Streetcar Sprints

In my family’s lore there is a scene starring me as a toddler. On a bright spring day, my father, in a button-down shirt and slacks, carried me in the crook of his elbow along majestic, oak-lined St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. My parents and I lived in the suburbs east of the city and rarely traveled to hoity-toity Uptown, so we planned to make the most of our day trip and take the streetcar to a restaurant that sold deep-fried seafood and potato salad. But something in the swaying, clanking streetcar scared me witless. I wailed like I’d dropped my ice cream cone, and nothing my parents could do would get me to ride that day.

About a year later, my grandmother, tall