"Any inkblot, Rorschach or otherwise, reminds of Nat. He once spent an evening describing the complex process of printing—and maintaining the integrity of—the famous Rorschach blots. Nat’s passion made me smile. He also once commented appreciatively to his wife Betsy that I was a woman who looked men straight in their eyes. That made me smile, too.
"When I see an inkblot I recall the cabinet door in Nat’s bathroom. His wife called it “the Obie altar”—a reference to their cherished West Highland terrier, Obie. Every so often, when Nat wasn’t around to catch us, Betsy and I would check on the ever-evolving “altar.” The door’s inside panels were covered—almost completely—with cheerful images of Westies. Tenderly cut from magazines, greeting cards, snapshots—wherever he found them—the pictures were Nat’s sentimental, uncomplicated side. A few lists on old, yellowed scraps of paper provided some thematic relief and hinted at Nat’s practical side. One memorable list—“Food I Can Eat When Betsy Is Away”—suggested such otherwise forbidden items as Yoohoo, Snicker’s bars, peanut butter, and steaks.
"When I first met him he had a little spiral-bound notebook that he kept on the dashboard of his car. In the notepad he recorded and categorized according to the offender's gender, race, and age instances of bad road manners—this well before the phrase “road rage” entered the idiom. One evening I playfully asked him how the road rudeness research was going and he looked solemn, almost crestfallen: The notebook, he reported, had recently flown—the paper frantically flapping like a caged bird—out an open window when he was accelerating on the Interstate. Gone without a trace.
"My favorite memento of Nat is a thick and worn folder labeled “Obituaries.” It contains Xerox copies from Nat’s own rich collection of obits, all clipped from the New Orleans Times' Picayune, which traditionally identified the deceased person’s given name and nickname. For Nat, those nicknames had become a reassuring, if comical, measure of the warm heart and eccentric soul of New Orleans. Whenever I have a little spare time, I’ll flip through the papers and linger over Eugene “Weedy Boo” James and Danny “Rubber Band” Lyons. And Matthew “Cotton Woop Shaboo” Cohes. And Michael “Lil Man With A Flame” Howard. One day, the death’s list mentioned Wilfred Anthony “Shrimps” Fourcade and Jernika Michelle “Tuna” Fulford, one right after the other. “A murder? Suicide??” Nat scribbled in the margins of the clipping he mailed to me. I miss New Orleans. And I wonder what crevice of life and culture Nat is studying these days . . ."
"I admit it: I'm a church lady! So, I see two chubby, devout figures, perched precariously on balls, their heads bent over their prayer books. Wedged between them, like the keystone in a Romanesque arch, is a wishbone. Ugh. There’s has to be more to my faith than this."
"I’m done. Maybe even slightly annoyed. What I see, you won’t. What you see, I don’t. And I don’t want you to see something about me that I can’t see for myself. Forget that when I turn this image upside down I’m staring straight at Charlie Chaplin’s face! Look, see his bowler, his black moustache and his . . . umm, sunglasses and forelocks? Quit looking at me like that. Turn the inkblot right side up. Good. Now, put it away. And kindly close the door when you leave. I’d like a little shut eye."
