#549 Life is For the Living- Fatima Shaik
Thomas was a New Orleans eccentric, a creole original. His
co-workers thought him odd, but they liked him because of it. Good and bad,
they always appreciated the break from normalcy in their lives.
“Thomas thought he was special since he got their attention
most of the time. He could not distinguish their negative feelings from
positive ones…And in fact, they did not dislike him. Observing his clothes,
dramatic conversations, and peculiar perspective was a high point in the day
for many.”
Thomas thought of himself as: “Simply a man like other men
seeking the meaning of existence.”
His most eccentric habit was taking his lunch break by
sitting in the graveyard. He sat in the hot sun, listening for the spirits to talk
to him. Even though he was the most expressive person most people had ever met,
he was still looking for his own voice. He wanted to teach, to impart, to contribute like
all the great men and woman of the past; like the spirits in the graveyard.
His wackiest idea was to create a Po Boy sandwich that
stretched from New Orleans to Los Angeles. By his calculations, that would be
big enough to feed all the Creole citizens of this world. It would be a symbol
of racial unity.
“The point of this sandwich was to make a statement about
America and race. The U.S. was completely wrong in the decades when it tried to
force blacks and whites together. True integration could be demonstrated by the
Creoles showing the unity of all races and human appetites when holding the
French bread, Spanish onions, Italian Salami, German mustard, Creole tomatoes
and Louisiana hot sauce.”
He tried hard to understand his co-workers, but fell short
of being one of them. He was set aside by his own doing, trying to find his
voice. There is nothing more frustrating, more oppressive, more heartbreaking
than trying to speak and failing. Even for a New Orleans original.
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