What moves me to go the distance

"How far do you go?"

This is something that people ask us all the time. Lately, my stock answer has become: "The question is not how far can I go. The question is how far can you afford!"

There are only two real limitations:
1. Legally we can't leave Orleans Parish.
2. The pedicab doesn't float.

According to Wikipedia, Orleans Parish takes in 350.2 square miles, of which 169.7 square miles is water. That leaves us 180.6 square miles of dry land (assuming all the levees and pumps are functioning) on which to range.

It's true that most of the time we operate in a fairly small geographical area: the French Quarter; the Central Business District; the Warehouse District; and Frenchmen St. in the Marigny. A lot of locals never see us anywhere else, so they assume that we can't cross these boundaries.

For the first couple of months of my career, I tended to stay inside that zone, but now I'm happy to venture further afield. Especially on the day shift, when rides are much harder to come by, I jump at the chance to take someone up to the Garden District or down to the Bywater. At night, I need a little stronger motivation before I'm willing to remove myself from the action.

Speaking of "motivation", it's the monetary type that first comes to mind of course. But oddly enough, when I think about the furthest rides I've undertaken, there are three trips that stand out, and in all three cases my main motivation was something other than money.


All the way uptown for oysters.

I was working Uptown during Mardi Gras when I was approached by a couple of men, locals, who wanted a ride all the way to Carrollton at the end of St. Charles. I was already about three miles from our base, and Carrollton was another three miles upriver. (In New Orleans, "uptown" is upriver, and "downtown" is downriver.) The men had been drinking heavily and were a little bit hostile, so I was reluctant to let them on my pedicab at all. After a bit of haggling I agreed to take them 20 minutes toward their destination, but no more. They weren't happy with this arrangement, but there were no taxis to be found, and they weren't in any condition to walk three miles, so they agreed. "OK, 20 minutes then," one of them said. "But we're going to f*** with you the whole time!"

I'm pretty sure that they were expecting me to take the 20 minutes at a leisurely pace. Since I had insisted on doing the ride based on time rather than distance, there wasn't much incentive for me to exert myself. With every push of the pedals I would only be distancing myself that much more from the active zone where I was likely to pick up rides. Nevertheless, I decided that I would do my best to give these two jerks their money's worth, so I started working up a sweat, and in less than five minutes I had completely won them over.

To be fair, it wasn't just me. Riding along upper St. Charles Avenue past the 19th Century mansions beneath the shade of overarching live oak trees on that gorgeous spring afternoon probably would have been enough to mellow out the most ferocious mass murderer.

According to conventional wisdom, this trip is best experienced from the inside of a streetcar. I'm not one to lightly discard more than 100 years of tradition, and I'll be the first to admit that the streetcar has plenty of historical charm -- not to mention that it's very cheap. But for sheer pleasure on a pretty spring afternoon, I think that the pedicab is hard to beat. Maybe I'm wrong about this, and maybe calling a couple of drunken Mardi Gras revelers to the stand doesn't strengthen my case all that much. But I can tell you that they were certainly eager to testify. "This is definitely the best way to see the city," they were saying. It was as though these two natives were getting to know New Orleans for the first time. "This is the most most beautiful city in the world!" one of them kept saying. I've been to a few places that he probably hadn't been to: Prague, Barcelona, Budapest, London... But that afternoon I would have found it hard to disagree.

Somewhere along the way, my passengers re-opened the negotiations. They would pay me more AND treat me to a dozen raw erstas on the half-shell if I would take them all the way to Cooter Brown's on Carrollton. By the time the 20 minutes was up, my mind was made up. I wanted those oysters. I kept going.

After ducking inside Cooter Brown's for the oysters and a cold Coke, I managed to pick up one more ride, which actually took me a little further from base. Then, knowing that someone on the night shift would be needing my trike, I had to pedal furiously more than six miles to get back to the shop by 6 PM.

To the end of the Bywater for barbecue ribs (and friendship)

Once when I was working the day shift, an old friend of mine called to say that he had some free time and that he wanted to ride around with me and hang out for a bit. He offered to treat me to lunch at The Joint, a favorite barbecue place of his, which had recently been featured on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. The Joint (motto: Always Smokin') was located at the very end of the Bywater on Poland Avenue, three miles downriver from the French Quarter. (It has since relocated a few blocks to Mazant and Royal.) After tasting their ribs, I concluded that they were definitely worth pedaling three miles for.

A side benefit of that trip was that I got to explore the Bywater for the first time, and I instantly fell in love with the neighborhood. I think it's the coolest neighborhood in New Orleans, and whenever I get tourists on the pedicab who are ready for an off-the-beaten track experience, I try to talk them into letting me take them there.

