Allow me the pleasure of introducing Youngblood and his wife, my King and Queen of the 6th Ward – NOT Treme, because “that’s what THEY call it, but tuh us… THIS THE SIXT WOAD.” I’m certain they’re the most charming pair in New Orleans, and I was graced with their presence as I recovered from St. Joseph’s Day’s revelry.

When I finally ventured out of the house for a Sunday afternoon walk to the Congo Square drum circle, I spotted these two sitting across from my neighbor. I was immediately and entirely amused by the whole scene because I’d already met this neighbor the day before. She and a totally different duo had chatted me up, and congratulated me on picking the perfect place to watch the Indians come out on St. Joseph’s Day, because one of them – whose suit I’d already spotted laid out in his backyard – lived right up the street. Those ladies told no lies. That spot on the corner of Governor Nicholls and Henriette Delille gave me everything I could have wanted from the Indians, the rest of the city’s natives, and the whole neighborhood. I’d intended just a brief stop to say hello and show respect to this new round of elders, but 88-year-old Papa Youngblood offered me an empty seat among their trio… and a beer. Despite my plans, I knew better than to walk away from this wellspring.

I took the seat, but graciously declined the beer in favor of the Smart Water I carried with me like a responsible adult since I’d indulged plenty the night before. (But tbh, it was an easy choice since they only had Bud Light and Miller Lite, because as Papa Youngblood explained, “we livin’ the High Life, behbeh.”)

Instead, I was bullied by the elderly as all three of them scolded me for putting water on top of alcohol. So I accepted the beer, and kept on listening. Auntie Neighbor took a phone call, but to my delight, Papa Youngblood and his wife just kept on talking.

Oh, what a gift they gave me, rattling off tales from when the street we sat on was a dirt road and reminding me to pay attention to how the street signs might have one name, but the street names paved into the corners had another. (Henriette Delille was once St. Claude.) The two traded tidbits of local Black history with me, as Youngblood explained that he’d played in the second line brass band for New Orleans’ first social aid and pleasure club, and his wife interjected that her mother was the first woman to lead that club. They laughed together as they brought the story right back around to the corner we were sitting on. It was tradition now, they said, for all of the second lines marching through the 6th Ward to stop right there on Governor Nicholls and Henriette Delille, and no matter what they’re playing when they arrive, or how many kids are around, everybody breaks out into “I Got A Big Fat Woman,” in honor of Papa Youngblood & his second line legacy. In gratitude for the second line’s offering, “he like to get up and roll his big ol’ belly,” his wife cackled.

But an oral history of New Orleans wasn’t all they had to share. Auntie Wife absolutely roasted Papa Youngblood and told me all about how “the next time he fall, [she] gon’ leave his ass there.” Of course, she got her turn getting told on, too. Their nephew, my neighbor’s son, passed through our gauntlet and ratted about how Auntie always says she doesn’t want anything from the store, but he “know damn well not to come back heah without her Snickuhs, and not the reglur one, but the big one with two in the wrappuh.” She cackled again as she proudly proclaimed that she was gonna eat both of ‘em too, even though they’d make her stomach hurt.

After an hour of conversation breezed by and the beer I was given long gone, I humbly took my leave for more New Orleans love affairs. I just hope these two know how much of my heart I left behind.

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where i wandered: