Why We Live in New Orleans

10 Samaritans. Two bottles of water, two Orange Cones, a jack, a wrench, a cold shower, a chair, and many offers to help

Why We Live in New Orleans

May 21, 2025

Ten Separate Samaritans stop to help in less than three hours on a hot Friday afternoon.

Last Friday afternoon our redoubtable year 2000 Lincoln Town Car collapsed in its left front end as if that tire had been shot as I drove West in the passing-lane of MacArther Boulevard within our home Huntlee Village part of New Orleans’ suburban Outer West Bank.

Bam! De-de-Bam-Bam-Bam-Bam! I braked to avoid swerving and stopped about 100 yards ahead of the initiating Bam. I hoped it was only a flat tire, but the dramatic, straight-down crumpling of the left front-end looked like the ball-joint had popped and the control-arm snapped.

Accidents happen. Why I write today is to extol the Spirit had led ten separate individuals to offer help in the next three-or-so hours. Afternoon’s heat was rising into its high up till then for New Orleans this year 90• Air and 98• with the (relatively light for NOLA) Heat Index due to humidity. Nonetheless, and with traffic increasing to a few near-misses, folks stopped behind, beside or ahead of our downed Town Car.

I had to wait three hours for a Tow-Truck to show from AAA and from United Towing.

First to surprise me was a young man, an obvious teen-ager, in casual shorts, socks to this ankles over walking-shoes, and a collared-shirt-with-insignia.

This young man, I learned, is named Ronan Theaux. He plays Saxophone and studies with “Mr. Jordan” at the Willow School (“the old Lusher”) across the River and Uptown on New Orleans’ West Bank. He studies too with Herman LeBeaux, drummer in my band Rivers Answer Moons. And he’s studied at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage School of Music with Don Vappie of Rivers Answer Moons. He’s going to Belmont in Nashville for Music Business next Fall. On hearing Ronan’s surname I spelled it and said, “You must be Cajun.”

“Oh! You know that! That’s wonderful!”

The smile of the dark-haired, teen-aged girl with Ronan was also wide and her eyes alive with light. She handed me a short bottle of cold water. I learned that she’s a dancer, a graduate from Willow last year, and that she lives in the West Banks Aurora District too. Together this couple were like emblems of ingenuously generous youth. They might have stepped out of a French New Wave movie … except they were decidedly American and Louisianan.

Students in the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage School of Music

Next to independently stop their cars—as traffic and hazards increased and I stood with right arm raised and forefinger pointing rightward, behind the Town Car, to prevent a much bigger accident—were two women of Middle Age. “Are you alright? Can I call the Police?” said one. “Do you need help? Should I stop?” asked the second.

“No, it’s okay,” I said. “I’ve called Triple A and the Tow-Truck is supposed to be here by 2:50. But thank you!”

(2:50! Hah!}

Soon thereafter a driver stopped his truck ahead of the Town Car. His short height and round face were familiar to me from Central America.

“Do you have a flat? I’m a mechanic, and I have a jack, and I can help you change it.”

He crouched and peered into the front-end beyond the indeed flat and also askew tire.

“Oh, man, that is the ball-joint. The ball-joint and control-arm for sure. I’m sorry!”

He wrote down his name, ‘Gio’, and introduced to the two sons with him. David was lean and about 12 years old and already taller than his father. “Gio Jr. was around six years old and had a shy, quick, sideway smile.

Maryse, my wife, called Triple A, too, to provide a recommended nudge, and found out that the E.T.A. from United Towing had shifted to 4:08.

“Well, at least they’re exact about how late they’re going to be!” I said.

Next to stop was a youngish, bearded Black in his service-truck—a business advertised Common Ground Electric. He stepped from River Oaks, the next street rearward, and trotted toward e with two Orange Cones. On his own he placed the Orange Cones behind the Town Car, one at middle of the left lane and the other, closer, set to definitely divide the two Westbound lanes.

“Ah, man, thank you! What you’re doing is perfect!” I said.

His name? Winston, and he worked for both Common Ground Electric and the “R.T.A.” (the Regional Transit Authority)/

Winston said the he was going to “Sam’s” (Club) and that I could just leave the Corneson the Neutral Ground when the Tow-Truck came. “I’ll swing by and pick them up later.”

