Karen Spears Zacharias @ New Orleans, pt. 1

(Karen Spears Zacharias shares her experiences discussing her memoir, Hero Mama, on the literary festival trail with Beatrice readers once more, this time from the New Orleans Writers' Conference...)

People told me that I wouldn't like it here. That it's a nasty town, full of whores and drunkards. But as far as I can tell most of the unsavory folks are tourists. They come from Des Moines and Detroit, Salem and Selma. They come here under the guise of conference attendees but they use their anonymity to act the fool.

The locals I've met are decent, hard-working, and gracious. Good papas and mamas and good neighbors. This city is laden with warm weather and warm people. It's my favorite kind of town. I called my husband in Oregon and told him I wanted to move here, right away. A native Oregonian, he balked at the idea, but he did promise to come for a visit sometime.

I ate lunch at Mother's. A local favorite, where the help shout out orders of biscuits and ham, and fill tall glasses of ice with tea or diet coke. Portraits of veterans from all generations hang willy-nilly along the walls, covered in dust, many of them personally autographed. Mother's is an old Marine hangout, the guy with the swollen belly sitting by the front door explained. The manager, Sammy, was a Marine in Vietnam. Send him down, I said. I've got a story to tell 'em.

I take my bowl of rice and sausage and ask two hunky men if I can sit at their table. (Make this a motto in life: If you gotta share a table, might as well be with good-looking fellas.) "Sure," said a handsome guy with tattooed muscular biceps. His accent was an obvious New York clip.

He confirmed it. Firefighters, both of 'em, come to New Orleans to visit a friend. (Second life motto: Make friends with folks who live in New Orleans.)

Sammy, the manager, pulled up a chair behind me. He still has his Marine buzz cut and his stare never rests in one place too long. He takes in every movement as if he's on night patrol in the jungle. He looks, listens, and directs people, constantly. "Move the line around the table," he instructs some diners coming through the door.

I tell Sammy a Marine story.

"So this sergeant, a state legislator in Georgia now, tells me when he was in Vietnam he would warn his recruits, 'If you go into Bangkok, use protection. Otherwise you'll get a leaky faucet.'"

But one newbie goes and comes back sicker than a yard dog. They put him on the prescribed clap cure: seven days of penicillin, four times a day. Even after ten days, the boy is still doubled over in pain. The sergeant pays him a visit.

"Boy, I told you to be careful."

"Sergeant, I ain't got no clap,' the newbie replied.

"Well, then, what kind of mess did you get yourself into?"

"You ever see a fly turn into a bumblebee, Sir?" the boy replied.

"What the hell you talking about Son?"

"I didn't get no venereal disease, Sir. I got me a tattoo. I thought it would impress the ladies."

Needless to say that fly is probably a South Georgia gnat by now.

Sammy laughed and groaned at the same time. I laughed because as the daughter of an infantryman, I love to tell stories that make fun of Marines.

Later, I headed out to Jackson Barracks with a cab driver who didn't know where the barracks where. (Why is it that people who can't read maps always end up as cabbies? Happens to me everywhere I go.) So I arrived late, after the Military Police checked out my ID.

"You that author lady?" he said. "I can't believe I'm meeting someone famous." Fame, schmame: I despise our celebrity driven culture. What's it take to make your book stand out from the heap? Apparently a photo of Jane Fonda on the cover would've made my book sell better.

I noticed the ring on his finger. "You been to Iraq?" I asked.

"Yes ma'am. I was there 15.months."

"You have children?"

"No, ma'am. I got married two months before I was deployed. It scared us both."

"I suspect so," I said. "Glad you made it back okay. Welcome home."

The presentation at the Jackson Barracks Museum was well attended. Louisiana has lost 33 National Guardsmen in the war on terror, the largest number of any state. Currently, they have over 4,000 National Guardsmen, almost half of their entire force, serving in Iraq. These are our citizen soldiers. They join the Guard to better their lives, to get an education, to find their way through their twenties. There are guardsmen as young as 18 and as old as 60 serving in Iraq. This is a multi-generational war.

Two mothers whose sons have died attended the presentation. They wept throughout, as did the men and women who work every day with these families. One of the generals present has attended every single funeral of every single guardsman in Louisiana. His blue eyes swam in pools of sorrowful waters as we spoke. "Thank you for your courage to be there for these families," I said. "You could teach Rumsfeld a thing or two about the humanity of war."

Afterwards, I joined Julia Reed, author of Queen of the Turtle Derby (and her husband John) and Ken Wells, whose most recent book is Travels With Barley: A Journey through Beer Culture in America, for a dinner of Thai crab soup, stripped bass and bread pudding laden with whiskey syrup. It was an incredible meal, spiked with exotic seasonings and conversations. Wells told us all about being a snake catcher in Homer for a woman named Alligator Annie. She kept snakes covered in Spanish moss inside cigar boxes. He said his dog used to get bit by snakes and his head would swell up like a baby with water on the brain. And how once his daddy was diving for a snake, can't remember what kind, but it bit him on the nose and left a tattoo. At least his head didn't swell up.

Snakes are the reason why Southerners have historically believed in Jesus. If New York City had more snakes, I'm sure the locals would be more apt to claim the name of Jesus for something other than a swear word.

The conference kicked off at 8 a.m. the next morning, with Julia moderating a panel among editors and agents on the changing trends in the market place. Bottom line: writers have to ask themselves, what is going to make your book stand out from the rest?

I suppose nude photos work, but as for me, I'm inclined to write for everyday folks. The sort of people who enjoy the ivy that grows beneath the oaks along the streets of New Orleans. Not the sort of folks who come to town simply to act the fool.

If you want to really enjoy New Orleans, don't bother with Bourbon Street. Find a couple of National Guardsmen and eat lunch with them.