I saw Rick sitting on a folding chair at the tip of the riverside triangular park where Bell Street, North Rendon Street, and Ursulines Avenue cross each other. It sounds like it should be a busy intersection but it's not. It's shady and peaceful and people walk their dogs or just walk themselves about the neighborhood as a treat to better enjoy any given New Orleans day. It's a nice neighborhood. There are nice smells in New Orleans, too.
Rick lives about twelve blocks uptown from this park, which is, officially, known as Kennedy Place.
Nobody calls the park Kennedy Place but that's what Google Maps says so it must be true. There is no sign and there's certainly no statue of John F. Kennedy, or Ted Kennedy, or Kennedy Broussard who is a friend of mine who lives in New Orleans East.
Kennedy Broussard has done a lot of great things in his life but it's too early to commission a statue and name a park after him. Still, anything can happen. Someone should start a petition.
Rick lives a little Uptown from Faubourg St. John, as the real estate agents like to call this neighborhood. For him, it is totally worth the walk to Ursulines Avenue, every day, with his beat-up, rusty folding chair under his arm. He usually packs a lunch, too. His two favorite foods in the whole world are celery and popcorn----and he's a Creole!
His third favorite food is CheeWees. He may be eccentric but he still has plenty of old-school New Orleanian in him. That said, they just came out with a new flavor of CheeWees: taco. Rick has been eating a lot of taco CheeWees since they first appeared in stores.
The only reason I know that Rick has been eating more taco Cheewees than all the traditional flavors, combined, isn't because he leaves empty bags all over the park. Quite the contrary. Except for the four depressions in the grass where Rick always plants his chair every day, he leaves no trace. He may be many things but he is not a litterbug.
The worst thing that can happen to you when you want to go someplace in New Orleans is to be stuck behind a garbage truck. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. It doesn't smell very pleasant behind a New Orleans garbage truck, even when the truck is empty. Luckily, there are nice smells in New Orleans, too.
I know Rick has been eating mostly taco Cheewees because I see him all the time with one hand in a bag that his other hand is holding.
I drive down Ursulines Avenue all the time on business. Between jobs, I park on Bell Street, the street with the least traffic, and chitchat with Rick until I have something else to do. Nobody has ever accused me of living an interesting life.
I've learned a lot about Rick these past few months. He'll even sit there when it's raining.
Rick doesn't own an umbrella. It has something do with him being raised a Christian Scientist, which is a rare thing in New Orleans, even though there is The Fourth Church of Christ, Scientist in Lakeview. I can't really follow the story as he tells it, so you'll have to take my word for it. I have some friends who live on Nashville Avenue and they've told me they've seen him at The First Church of Christ, Scientist.
There isn't a Second or Third Church of Christ, Scientist in New Orleans. I don't have any reason to learn why.
I'm Roman Catholic so when I talk to Rick on rainy days I wear a rain coat and shrimp boots. I also carry an umbrella. I've learned not to offer it to Rick.
Here is something else I've learned: Rick told me that Rick is his nickname. His full name is Patrick Bonaventure Expedite Augustine. That doesn't sound like a Christian Scientist name to me. It's pure Creole, if you know what I mean.
If I'm at Pal's Lounge, just a few blocks away on North Rendon Street, I'll ask if Rick has been in. "Which Rick?" "Rick Steen," I'll say. "Yeah, he was here earlier with that beat up folding chair of his. He got a Dixie and sat in his chair on the sidewalk."
Everyone knows Patrick Bonaventure Expedite Augustine as Rick Steen. He doesn't have a drivers' license so there is no way to prove what his real name is.
On one sunny day, having nothing better to do, I asked Rick why he always sits at this intersection of Bell Street, North Rendon Street, and Ursulines Avenue.
"Can't you smell it?" he said to me. He tilted back his head and took a deep inhalation. His chest swelled. "Aaaaah," he said with a smile to no one in particular.
He looked at me again, realizing I was still there. "It smells like baby powder here." He closed his eyes and smiled to himself.
I took a deep breath. You know what? It does smell like baby powder at this intersection. There are nice smells in New Orleans. Some of them are where you least expect them.
Rick told me he had met a woman in this very park thirty years ago. She smelled like baby powder. Rick told me that she died later that very year. Ever since, he says, this park has smelled like baby powder. It has smelled like baby powder for 30 years. He comes here every day to honor her memory.
Now that he's mentioned it to me, I can't help but smell baby powder when I'm there. Call me as crazy as Rick but I've walked the boundaries of the park, along Bell Street and along Ursulines Avenue, and in the middle of the park, too, and, it's true. The whole park smells like baby powder.
It smells most strongly of baby powder where Rick plants his chair every day. At the tip of the triangle where it touches North Rendon Street. New Orleans is a very interesting city.
I asked Rick if he knew this lady well.
"I wanted to marry her," he told me. "I wanted to raise a family with her. I was going to propose to her right on this very spot, the spot where we first met."
"Then what happened?" I asked.
"Then, she died," he said. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He exhaled and took another. After the third time, he smiled to himself and looked at me. "What else do you want to know?" he asked me.
I haven't brought up the subject with him ever again.
THIS BLOG IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY
LA BELLE ESPLANADE.
Here's the link to La Belle's website if you are looking for a place to stay when you visit this wonderful city we call home. Visit New Orleans like you belong here. You do belong here.
Good memories are made in New Orleans every day. The best memories are made at La Belle Esplanade. You'll see for yourself. Discover where there are nice smells in New Orleans, too.
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