To the Garden District to rescue a damsel in distress


Trips to the Garden District have become almost routine for me during the daytime, but this was the only time I've undertaken such a distant journey at 3:30 in the morning. Technically the night shift ends at 2, but there's often a lot of money to be made between 2 and 4, so it's not uncommon for me to stay out a couple of extra hours.

On this particular occasion, I was flagged down by a beautiful young couple on Poydras St. Earlier that evening they had been in the company of Sheryl Crow, Ellen Degeneres, and other stars at a gala fundraiser sponsored by Brad Pitt's Make it Right Foundation. But the event had ended hours ago, and they had been trying unsuccessfully to hail a cab to take them home to the Garden District. The lady was wearing heels, so walking a couple of miles was out of the question.

"I'm sorry, but I can't help you," I said. "It's already past time for me to be heading home. If it were on my way, I might consider it, but that's just too far at this time of night." I was thinking not only of the ride back to the shop, but also of the 45 minute commute by car across the lake to Slidell.

"OK, we understand," the man said.

Then his female companion looked at me with big, puppy-dog eyes that were filling with tears. And suddenly I was the one that was helpless, not she. "Get on, and let's go!" I said.

After I had dropped them off and I was on my way back to the shop, my boss happened to pass me in his car. He whipped over to the side of the road and got out to ask me what the heck I was doing in the Garden District at 4 AM. He wasn't angry, just amazed.

"I know, it's crazy," I said. "It was this girl's eyes. You should have seen them. You would have done the same thing."

We both laughed, and he got back in his car, and each of us continued on his way.

15 miles to the muffaletta

Napoleon once said, "An army marches on its stomach." Actually there's some debate as to whether it was Napoleon who said this or Frederick the Great. I'm going with Napoleon because I think that it would typically take a Frenchman to be so keenly attuned to the vital role of food in every field of human endeavor. (On the other hand I suppose one might argue that the German would be more likely to be so keenly attuned to the minutiae of military strategy.)

Speaking of French people and food, maybe it's our French heritage that helps explain why we're so passionate about good eating around these parts. If you want to observe this passion in action, try this experiment: Next time you happen to be in the same room with two our three native New Orleanians try raising the question of who makes the best roast beef po boy in town. You'll probably find them expressing their preferences with the articulateness of wine connoisseurs and the aggression of a pack of stray dogs fighting over a ribeye.

A tourist once asked one of my colleagues for directions to a restaurant of a certain well-known, middle-of-the-road, national chain, which I shall leave unnamed. The pedicabbie responded, "We don't have that restaurant here. But if you really want sh***y food, I can probably help you find something. And if you want overpriced sh***y food, I can help you find that too."

A friend of mine from Cajun country once went to Jamaica for vacation. When he got back I asked him how the trip was, and he was very enthusiastic. "Oh, it was wonderful!" he said. "I had the time of my life."

"How about the food?" I asked.

"Oh the food," he said waving his hand dismissively. "The food was lousy. But when you're from South Louisiana you don't go traveling to eat!"

OK, back to where I started, which was with that quote of indeterminate origin about an army marching on its stomach. What I had set out to say was that this same principle applies to pedicabbies. A pedicabbie rolls on his stomach. Actually, that doesn't quite convey the right meaning, does it? My journalism degree isn't helping me out much here. Anyway, I think you get what I'm trying to say.

When I first started the job, my boss told me that I could claim the money I spent on food as a tax write-off since food is our fuel just as petroleum products are the fuel of car taxis. My first thought was that this was a bit shady. After all, we have to eat either way, right? I really didn't get it then. What I've discovered is that if you're pedicabbing full time, then you're going to be spending A LOT OF MONEY on extra food.

Since I started the job back in November I've lost about 25 pounds, and I eat like a horse. Not really like a horse because horses eat mostly salad. Not me. I'm eating good New Orleans food. Oyster poboys and fried boudin balls and crawfish pies and bread pudding. All of it that I can afford. I get home at 5 in the morning after working the night shift, and I go to bed, and after a couple of hours, I wake up hungry, so I get up and eat, and go back to bed, and a couple of hours later I wake up hungry again and eat some more and go back to bed. This is my lifestyle lately. Did I mention that I've lost 25 pounds?

