My fine friend "Brother" Ray Nichols died and it's taken me a few days to process. Here he is driving me and Brian around and telling us his version of the Katrina story. I love how his fleur-de-lys catches what little bit of light there was on that humid, gloomy March morning in New Orleans.
Ray and his wife Bev looked after me outstandingly when I travelled both ways through New Orleans in 2010 and 2011. We got introduced through Taylor Davidson who was living in NOLA in 2010. We needed somewhere to stay and within hours Taylor had got two choices for us. One choice also came with a dog (Ray and Bev and Elza) and the other without. We chose Laura Paul's lovely place without dog, but Ray and Bev kindly took us out to dinner anyway and Ray gave us what some of the more cynical locals called the 'misery tour' - this was five years after Katrina and one of Ray's many great contributions to the world was letting people know that everything was by no means fixed yet. We drove around the Lower Ninth ward and saw just how little had been done to repair the neighbourhood in five years. The work continues still.
For me, it was the moment I saw what people meant when they said the USA contained areas that were at the level of third-world countries. It was also an early shake-up around the interaction between climate change and an economic system that treats the poor as an externality. Ray and Bev welcomed me back into their home in 2011. This was a welcome rest stop between some hot days and nights in Lafayette and a very cold day in Chicago. Those of you who have heard my story of losing, panicking about and finding my rail pass in the middle of this journey should know the whole drama played out in Ray and Bev's spare room. We had plenty of time to sit and walk and talk and Ray kindly took me and introduced me to as many interesting people in New Orleans that he could pack into the few days I was there as well as some healing time on the dog walking levee overlooking the Mississippi at sunset. Last time I saw Ray in the flesh was when he dropped me at the Amtrak station to head north to Chicago in a t-shirt.
I had hoped to welcome him someday to England and repay his hospitality in London - I'm very sad today that that someday just turned into never. Big love to Bev and Rocco, the rest of the family and the hundreds of friends across the world he leaves behind.