"I had spent four years propped up on the front porch of the fraternity house, bemused and dreaming, watching the sun shine through the Spanish moss, lost in the mystery of finding myself alive at such a time and place."
--Walker Percy, The Moviegoer
I didn't play golf back when I was allegedly studying the law (as they used to put it) at Tulane. But there I was a couple of weeks ago playing a round at Audubon Park Golf Club with my friend Jim.
For those that don't know New Orleans, Audubon Park is across the street from Tulane and its next-door neighbor Loyola University, whose bell tower looks down over the golf course.
What I used to like best about living Uptown in those days was the symphony of sound all around me. I used to lie in bed in the early morning and listen.
Church bells. A tug's horn. The streetcars going up and down St. Charles.
And the bells at Loyola. I well remember the stately sound of those Jesuit bells tolling the hours. I would always look at my watch when I heard the bells.
The bells were always right.
New Orleans is the kind of place that doesn't change much. As I stood there on the course, I let those familiar sounds of Uptown and the Garden District roll over me again.
Was it really 30 years ago that my buddies and I used to sit propped up on the steps of the law school shooting the bull and looking at girls?
I could not have imagined myself at this age back then. I would not have believed it if you had told me in 1981 that I would be pretty much out of the game at the age of 55. That Methodist lawyer me would be hanging around with a bunch of knuckleheads at Catholic High instead. That I would be playing golf at Audubon Park 30 years hence.
That I would be playing golf, period.
I wouldn't say that I was lost in it, but I was pretty much cognizant of the mystery of being alive in New Orleans and at Tulane during that time. Losing your father at 21 will do that for you.
And I was reminded again of the mystery of our lives and how we wind up who and where we are as I walked the course enveloped again as I was by the sounds I came to love as a young man long ago and far away.
Some things don't change. Anytime the bells at Loyola went off during our round the other day I always looked at my watch. Just as the young me did.
And just as they were back then, those Jesuit bells were always right.
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Arthur Paul Bowen is a writer and lawyer living in Little Rock.
Editorial on 07/21/2016