A different view

My first visit to St. Roch Cemetery was at high noon on a blindingly sunlit day.

Yesterday I visited in the late afternoon, as the sky was heavy with thunderclouds on all sides, a storm threatening.

When I stepped out of the air-conditioned car into the muggy heat, my camera's lens was fogged with condensation.

A bright note of color.

The storm is coming.

Inside the chapel tokens are left behind.

The floor is paved with "thank you"s.

A child's shoe. Small bones? A single die. So many stories untold.

Clouds over St. Claude

Photo by Christopher Waterman

 We went to lunch at the St. Roch Market on St. Claude, while the skies were gathering ominously for a storm and the rain just beginning to fall.

The St. Roch Market dates from 1875, when it was a public, open-air market. It was almost torn down in the 1930s, but instead was renovated with WPA money. By the time it was damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it was pretty run-down, but still people went there for fresh shrimp and oysters, boiled crawfish, gumbo, and cowan turtles.

FEMA money and city funds were used to renovate the old building, and it opened this spring, with eleven vendors offering prepared foods and beverages in an open hall setting.