Of po-boys, washing machines, and braggarts
When you deal with the dark, humor is a saving grace.
At the intersection of Elysian Fields and Nth Claiborne in New Orleans you’ll find two of the city’s most interesting establishments, Melba’s Po-boys and WashWorld. The former offers up an array of traditional New Orleans’ food, including the city’s famous crusty take on a sandwich, while the latter provides laundry facilities 24 hours a day.
It’d be hard to verify Melba’s self-proclaimed title of “America’s busiest po-boy shop”, but the po-boy shop and laundromat share a greater claim to fame: they are both part of a literacy program called Eat and Read at Melba’s.
The brainchild of Jane Wolfe, Melba’s started dishing out free books along with its meals around four years ago. In the laundromat next door, a library of kids’ books keeps youngsters occupied while the machines whirl.
Adorning one of those machines is the face of Sister Helen Prejean.
Eat and Read at Melba’s, now a non-profit, regularly features local and national authors. The non-profit buys 100 books of the currently featured author and gives a copy to each staff member and to anyone who purchases a meal, while the author gets to talk, sign books, and meet the customers.
Helen experienced the Melba’s treatment in 2020 with her third book, River of Fire. At the same time she had the signal honor of having a washing machine in WashWorld named for her.
Braggadocio from the supposedly humble
Melba’s has already been in touch with us about buying 100 copies of Dead Man Walking Graphic Edition, and so I expect to share the Melba’s book-signing experience with Helen after we’re published, although, alas, I don’t expect to rate a washing machine.
Helen doesn’t expect me to rate one either; she also, gratuitously, informed my partner Lillie, who is the designated clothes washer in our household, that she shouldn’t expect one either, as evidenced by our text exchange today:
People who have come to know Sister Helen solely through her writings are often surprised to discover that she is hilariously funny in person.
S.H.P.D.A.C.
If you’re wondering about the reference to the “devil’s advocate” in the above text exchange, it is an indicator that this documented display of a braggart streak in Helen is not a singular occurrence, and that past instances have prompted a circle of her friends to form the Sister Helen Prejean Devil’s Advocate Committee, ready to leap into action if her name is, one day, proposed for sainthood.*
It’s surprising the number of people who have suggested that Helen is, indeed, destined for sainthood; or, perhaps, not so surprising considering her committed decades of labor for a mostly unpopular cause.
Such suggestions of post-embodied glory slide right off Helen, but we of the S.H.P.D.A.C. will not be caught unprepared!
Our archives already contain a voicemail recording of Helen crowing after she had trounced a group of us in a game of cards. We also have photographic evidence of an incident in which Helen seemed to claim loaves-and-little-fishes-like powers when she offered to feed a group of us with the (partial) contents of a can of soup.
Having a well-developed sense of humor is a sanity-saving advantage in our line of work and Helen has been honing hers for many years.
Think of these small insights into the not-so-public Sister Helen Prejean as a reward for your stamina in reading these newsletters, which are all too often filled with challenging and heart-breaking content.
* For those of you who may not be steeped in Catholic minutiae, the Devil’s Advocate, aka Promoter of the Faith, was an official role in the Catholic Church. The DA’s job was to save the Church from embarrassment by dissecting the life, background, and claims to sainthood of each candidate, pointing out potential flaws, thus ensuring that only the truly saintly should be elevated. The formal position was abolished in 1983.
Humor helps us get through tough times and periods of stress, and helps make life enjoyable. Helen is a very funny person indeed! It goes very well to balance her serious side. I want to be on The Devil’s Advocate Committee. We’ll get them to revive the position!! 😎
I loved this article, Rosie! I really love Sr. Helen's sense of humor♥️