Okra: Jimmy doesn’t eat his vegetables.

In my years on the rails, I have shared accommodation with runaways and psychos, with heroes and villains, with hobos and hookers.  For a time, I cohabitated with circus animals—an experience not nearly as amusing as it might sound.  With such companions, I have fortunately managed generally peaceful co-existence.  I thought I was ready for anything, until I met my most recent ISO container roommate—millions and millions of stalks of green okra.

People who are indifferent about their vegetables should be distrusted, at least as much as, say, men with facial hair; in both cases, they are either insane or liars.  Virtually every adult member of the human race would be well served by a quick visit back to infancy, where all foods are the subjects of either intense adoration or equally fearsome hatred.

Virtually every adult member of the human race would be well served by a quick visit back to infancy, where all foods are the subjects of either intense adoration or equally fearsome hatred.

All I wanted was to go home (well, home of sorts) to see Uncle Tab one last time.  I slept right through the stop in Pointe de la Hache, when I should have disembarked from my surreptitious lodging onboard a certain 1992 Mack Superliner.  When I awoke hours later, I discovered that the cargo container I had called home for the better part of a week was delicately perched among hundreds, aboard a cargo ship that had already set sail for Le Havre, France.  So there I was, somewhere in the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico, with no one to talk to save for a billion stalks of okra.

Certain occupations and pastimes naturally lend themselves to endless hours of deep introspection and contemplation—chauffeur, left fielder and bathroom attendant come to mind—but there is no better way to get a little time to think in tranquility than to adopt the lifestyle of a hobo.  Then get yourself trapped on the open seas for 22 days with a gazillion stalks of okra and you’re ready to contemplate yourself right off the deep end.

Now I’m here in Paris, ready to contemplate my existence, this place and the combustible combination of the two.