It's that I feel like a stranger here. All my close relatives are dead so the towns I visit have changed for me because there's no home I can drop into and stay without much formality. Because I've lived overseas for so long, I haven't come to terms with any of this -- it's like I just dropped in from another planet to find my grandparents and mother and father dead -- so when we drive to Natchez or Vicksburg or Jackson, for example, there's no place for me to just drop my bags and hang out. I think that's what has unsettled me.
Yesterday, though, I had a great time in New Orleans seeing my aunt Susan, uncle Bill Wells and my cousins Mike and Bill.
Mel and I started the morning out having cafe au lait and beignets at the Morning Call coffee bar. They moved this whole thing from the French Quarter into a shop with lower rents.
Then we met the Wells family for lunch at Dragos. I had a sea full of food -- oysters, shrimp and catfish. It was fantastic to eat such delicious seafood.
Here are the guys at the restaurant taking a hammer to fresh oysters:
And here I am with the Wells. It was delightful to spend time with them after so many years. My aunt Susan is my mother's sister so it was especially good for me to be with her, two years on from my mother's death.
3 comments:
Everyone looks great! I never met your cousins, so I always pictured them as small boys---your mother had that recipe for "Little Bill's" favorite hot cereal in her files, remember, and your aunt Susan had written something about how it enabled him to be "ready for the day's battle." I thought that was cute.
ah, it's what they always say - you can return, but you can never go back.
It seems that you are very glad meeting your relatives!!You all have a happy face in the photo..I love oyster but I could not imagine myself doing what the guys were doing in the picture...LOL!
restaurant wells me
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