Who you gonna call?

I left New Orleans on Sunday and made the long slog to Savannah. (#3523: Fresca is tragically unknown in the Florida panhandle.) As my last post indicated, my work:play ratio in NOLA had tipped toward play--when in Rome, as they say. But it was as much because there were no pressing Relief Spark projects in progress requiring volunteers, with the exception of helping at the Animal Rescue, where they can always use more help and where I spent Wednesday and Friday.

On Thursday I was scheduled to help with Project Greenlight, a nonprofit that replaces standard light bulbs with compact flourescents to help people save on their electric bills. But the coordinator was out of town, so I met Sidney at her home office in River Ridge and
rode shotgun on her day's activities: lunch with Live St. Bernard (a nascent non-profit that two very nice former Americorps volunteers are trying to get of the ground); a stop to check out some potential Relief Spark office space within the office of a company called Voodoo
Ventures in the Central Business District; and a visit to an aging mansion in the Garden District that Sidney is hoping to lease for housing the college groups coming to voluteer during winter and spring break.

On Fourth between Prytania and St. Charles, the 13 ft-tall suit of armor beside the even taller front door made the place easy to spot on a block of much better maintained properties. Sitting on the front steps were Annie and Laverne, both of whom worked for the mansion's owners at Creole Gardens, their bed & breakfast around the corner. Annie had been living in a room on the first floor of the mansion since she lost her house in Katrina, and she showed Sidney and me
around inside. The place was something to behold--once, a long time ago--but now there was water dripping through the 16 ft. ceiling in the first room we saw, and all I could think of was how much it must cost to heat or air condition.

After the full tour, Sidney continued to look around inside, and Annie and I returned to the front steps to find a walking tour group and their guide gathered on the sidewalk. I couldn't quite hear what the guide was saying to the group, but when Annie began to banter with the guide, I quickly came to understand that the group was on the New Orleans Ghost Tour and the mansion at 1539 Fourth was widely considered to be haunted.

After the tourists had ascended the front steps to photograph each other standing beside the armor, the group moved on, and Annie explained that the haunting was done by two apparitions: the ghost of Andre, who had died of smoke inhalation in the house many many years ago after falling asleep with a cigar burning in his mouth; and the ghost of Stephanie, who as a little girl had drowned in a basement stairwell that had filled with water during a storm. His cigar smoke and her laughter and playing were evident to anyone who spent time there,
supposedly, and both Annie and Laverne attested to encountering them frequently. Apparently there had been frequnet seances over the years, and professional paranormal investigators had visited a number of times, one night recording the laughter of a little girl on audio tape amidst nothing else but static.

By the time Sidney emerged, Laverne and Annie had pointed out Anne Rice's old house on the corner and moved on to debating whether they should make candied yams or sweet potato pie with Thanksgiving dinner, and had graciously invited me to join them for the holiday. (#2576:
The people in this world who have the least are often the quickest to share what little they have.) Sidney had tested the water pressure and thought the place would be perfect for her college groups. I agreed as we drove away in the suburban.