Howard And Hotard

The Weather is in the news.New Orleans continues to throw everything but the kitchen sink at me, in its tantrum over my choosing to leave it...but...let's go back 24 hours and catch up on the details, shall we?

We would like to get there before dark...

Reunited
After having gotten off the bus in front of the library and blogging yesterday's post, I went to the sign spot, to find none other than Howard, under the holly trees, which were fending off about half of the drizzle which fell from the New Orleans sky.
Ok, Now let's go back 24 hours, then catch up...
After I had gotten out of the Jefferson Parish Jail, yesterday morning around 10 a.m., in Gretna, LA., and started to walk around aimlessly trying to get my bearings and finding first, a "Veitnamese" convenience store with energy drinks and some strange looking food items (I'm a dog lover; I don't want to know...) but no maps nor directions, I kept walking aimlessly.
There was a very stiff and erratic breeze which turned my guitar in case into something like a sail, threatening to blow me down (like Popeye) with each 45 mph. gust.
I was walking into the teeth of it.
Finding someone, finally, who was able to direct me to the nearest bus stop, and figuring at that time, that my best bet was to return to New Orleans to regroup and to try once again to leave it, I bent my steps in that direction.
Now, of a sudden, the breeze was blowing me from behind.
I stumbled along being pushed violently from behind, reminiscent of the railroad cop shoving me towards his cruiser, before he transported me 15 miles in the direction of the same city. I felt like I could just stop struggling and allow myself to tumble like a ragdoll in a wind tunnel; and be blown back; back to New Orleans.
Eventually I could see the tall buildings of that city in front of me. They were all sneering. The Capitol One building nudged the Marriot Tower and gestured towards me with its head, whereupon the second building looked up and saw me and then both skyscrapers began to quake uncontrollably, as they tried to suppress their laughter. I thought the cellphone towers were going to break off their rooves and tumble to the street...
The bus brought me back across the Mississippi and deposited me, like silt, right across the street from this library, as noted yesterday.
The Burger King Snafu
I talked to Howard, who seemed happy to see me, and maybe happier to have learned that my intention was never to ditch him in NOLA, or give him "the shake" in general.
He confirmed what had been one of my theories as to what had happened to him.
He too, upon reaching the end of the line of the number 94 bus, asked the driver where the truck stop was. His driver too, didn't know anything about any truck stop; it being so far off of his line that no passenger in the past had ever used his bus to get there.
Howard then gave that driver the misinformation that I had passed along that there was "a Burger King" at the truck stop (it was actually a Huddle House restaurant, I learned when I had gotten there, after my 3 mile walk).
There is another truck stop, the one on Paris Road, which has, you guessed it; a Burger King...
That rang a bell with the driver (who is perhaps a connosoir of soy meal) and he gave Howard a free transfer, so that he could go to that truck stop to look for me.
I had called there once from where I was, but at that time, nobody had yet seen an elderly gentleman with white hair, wearing a blue visor with a couple bags strapped to his back...someone close to that description (after all, this is New Orleans) but that person was accompanied by a lady.
So, Now What, Howard?
Now, using the above schedule for the Hotard Bus Lines 5 dollar trip to Baton Rouge (you wondered what Howard and Hotard meant in the title, eh?), He and I are going to take the bus to Baton Rouge, this afternoon, effectively getting me out of this city on the very last of the 15 days, which the court had extended me for doing such, as per the agreement, engineered by attorney Mary Howell and seconded by the City Attorney.
It is 12:50 p.m. now, and I think that we had better get shaking, even though I would love to stay and blog some more (so many stories; so little time...). The bus will keep us dry along the way and, hopfully (see radar) the rain will already have passed over Baton Rouge by the time we get there and we can at least resume our lives by finding a library and a McDonalds in the short term; and a rail yard within a day or so.
No, I actually don't "ever learn"...to answer your tacit question...