Baldwin

In Louisiana, counties are called parishes. The town of Baldwin, 2,500 souls--give or take, is in St. Mary's Parish. St. Mary's Parish is, arguably, the poorest parish in Louisiana. The population of Baldwin is about 65% African American, 32% White, with a few Latinos, Asians and Others. The Latinos came when Katrina and Rita hit and there was a groundswell of need to fill jobs in (re)construction. Even after the official demise of designated prayer in the schools, prayers are said before football games and assemblies. "Separate but equal" may be legally over, but in St. Mary's Parish the white kids attend private (mostly Catholic) schools and the African American kids attend public schools. Baldwin is about ninety miles west of New Orleans in southern LA. It is 1.1 miles square and bumps up on Bayou Teche. It has one stoplight. Besides the stoplight, downtown Baldwin consists of a post office, city hall, public library, police department, drugstore, seedy bar, a couple gas stations/convenience stores, Asian foodmart, Breaux Foodland (Mr. Breaux is also the town mayor), Dollar Store, Lovely Nails, Le Jolie Dame Beauty Parlor (in a private home), Justice of the Peace/Notary (also in a home) and a few other odds and ends. Beautiful live oaks, their branches dripping with moss, languish in front yards between the main drag and the Bayou. Trains pass a couple blocks from downtown at all hours; some speedy, some plodding, some with mighty whistles, some melancholy, all going clickety-clack in some sort of reassuring rhythm. The late afternoon pick-up basketball game, held on a cement court and recycling center area next door to my apartment building, which the town rents from Sager Brown for one dollar a year, has just begun again, to break up around dark. It is interesting to be in Baldwin, busy or not.