This past Monday, at ten in the morning, the decibel level began to rise. Labor Day is usually quiet on the Courthouse Square here in Oxford, Mississippi. Shops close. A cup of coffee is hard to come by. A stiff drink harder, still.
But on this Labor Day morning, as the hurricane bore down on the Gulf Coast, as tensions rose and local hotels began to fill, the streets erupted with New Orleans voices.
They were not there to party. Oxford was merely a port in the proverbial storm. But a party of sorts began to take shape anyway.
City Grocery, owned by New Orleans native John Currence, was claimed as base camp. Currence had planned to be closed on Labor Day, but he opened his barroom doors around 11:30 that morning and began serving draft beer, bloody Marys, and bowls of red beans and rice, the latter spiced to hell and topped with links of house-made andouille.
Out on the second-story porch, which overlooks the Square, locals and visitors drank their way through the afternoon. I listened to secondhand meteorologist reports that, depending on the source, elicited shouts of relief or groans of dread.
I listened to learned expositions on the importance of old-style mechanical answering machines: “They’re canaries in the dark coal mine,” one woman told me. “You can call your house and know instantly whether power has been restored. If the machine picks up, the power is on; if there’s no pickup, well, you order another beer.”
As noon gave way to afternoon, I drank and ate and listened to the voices of New Orleans in situational exile. And I relished the small role that our town played in giving comfort, in pouring drinks and dishing plates.
Later, as the week wore on, our friends from New Orleans drove home, braving endless interstate traffic jams, negotiating water-girded bridges. Home to New Orleans, haunted by memories of Katrina, happy to have dodged a bullet from the gun of Gustav.
Now I listen for their return. Gustav did not pack the punch many feared. But here comes Hurricane Ike. It doesn’t look as threatening, but just in case, I’m betting that John Currence loaded the smokehouse with links of andouille and doubled his order of Camellia brand red beans.
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