The Orange Cones helped to oncoming drivers’ attention, even when they were two abreast, and reduced urgent gestures on my part.

4:00 came near.

Directly beside me a Black woman pulled her white Jeep into the MacArthur-fronting driveway of the house on the nearest corner of Aurora Oaks. Two school-children got out from the Jeep’s passenger-side. The driver was slender, trim and athletic. Her Nurse’s Scrubs were tailored and an unusual bronze color. “Do you need help?” she called.

“No, I don’t think so. A Tow-Truck is supposed to be here at 4-Oh-Eight. They say. But thanks very much for asking.”

“How about bottle of water?”

“No, thanks. In fact, some other folks gave me a bottle earlier.”

“It’s very hot out here. How about a cold shower? Would you like a chair?”

“Wow! You’re so generous. But the Truck should be here, you know, any minute. What is your name.”

“I’m Shelley.”

4:08 passed. Somehow—I learned by phone from Maryse—Triple A had also scheduled a Tow from the Green Acres service. The E.T.A. for Green Acres’ Truck was 4:28.

4:28 passed. Waiting in the heat approached 5:00. Let me additionally report that in the post-4:00 interval three more women either slowed or stopped their cars and asked if I needed help. I began to say: “No. You-all are marvelous, but I’m at the mercy of Triple A. I Truck is supposed to be coming. Any minute now.”

The final on-foot visitors to the stranded Town Car were a husband-and-wife who parked their SUV just ahead. Each looked to be around age 70. Their names: Karin (“That’s Karin with an I—not like those Karens who complain about nothing,” the lady, carrying by the far the most of our conversation, said) and Joe. Joe’s rather wash-blanched T-shirt advertised a Casino’s SUV Give-Away. “That’s it,” Karin said, indicating the Hatch-Back ahead, “it’s the second one that we’ve won.” I learned too that Karin’s mother had a Town Car that had BOTH its front ball-joints POP out, "not two months apart”, and that she and Joe had gotten married on the past New Year’s Eve “after we’d been together for 34 years.”

“Wow! What a wonderful thing,” I said.

They lived “just around the corner” on Aurora Oaks and asked me drop off any promotion for “upcoming shows” by the Rivers Answer Moons band. “We never go out, but your group sounds interesting.”

“You never go out—except to get married.”

Joe, whose furrowed face and latently amused face seemed Sicilian to me, laughed.

The driver from United Towing who arrived around 5:00 was exemplary. Jeremy arrived from New Orleans East after called twice about his “progress.” He hustled with every step. He smiled at difficulties of wrangling and winching the collapsed Town Car to sitting straight on his Truck’s bed.

You can Jeremy below in the snapshot Maryse took in front of our house.

I picked up from MacArthur Boulevard the Orange Cones that Winston had left, wanting to be sure that I returned them, rather than leave them on the neutral-ground.

As it happened, the black Common Ground Electrical truck was completing its U-Turn at River Oaks. “Oh, great, what a coincidence!” I said to Winston, handing him both Cones.

A girl student in her pastel-green School uniform, wearing glasses and ribbons, sat in the front passenger-seat. “Your Dad is a real good guy,” I said. “But you know that already.”

Then, as Winston made his second U-Turn at Aurora Oaks, continuing Westward toward his home in our Outer Algiers, he and Jeremy exchanged shouts.

Winston leaned out his window toward me. “I used to go to School with this guy!” he said. “I grew up with this guy! Jeremy. I haven’t seen him in years.”

“Wow,” I said, once Jeremy and I were both seated in his cab, “that’s kind of today’s crowning coincidence! You and Winston. Where did you-all grow up?”

“Uptown,” Jeremy. “We grew up Uptown. We were good friends, Winston and me. He was my buddy. But I havne’t seen him in a long time. Years! That’s Winston.”

“Wow. Great thing. Did you see,” I said, “he had his daughter with him?”

“I got four,” Winston said, referring, I found out, to his number of daughters.

Again, below: Jeremy, one of the splendid characters encountered that afternoon!