Some days you leave the house for a seemingly normal outing and life confronts you with the profound and wonderful where you least expect it. That's what happened to us yesterday.
We left our temporary bayou home around 9:30 and drove to the pretty and historic town of Mandeville, Louisiana.
The town was laid out in 1834 by developer Bernard Xavier de Marigny de Mandeville. It soon became a popular summer destination for well-to-do New Orleanians wishing to escape the city's heat.
In the mid-19th century, regular daily steamboat traffic between New Orleans and Mandeville began. Bands played music on the ships crossing the lake. Mandeville became one of the first places where the new "jazz" music was heard outside of New Orleans. Bunk Johnson, Buddy Petit, Papa Celestin, George Lewis, Kid Ory, Edmond Hall, Chester Zardis, and many other early jazz artists regularly played here.
The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway — two parallel bridges crossing the lake — has been listed by Guinness World Records since 1969 as the longest continuous bridge over water in the world.
One more thing about Mandeville: the Seven Sisters Oak is the largest certified southern live oak in existence, estimated to be up to 1,500 years old, its trunk measuring 38 feet. It is the National Champion on the Register of Big Trees and the Champion Oak of Louisiana. The Seven Sisters survived a near direct hit from Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.
We had breakfast at Mande's in Mandeville. Eggs Sardou — poached eggs on English muffins with tomato, smothered in a spicy artichoke and creamed spinach Hollandaise sauce. If you can conceive of such a creation, you understand why we lingered.
After breakfast we made our way to the lake and parked at a long pier with a majestic view. It was a clear, sunny day, around 70 degrees. The walk out on the pier was simply lovely.
We passed a handful of fishermen, remarking on the different birds, the warmth of the sun, the beauty of the lake. Then something stopped us. As we approached the end of the pier, a man casting a line turned and said we might not want to walk to the end.
We were speechless as he explained that a fellow fisherman had apparently died in his chair while fishing. During some general fisherman banter, the man had not responded, and it was then discovered he was not breathing.
The man died in this quiet, peaceful, beautiful setting doing what he loved. Trying to grasp how perfect his passing was, our thoughts gave way to the world around us.
Soon after, the EMTs and police arrived. There were questions — who was he, what about his family, when did he die, how long had he been fishing, was he alone. But none of that seemed to matter. It was perfect.
You hear people say they want to die this way or that. They imagine how their life will end, yet very few realize their moment. This man did.
We never made it to the end of the pier. It was enough. This ending was perfect.
