Back in the late '70's when I was working at the Coalition for Action (CFA), the Please-U was our place for lunch. Come to think of it, there were times when it was our breakfast, lunch and dinner place with fabulous food and fabulous prices. But, that was 35 years ago. When I saw it was still in its same home on St. Charles Avenue, I had to stop in for lunch on my way back to Jackson to pick up the bus.
What memories.
The CFA had two offices in the neighborhood, one on the corner of Martin Luther King and Baronne and the other around the block on the corner of Terpsichore and Baronne. We were in the heart of the 6th Police District. It was important, because we had a community crime prevention grant and this was a prime location. I could be seen walking back and forth between our two offices bare-foot and in my overalls. (Of course, those were days of no meetings.) There was a pack of organizers who'd come in from all over the country to work...Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and then there were the locals too. We had our first black mayor. We had a new police chief. And, times were ripe for change. It was a great place to start a social work career, that taught me more about life, living, and the kind of person I wanted to be personally and professionally. My roots took hold, and my heart (which some have called bleeding) remained.
My burger and I sat in our booth on Saturday, with some of those scenes you see in "Cold Case" rolling through my mind. (You know the ones, people today transform into the people they were back when...) I imagined my friends coming in through the door of the Please U unchanged. They'd push me over in the booth to tell me about their latest canvas, happenings in their neighborhoods, what they had planned to hold the police chief accountable, and what they were going to bring to the potluck party at my apartment over the weekend. We were quite a pack. Here's to that CFA gang. I've lost touch with most of them, but it would do their organizing souls good to know that their spirits live on in many of the young social workers I'm teaching today. And, we could still have lunch at the Please-U!
SOAR to Success in SOCIAL WORK with me, Laury A. Bourgeois, LCSW-BACS, 2617 Columbus Street, New Orleans, LA, 70119, (504) 261-2895, and Chatette Cadrieu, Les Hortes, Route de Cajarc, 46160, Cadrieu, FRANCE, 05.65.11.01.72, [email protected]
Comments