On Saturday mornings my father would wake me up early and we would walk the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. The lake was around the corner from my house and was surrounded by a 20 foot levee. The levee was the closest thing to a hill in New Orleans. It was fun to climb and fun to run down. And behind it was the world of water and wetlands, piers and wondrous gifts lost or discarded from boaters and fishermen.
When the tide was out, sandbars were revealed and it felt almost as if you were walking on water. My dad and I had this shared time before the rest of our world had awoken. We walked, collected shells and sailed make-believe boats of driftwood. We’d always cut down cattails and pack a bouquet of them in the trunk of his car. That name, cattail, was even part of the delight of time shared one on one with my father.
After our walk, we would go to a diner for pancakes, then to his office where he would buy me an icy cold Coca Cola in a small green hued bottle. That same evening after dusk, he would soak the cattails and light them up like torches, illuminating the both of us.