RUTHIE

New Orleans comforts people who live outside the box! One of those people who received that comfort was Ruthie. Ruthie was a small woman but she was really larger than life and life she lived....smoking, drinking and being one of the most famous character's of the Vieux Carre'. She had a constant smile but in an instant she could curse you straight to hell. She was never interested in reality, only her own created world with her feathered duck friends. Ruthie's youth name was "the duck girl" but I knew her as Ruthie "the duck lady". When she was young she would roller skate through the Quarter in some get-up....she was known to wear a bridal gown or evening wear...always near were the ducks. As she aged the skates rolled away and some of the evening wear but the ducks were her life. I think of all the smiles she gave to tourist and I would spy her going down the street only to engage a smile myself. Ruthie had her people and her ducks....and a life with a permanent smile! On a rainy day in September 2008 she was laid to rest... a perfect rainy day for a duck lover.

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." Dr. Seuss