Alcoholic Hazes in New Orleans

Many great writers including William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams and John Kennedy Toole lived in New Orleans. One thing that made each of them great was their ability to create amid the cacophony and ado of the Big Easy.

I remember reading a humorous essay by a journalist that had lived there for several years. He’d moved to the city looking for inspiration, fully expecting to pen the next great American novel. Something quite different happened instead.

The semi-tropical city steams in the summer with hundred-degree temperatures and humidity through the roof. Like many cities in southern climes, life’s pace is slow, skidding almost to a halt during summer months. Lunches tend to drag on until two, and workdays often end by three or four, usually with a trip to some dark watering hole.

The journalist finally moved away from New Orleans without completing a single chapter of his proposed novel. He lamented that he’d never sufficiently sobered up, but that he did meet many interesting people and had enjoyed himself immensely. I had a similar experience during a post-Katrina trip to New Orleans.

There are so many things to see and do, and so many wonderful places to eat and drink, it is difficult finding time to write. Still, artists, writers and poets continue to fill the City. On my way to the Sheraton where I was staying, I stopped at a little bar on Decatur Street called Kerry Irish Tavern, and ordered a pint of Guinness. The bartender was a friendly young woman with a Scottish accent, her big dog snoring as he napped behind the hardwood bar.

Late afternoon, the dim tavern was almost empty except for a young man talking to the pretty bartender. His name was also Eric and we struck up a conversation. An aspiring writer, he had a manuscript in progress. Gill, a graphic artist, and his friend Tim, a poet with a distinct stutter, soon joined us. Our new group quickly became locked in conversation.

I stayed for another round, and then another, discussing Eric’s book and viewing some of Gill’s art. Realizing that I liked poetry, Tim recited several of his poems to us, never once tripping over his words because of his speech disorder.

The three men finally left, on their way to another bar. “We’ll be back at midnight for the band. Will you join us?”

“Maybe,” I said.

After paying my tab, I returned to the hotel to sober up, and never made it back to the Kerry Irish Bar.

I’ve thought about Eric, Gill and Tim many times. Did they finally finish their masterpieces? I’m betting no, and that you’ll find them in some French Quarter bar, locked in alcoholic hazes, and still contemplating the art they love to talk about but are never destined to complete.

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Born a mile or so from Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma and continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. If you liked Alcoholic Hazes in New Orleans, please check out his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages.

A Bayou Runs Through It

It's likely true that the lessons you learn as a teenager do as much to cement the real values in your life as anything else. That said, I spent many of my teenage years attending college in Monroe, Louisiana. Majoring in geology, I took many science courses but I also dabbled in English and the arts. Probably the most important course that I took at Northeast Louisiana was a lesson in life - a lesson in how to cope in a world filled with no family and mostly strangers.


When I attended NLSC, a gallon of gas cost thirty cents, or less. A Coke was a nickel and you could buy a pitcher of beer for a dollar. My favorite watering hole, along with that of most of the male population of the college was the Trianon. I wrote about the Trianon in my short story A Talk with Henry. Henry was a real person and I took much of the dialogue for the story from actual conversations.

I started college during summer school, at the tender age of seventeen. My Brother Jack and close friend Elwin also attended summer school the same year. The year was 1964. There was an air show at the airport that summer and a local pilot offered plane rides in his Beechcraft Bonanza for a penny a pound. Jack, Elwin and I all took our first ride in an airplane for a cost of less than five dollars.

A Bayou runs through the campus of what is now the University of Louisiana at Monroe. During summer, Bayou DeSiard is a hot spot for students. While not quite Florida, sun bathing students line the beach and it was, and is, a great place to meet members of the opposite sex. Jack, Elwin and I went swimming every day that semester and even light-skinned Eric had a tan before the end of summer.

At night, Jack, Elwin and I would haunt the Trianon. There were gambling machines, the walls black, lighting dim and music loud. We chugged lots of beer and discussed every important world issue there was. At summer's end, Jack and Elwin both flunked out, unable to return the next semester because of poor grades. I made it, passing, but barely.

Today, I can't remember a single course that I took that summer. As far as grades are concerned, I almost flunked my first semester in college, but now it doesn't seem so important. Looking back, I think that I probably aced the part of my life that was most significant at the time.

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Lost on Route 66

Out since April, Lost on Route 66 is selling briskly. I didn't write any of the stories, essays or poems that appear in the book, but I wish I had. Many of the authors are previously published and a few of them teach writing. It's a great little book with many wonderful stories and poems about the Mother Road and it isn't too late to check it out.
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