Here’s a pic taken a few years back at a motorcycle race in Houston at the Astrodome. Pictured are Eric Wilder, friend John Callaway, and a gorgeous model (I believe she is a Denver Bronchos cheerleader).

http://www.ericwilder.com

Other Inhabitants

My new pup Princess sees ghosts. I have no doubt that there are ghosts in the house. Marilyn and I have both seen the evidence. A few nights ago, Marilyn heard a loud crash. When she investigated she found nothing.

Neither Marilyn nor I are afraid. Ghosts are rarely, if ever, harmful beings. I think they just subsist, alongside of the people that are presently alive.

The house that we live in was built in 1975 and I am aware of only three spirits that might inhabit it – Anne, my wife that died of lung cancer; my mother that died of lymphoma, and Randy, the man that Anne and I bought the house from that killed himself three days later. There could be easily be others.

I admit that I don’t understand the afterlife. I barely understand the present life! Still, my pup sees spirits. When she does, she barks and carries on. She’s just a baby but even she isn’t really afraid of the other inhabitants of our house.

http://www.ericwilder.com

Heroes

I'm watching the LSU - Ohio State championship football game. As I watch, I think of two things: the game is in the Superdome of New Orleans. My thoughts return to 2005, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Geraldo Rivera is reporting from outside the Superdome. The building resembles a giant sarcophagus, the gray people in the background little more than eerie wraiths all but devoid of life.

My second thought goes further back, to the fifties. When I was a boy, my family and I would listen to the LSU games on the radio, enraptured by the running of Billy Cannon. He always somehow found a way to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. Listenting to our scratchy old radio, I always felt that Billy would break a tackle, put his shoulder down and run for a touchdown. I was never disappointed.

Seeing the two grand teams playing tonight in the Superdome, I get the same feeling about the people of New Orleans.

Go Louisiana!!
http://www.ericwilder.com

Shops on Chartre Street, New Orleans

Marilyn and I visited New Orleans six months after Hurricane Katrina and parts of the visit are chronicled in my book Murder Etouffee. I came across this picture today while looking at some of the photo files on my computer. It was taken on a street in the French Quarter, Chartre Street I believe, although I’m not sure.

http://www.ericwilder.com