Jean-Paul Villere: Exiting the Salad Days

Jean-Paul Villere

Tomorrow I’ll make 39.  But that’s 24 hours away.  Which in New Orleans ain’t the surest of equations.  I know statistically warmer weather brings on more criminal activity, but temp wise we’ve had worse summers.  Some might say it’s been comparatively cool over seasons past.  Some might further say that might even explain away why here we are 2 months into the 2013 hurricane season with a thankfully uneventful record.  Some might go on about climate change too, but I digress.  As I creep into 40, the goal is to get there.  Avoid the pitfalls of the Crescent City diurnal.  Which again, doesn’t seem to get easier.

I’m pretty sure when Merritt Landry retired the other evening before shooting (with one round, I might add) an unarmed Marshall Coulter at 2AM his plans for the night did not include those events.  And contextualizing the crime gives no one more sway.  A property owner stopped an intruder on his property.  More than this is almost moot.  I’ve never gunned down someone I’ve caught in the act of stealing from me, and I hope I never have to know what it’s like to be the shooter — or a thief for that matter.  I’ve been stolen from, I’ve been held up at gunpoint, and I’ve witnessed thefts.  Maybe that’s the holy trinity of being a New Orleanian, but I will offer it doesn’t make it normal.

Yesterday I received a neighborhood email blast for the Milan area detailing one neighbor’s account of yet another theft from some one’s yard.  Supposedly at dawn a man in his 40s or 50s was seen in a back yard and helped himself to an oversized aluminum pot, often used for crawfish boils.  The story goes he took the item and slowly made his getaway on bicycle, and NOPD arrived some time later, took the report, and was supposedly going to further investigate at an area scrap yard.  Three words: yawn, yeah right.  Anyhow, the gunning down of Marshall Coulter clearly didn’t make this individual think twice about their actions, but then one may guess the thief operated unaware and fearless.

Stealing has never been acceptable.  Are you Jean Valjean stealing bread to feed your family?  I don’t think so.  In 21st century America we have more access to food and resources no other generation has known.  True story: last week I ate lunch at a Sbarro in the Pentagon with my 2 oldest daughters and an old friend who works there that gave us a little tour.  After we ate, walking down one of the myriad of hallways we passed before a painting of George Washington at the Potomac in winter.  And the contrast was just ridiculous.  I’m eating and feeding my children prefab pizza in the premiere armed forces building while centuries ago ol’ George and co. had a much less easy go of it.

So what are the salad days, and when are they over?  For me, they’re now.  Marriage and the onset of fatherhood often define the time.  I’ve been married for 15 years (insert joke about how I married too young here), have 4 children (insert another joke about how I don’t know how to use contraception), and (once the laughter has subsided know) I’m done.  The salad days have been thankfully and in a word: blissful.  In my 40s I expect to have a house filled with teenage girls, endless drama, and very little, if any, peace.  I’m willing to bet Merritt Landry wants the same thing for himself, or something very similar.

Jean-Paul Villere is the owner of Villere Realty and Du Mois Gallery on Freret Street and a married father of four girls. In addition to his Wednesday column at UptownMessenger.com, he also shares his family’s adventures sometimes via pedicab or bicycle on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.