I remember when I was a kid,  there were a couple of guys who were riding their bikes across the country who visited our church one Sunday morning. My parents invited them over for lunch after church. To this day I remember how how much those guys seemed to like my mom's cooking. They piled their plates high over and over again, so many times that we finally lost count. My mom was really flattered. Now, all these years later, I understand better what I witnessed back then. My mom is a good cook, without a doubt, but there was another force at work that day. It must take a ton of calories to cross the continent on a bicycle. (Also, those two didn't really talk like churchgoing folk as I recall. I hate to be cynical, but I can't help wondering whether they  knew in advance that they were likely get an invitation to lunch if they went to church. Nothing wrong with seeing the Lord's house as a good place to get fed, I suppose. After all, Jesus was known for giving out free lunches.)

Once when I was riding the pedicab, some smart aleck called out to me from the side of the street, "Hey, what kind of mileage do you get on that thing?" I answered him without missing a beat, "Oh, I get about 15 miles to the muffaletta!"

Coincidences: two stories

Coincidence is king of the world. Albanian proverb


Late Monday night (technically Tuesday morning since it was after midnight) I picked up a pair of lovely young ladies on Bourbon St. Before we proceed with the story, let me define "lovely" and "young". By "young" I mean "my age" -- 46 to be precise. By "lovely" I mean that when they forced me to guess their age, I undershot by 10 years. And it wasn't that I wanted to flatter them... OK, maybe a little, but definitely not ten years' worth. 


Anyway, I could tell before they ever got on board the bike that it was going to be a fun ride. "Hey, I have an idea!" one of them said, walking up to me with a big smile. "Why don't you give us a ride, and we give you money?" I thought that sounded like the best idea I had heard in quite a while. 


They were fraternal twins as it turned out, one blonde, the other redhead. When I introduced myself, they told me that they had a brother named Mark, and I said, that based on the name, he was probably a pretty cool guy, and they said, yes, he was. None of these details are really relevant to the point of the story, but these ladies were wanting to get mentioned in the blog, so I hope they read this and enjoy it.  


As we began the ride, I asked them the usual questions: Where are you from? Have you been to New Orleans before? Are you enjoying your visit? Then they started asking about me, and the conversation settled into a pattern that is repeated almost verbatim over and over again every time I'm out on the pedicab:

Them: "So, where are you from?"


Me: "Well, I grew up here in this area, moved away for 27 years, and just got back in August." 


Them: "So where did you move to for 27 years?" 


Me: "Different places, but for most of the last 16 years I was living and working in the Balkans. A couple of years in Albania, several years in Kosova, and most recently, a few years in the Republic of Macedonia."


It was at this point in this very routine dialogue that something outside of the routine occurred -- not anything earthshaking or urgent, but something just strange enough to be intriguing. We were waiting at a traffic light on Canal St., which was almost deserted at this time of night. Right as I mentioned Macedonia, some guy walked by us, a kind of rough-looking guy, probably not homeless but just a step up from that perhaps. Apparently overhearing me mention Macedonia,  he called out to me a greeting in Macedonian: "Kako si?" ("How are you?" It's actually the same in pretty much all the South Slavic languages: Serbian, Bulgarian, Croatian, etc.) If this were Detroit, for example, or some other city with a high concentration of South Slavic immigrants, this whole thing would have been a lot less surprising, but here in New Orleans, I don't think that very many people are even aware that there's a country called Macedonia. 


I responded in my best Macedonian (which is pretty poor to tell the truth), "Fine, thank you! How are you? And where did you learn that?" He just shrugged and walked on. Apparently he had exhausted his Macedonian vocabulary with those two words. 


"Well that was bizarre!" I commented to my passengers.


"Apparently the universe just wanted to verify that you were telling the truth about living in those places," one of them replied.

------------------------------------

That story reminded me of another one that happened a while back -- a bit similar perhaps but even more striking in my opinion.


I was riding around the Central Business District looking for fares. Spotting a young couple at a corner, I asked if they would like a ride. "No thank you," one them replied. "Actually we rode with your company earlier today. It was really nice. Our driver was Jenny." 


"Oh, yes, Jenny!" I replied. "She's awesome!" because Jenny is a really cool colleague. She works part time with us and the rest of the time as a concierge at a hotel, which means that when she's working her other job she's able to steer a  lot of dispatches our way. And besides that, she's just a fun, sweet person. 


Anyway,  just as I said that Jenny was awesome, who should go walking by but Jenny! Turns out she lives there in the Central Business District, and she just happened to be out walking her dogs just in time to overhear me singing her praises to her former passengers.


"Wow, Jenny!" I told her. "If I had known you were eavesdropping, I would have tried to come up with something a little stronger than awesome!" 


This is the kind of story that it's almost impossible not to end with, "And the moral of the story is..." On the other hand, the moral seems so obvious that I won't even bother to state it.

