." That Donovan song slid back into my head...

I was ready for it to stop raining. The cold and damp had creeped between the layers of my clothing. The black gumbo mud pulled at my shoes with each step, making the difiicult chore of walking on the slanted side of the bayou in the dark even more difficult. "I can't believe I'm doin this." I thought.

There were fourteen of us spread out over about three hundred yards. Three adults, four kids, five dogs and two cats. Below us a torrent in the concrete lined bayou rushed towards the Gulf of Mexico. John Smith, lugging a massive backpack full of tools trudged ahead of me along a small bike trail that was cut in the side of the massive trough about two thirds of the way up the embankment.