MOBILE—When you take in a deep breath, the salt air hits the back of your throat and you know you’re near the Gulf of Mexico.
I am eating a cup of gumbo for lunch, writing you, spilling food on my shirt.
There’s a saying about gumbo: “The longer it sits, the better it gets.”
I don’t know who said that. My wife, maybe. Or maybe it was Abraham Lincoln, or Engelbert Humperdinck.
I never knew what the phrase meant until my wife made gumbo for a bridal shower. The gumbo came out good. But after sitting in the fridge for two days, it became poetry.
Mobile and I have history. When I was younger, all my teenage friends wanted to visit New Orleans to sow their wild oats.
But not me. Mobile was the siren that called to me. And I didn’t have many oats.
I remember visiting here for Mardi Gras when I was seventeen. I clocked out from work, I stood on
a curb with a duffle bag, waiting for a truckload of my friends.
My mother had given me a twenty-dollar bill and told me to stay out of trouble. I promised her. She made me look her in the eyes and promise again.
The city was full of things that kids from nothing towns haven’t seen before.
For instance, Mobile was once a baseball town, the home of Satchel Paige, and Hank Aaron. The old mansions are worthy of Margaret Mitchell’s words. Dauphin street looks like an oil painting. And the azaleas.
One of my friends pointed out the truck window and said, “Look, a band!”
A brass band played “O When the Saints.” We saw old ladies with umbrellas strutting on the sidewalk. Their dance looked like a cross between the Funky Chicken and a seizure.
Somehow I felt I belonged in…