Author: Mike Bradley

“Who was that guy just left the café?” “Cornbread, Cornbread Landry.” “Why they call him that?” “You oughta’ see him when he sits down to eat. Don’t make no difference what meal it is. He’s always got a skillet full o’ cornbread next to his …

I was fascinated by the size of and the contrast between New York and Chicago.  Both cities had large ethnic populations whose arrival in the areas had driven the growth and progress of both cities.  In fact, outside of Warsaw, Poland, Chicago had the largest …

I’m sitting at the counter in the “Good Food Café” down on Franklin Street having a cup of coffee. Besides good food, the “Good Food” is known for Community Coffee from Louisiana, strong, black, and hair-raising. I stop here from time to time just to …

Ella was the last child born into a poor, dirt-farming family. They lived near Vinita, Oklahoma at the beginning of the twentieth century.  Twelve children were born, but only eight survived to adulthood, a common occurrence in poor families in those days. The father of the …

When I owned a construction company in the Chicago suburbs some years ago, I  made frequent trips to the Hines Lumber Yard in Downers Grove. This was a convenient location to pick up lumber, drywall, and other supplies for my various construction sites. Hines delivered …

​It was one of those “low ball” nights, quiet, nothing going on, wife at yoga, boring cable news, had to fend for myself.  On those kinds of nights you don’t break out the gourmet, no need for a recipe book, don’t pull out the herbs …

​Ron probably smiled a little more than you or me; probably trusted fate a little more than we do.  Ron wasn’t even sure how he got to New Orleans that spring.  Events just sort of carried him along.  There was a pizza joint in Cincinnati, …

​We lived out from town about two miles from the city limits of Baton Rouge on Perkins Road. Perkins was a two lane parish road (no counties in Louisiana) that led to farms and eventually to the Airline Highway which was the main highway to …

A lot of good people live along the Atchafalaya.  All kinds of people, too.  There are white folk, Cajun, Creole, Coonass, and about as many black. After World War II, the U.S. was undergoing a big change but things stayed about the same along the …

On this partic’lar grey day I went to visit John. They got him buried in the old cemetery, the one out south of town. The “Cemetery on the Hill” they call it. That cemetery is about the worst place I can think of to bury …