Anchor Struck

After my release from active duty in the Marine Corps, my wife Suzy, son Chris and I moved to New Orleans. I took a job as a milkman and had a route that stretched from the mansions of the Garden District to the shotgun shacks of the Irish Channel. The driver I replaced told me that the morning after Dr. King was killed, some black customers met him on the edge of the Channel and urged him not to go any further. He wisely complied.

It was a brief but eventful stint, highlighted by Hurricane Camille, a storm so potent that it ripped up caskets from cemeteries and threw off the body count. Suzy was quite pregnant with our daughter Meghon, so we evacuated to her brother’s home north of Lake Pontchartrain because we believed, erroneously, that a severe drop in barometric pressure could induce premature labour.

Camille blew through and Meghon stayed put, so we went back to the Crescent City. 1969 was THE year for rock festivals, and two weeks after Woodstock, my Marine buddies Jim and Bob showed up at our house. They were going to a festival near New Orleans and wanted us to go with them. I told them that Suzy was nearly due and we couldn’t risk it. Many years later I told this to Meghon and said, “If we’d gone and you’d been born there, we might have named you Moonbeam.”

When Meghon did arrive at a New Orleans hospital, Suzy’s doctor, Frank Minyard, came into the waiting room and told me “You’ve got a little girl.” Then he handed me his business card and said “By the way, I’m running for parish coroner and I’d appreciate your vote.” He didn’t win that time but did in 1974 and held the office for 40 years. He was also known for his colourful personality and was nicknamed Doctor Jazz for playing a mean trumpet. But he’ll be best remembered for the Herculean task of handling the massive death toll from Hurricane Katrina.

After Meghon’s birth, Suzy and I started talking about taking up my father’s offer to manage one of his dry goods stores in Kansas. So in late October we moved there, but not before participating in the October Moratorium to protest the Vietnam War. We didn’t participate in the march from Tulane, but greeted them downtown. Chris was on my shoulders, and when the front of the march went by, he flashed them the peace sign. They loved it.

He knew that it would. A few months earlier, just before I got out of the service, Suzy came to pick me up one afternoon. My office had a nice mix of 20 or so civilians and Marines, but was run by Sergeant Ison, one of the most ill-tempered people I’ve ever met. As we were leaving, Chris turned, flashed the sign and said “Peace, Sergeant Ison!” The office exploded in laughter.