The Kaintucks take over New Orleans -- again

Congratulations to the University of Kentucky for their victory in the NCAA basketball championship. The Superdome was certainly rocking Monday night, if not from the cheers of wildcat fans on the inside then from the violent spring thunderstorm on the outside. More about that thunderstorm in a bit.

New Orleans was awash with Kentuckians during the Final Four just as it had been three weeks earlier during the Southeastern Conference tournament. Judging by the color of the crowds thronging the Quarter, it appeared that at both events citizens of the Big Blue Nation far outnumbered the fans of all the other teams combined. A random sample of riders on my rickshaw would have confirmed this. In fact, ESPN reported that even when the wildcats took on LSU -- practically the hometown team -- in the SEC tournament, almost everyone in the near-capacity crowd was wearing Kentucky blue. "The Tigers... had hardly any representation outside of the players' families", the article said.

Noting all those blue t-shirts on Bourbon St. one night, I remarked to a colleague that Kentucky appeared to have colonized New Orleans -- which triggered a memory of something I had learned recently as I was preparing to take a test for a New Orleans tour guide's license. Bear with me here for a very brief (I promise!) history lesson.

During its colonial days Louisiana was bounced around like a basketball, a situation which couldn't have been easy on the colony's residents. Sovereignty over the swampy soil beneath their feet shifted constantly without anyone bothering to consult them -- or in some cases even to notify them. Here are some of the highlights:

• Soon after establishing the colony, France privatized it, handing over control to a rich banker named Antoine Crozat. Contrary to his hopes of exploiting Louisiana to add to his personal fortune,  Crozat found the colony to be a financial black hole, and just five years into what was to have been a 15-year charter, he gave Louisiana back.
• Control of the colony was then handed over to a corporation headed by a Scotsman named John Law, one of the most notorious (and brilliant) con men in the history of the humanity. Just to give you an idea what kind of man we're talking about here, one modern biography of John Law is entitled The Moneymaker: The True Story of a Philanderer, Gambler, Murderer, and the Father of Modern Finance. 
• In 1762 France gave Louisiana to Spain in a secret treaty, which the colonists didn't even hear about till two years later. (Frenchmen St., now home to many of New Orleans' best music venues, is named in honor of a group of colonists who were executed for their role in resisting the handover to Spain.)
• In 1800 Napoleon twisted the arm of Charles IV of Spain to make him give Louisiana back to France.
• By the time Spain and France got around to actually doing the transfer in 1803, Napoleon had already decided to sell Louisiana to the United States.

This last handover was by far the hardest for the colonists to take. Around this time there was a steady flow of thousands of Kentuckians -- "Kaintucks" as New Orleans' French-speaking residents called them -- floating downriver on keelboats and flatboats loaded with stuff to sell. Kentucky was the American frontier back then, and these riverboat men were a rough lot. In those days before the invention of the steamboat, travel upriver was next to impossible, so the Kaintucks, after selling their goods in the Crescent City, broke up their boats and sold them for lumber. Having filled their pockets with cash, their main interest was to indulge themselves with whores and whiskey before setting out on the long walk back upriver along the Natchez Trace. 

When the average French-speaking resident of New Orleans thought of an American, the image that came to mind was the Kaintuck -- a foul-mouthed, violent, dirty, drunken barbarian. New Orleanians had tolerated these Kaintucks for the economic benefits that they brought, but when word got out that Napoleon had sold Louisiana to the United States, the Creoles of New Orleans said, "Of God, please, no! We thought being under Spanish rule was bad, but now we've been bought by the KAINTUCKS!"

Now, more than 200 years later, thousands of Kentuckians were flooding New Orleans again, flowing down the freeway from the source of Bourbon whiskey to Bourbon St. So how do these modern sons of the Kaintucks compare to their uncouth ancestors? As it turned out, I found the Kentucky fans to be really nice folks. Just as a point of reference, they were definitely a much better-behaved bunch than the LSU-Alabama crowd that was here for the BCS Bowl. (But it may not be fair to compare a basketball crowd with a football crowd.)

That thunderstorm that I mentioned in the first paragraph probably played a part in limiting excesses as well. In the end it was the weather that was brutal, not the fans. The rain, which slacked up at times but never stopped entirely, made things miserable; and intense periods of lightening made the situation downright dangerous. The storm even caused a brief power outage in the French Quarter. 

For me, what should have been a very unpleasant night to be out on a pedicab was salvaged by the kindness of a pair of Kentucky belles who, out of gratitude for being given a ride to their hotel room in the driving rain, gave me a $100 tip for a ten minute trip. There's nothing like Benjamin Franklin's beautiful face to brighten up a cold, wet night. As far as I'm concerned, the Kaintucks can colonize us again anytime they want!