The negative test result came Monday afternoon to Carol’s great relief. She didn’t show it (she’s always sunshine on a cloudy day), but the prospect of contracting coronavirus weighed heavily on her. Margaritas all around Monday evening!

t was the day I got up a little later than usual. Maybe a lot later than usual, because when my eyes fully opened, there was a new tv table in the bedroom, a new water pitcher in the fridge, a room deodorizer and a different brand of stain remover near the washing machine.

There’s a strong sense that we are gradually coming out of self-quarantine. As usual, I am of two minds (at least) on this. On the one hand, I will be happy to see Carol become increasingly free to be out and about again, frequently with me in supportive tow. On the other hand, I am honestly sad that this period of self-withdrawal is ending. But I don’t want this to come off sounding as antisocial as it sounds (or probably is).

The feel of this planned march on Saturday was that it was less of a protest than an expression, a demonstration of whom we believe we truly are as a country and a people.

The other day, loud banging suddenly disturbed the rhythmic progress of pointless respiration emanating from my sector of the couch. Dogged residuals of traditional masculinity fired urgent messages to my brain that I needed to see what was up.

Chalmette, as I was told as a kid, was built on reclaimed swampland. It was said, when you dug in your backyard, you might unearth an old refrigerator or a window air conditioner. I never believed it until I saw my father dig up an old a/c and tried to get it to work.*

Then there was the day at Our Lady of Prompt Succor that we were all marched out of our classrooms and onto the playground at the school’s main entrance. It was not announced as a fire drill. The entire school stood in lines and waited. After a time, we returned to our classrooms. Later, a story circulated that we had been marched out in the open to determine whether the school was harboring any black pupils. Who was doing the verifying I never heard.

The house my parents bought on Patterson Drive in Chalmette, Louisiana represented the very lowest rung on the ladder for the fledgling upwardly mobile middle class of the mid 1950s. The salad days for the neighborhood was when crawfish was 30 cents a pound, the big oil refinery in town could go a whole year without a major explosion, and the aluminum plant had built a huge smokestack that now sent its particulate pollution over the river to Algiers rather than letting it continue to rain down over Chalmette.

Each of us has our own way of converting all family memories into fond ones. These are mine.

The other day Carol announced she was going out. Back in a time that is now lost to history, she would have said simply: “I have to run to the store.” But since running to the store nowadays is a call to arms for the warrior class, Carol’s announcement carried the weight of a loved one deploying to Iraq.