A move after three decades brings hidden to light

For God so loved the world that he sent movers.

When the Clarion Herald bade a fond farewell last week to its offices for the last 31 years – the fourth floor of the archdiocesan office building at 1000 Howard Ave. – the only thing more amazing than the eclectic stash of items acquired over the decades was the brains and brawn of the seven-man, one-woman moving crew, who displayed enough bench-press strength and hand-placement technique that they might one day get a tryout call from Sean Payton to protect the blind side of Drew Brees.

In the course of preparing for our move to the archdiocesan chancery offices at 7887 Walmsley Ave., we never imagined what actually opening drawers would reveal: 1984 World’s Fair trinkets, 1987 papal posters and flags, rosaries, computer cables to machines long since interred in the Apple graveyard, tattered and brand new books with a fine coating of dust, assorted heating trays, a plug to something, and, yes, a golf ball and a putter. 

Does anyone need a box of plastic, spirally things used to put together small booklets? We have about a hundred. Actually, we did, until someone came around with a blue recycling bin.

The golf ball and putter have a cherished history at the Clarion Herald as well as in the world of Putt-Putt. In December 1993, before leaving the office for our annual Christmas luncheon, the staff exchanged gifts near the front desk. Back then, the office had commercial, mostly gray carpet – if you looked past the complementary black stains – perfect for the First Annual Clarion Herald Putting Contest.

Over the years as the putting contest hole grew more intricate and tricky and the championship more prestigious, instead of windmills, sports editor Ron Brocato would set up a minefield using as obstacles pencil sharpeners, stacks of newspapers and even a stuffed raven he found in a file cabinet drawer of the Old Ursuline Convent, where the Clarion Herald produced the paper for about two months after Hurricane Katrina.

(Side note: In November 2005, when we set up our computers on a long reading table in the library of the Old Ursuline Convent, built in 1752, we immediately blew fuses on the second floor. It would have been such bad form to set fire to the oldest existing building in the Mississippi Valley.)

The winning putter reaped a huge haul: A $5 bill scotch-taped above the hole. The jackpot was intended to give everyone a taste of what Tiger Woods might experience if he had the yips.

In 2005, the carpet was replaced by a bargain-basement tile floor, but the putting contest continued to flourish. The funny thing is, compared to Augusta National, where the golf ball moves so fast it’s like putting on marble, the Clarion Herald’s greens might have been faster, except, of course, for the grout lines. A ball would appear to stop, but then gravity and an uneven floor would take over and the ball kept rolling, left to right, as though being moved by an invisible force.

Howard Avenue remains a rich part of my personal and professional life. On Jan. 3, 1993 – my first day as editor – I stayed late to catch up on a few things and then went down to my car, which was parked in an interior garage. Nobody had bothered to tell the new hire that the garage always was padlocked at 6 p.m. I had to call my wife Carolyn to pick me up at 10.

On April Fool’s Day 2005, photographer Frank Methe, who always got to work early to beat the traffic, called me at 6 a.m.

“Peter, it’s like a car wash in here,” Frank said.

Water was cascading from the ceiling. Yes, there was a car wash on the fourth floor.

We found out later what had happened: On the fifth floor, which was the New Orleans Catholic Cemeteries office, a soap dispenser had fallen off the bathroom wall in such a way that it hit a lever controlling the cold-water faucet. Because the dispenser fell into the sink and stopped up the drain, the water had nowhere else to go but downhill … to the fourth floor and the third floor and the second floor.

It’s amazing what a tiny bit of water can do.

Four months later, we found out what a lot of water can do. On Aug. 28, 2005, I made one of the worst “husband” mistakes of my life. Rather than try to fight the contraflow traffic out of town, I told Carolyn we should simply go to the office with our children.

“This will be perfect,” I recall telling Carolyn. “We won’t have to spend 24 hours in traffic going out of town, we’ll be above any flooding and we’ll already be here when everything opens back up.”

When the building started swaying just after midnight, we moved from the foyer in front of the elevators to an even more enclosed hallway. Believe people when they tell you a hurricane sounds like a freight train.

We got out two days later – on Tuesday morning – when WWL radio, to whom I am eternally indebted, announced that water was mysteriously rising all over the city and that if anyone could get to the Crescent City Connection, it would be easy to hook on the high-and-dry Westbank Expressway and then make it to Baton Rouge.

About 10 days after Katrina, when Frank Methe, business manager Mike Comar, computer consultant Alan Langhoff and I got back to the Clarion Herald offices – grabbing as many computers, with their 50-pound monitors, as we could and lugging them down a darkened staircase – we discovered that a half-dozen windows had blown in on our floor, including two in my office. 

For reasons I don’t really understand, I felt compelled not to touch the shards of glass that Katrina blew into the bottom vent of my office door. They remained there for several years until, I guess, someone on the cleaning crew finally noticed and removed them.

I wish that hadn’t happened. That glass will always be a part of my life.

Seeing Howard Avenue in the rear view mirror has been challenging. In the first few days after the move, my car, on two separate occasions, auto-drove me to Howard Avenue as I passed up the interstate exit I should have taken.

Something drove me there.

Maybe it was the memories of the fun, the challenges and the thrill of writing about how people have used their Catholic faith to spread God’s love in the world and overcome their own Calvaries.

Those memories can never be taken away. That’s what the thrill of being a Catholic journalist is all about.

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