Spray-painted on plywood, the story documented the looting after Hurricane Katrina and the return of city residents.
“I am sleeping inside with a big dog, an ugly woman, two shotguns and a claw hammer” read the first entry posted on an antique rug store in Uptown.
A second entry followed: “Still here; Woman left. … Cooking a pot of dog gumbo.”
“Welcome back y’all,” a last entry concluded. “Grin and Bear it.”
The signs, a series of entries on planks of plywood, were quoted by news media documenting the ruins left by the storm and the looting.
Over the weekend, tourists and survivors, returning to check on their homes, stopped in front of the rug store, which is owned by Bob Rue, the signs’ author. Onlookers took pictures of the signs, proclaimed them a tourist site and enduring symbol of New Orleans’ struggle, survival and charm.
“I have become a destination like Mt. Rushmore,” Rue told a visitor Saturday.
Wearing a Hawaiian shirt covered in parrots, he also revealed something else: Although there is a claw hammer, there are no shotguns, and the woman was in Mississippi. His large poodle named Remi didn’t spend the storm here either. Nor did Rue, who endured it, he said, in an Uptown mansion.
In short, Rue admitted the story was a work of fiction. “I was an English major,” he said.
What is true, Rue said, is that dozens of looters filled the streets after the storm. So he took out his brush and black paint and wrote short words real big. And he did pack a .38 caliber handgun in case he had to make good on his promises.
He credits the signs with having protected his store, as well as more than a dozen shops he painted with “Looters will be shot” in his broad white strokes.
“No place where I put that up got looted,” he said proudly.
One person who pulled over to photograph the new tourist symbol was Richard Turkheimer, 52, a salesman who lives in the Warehouse District.
“Isn’t it great?” he said. “People still have their sense of humor, which is kind of nice.”
Turkheimer’s passenger, Dan McKnight, took a picture with his cell phone camera.
“Levity,” said McKnight, 46, a psychologist. “It lightens the place up, an indication that New Orleans is back to normal.”
Renee Byrd, visiting from Virginia, said the sign reminded her of how laughter can lighten a sad situation.
“It means to me that people haven’t given up,” she said.
Another woman named Renee, who recently moved from New Orleans to Mississippi, got out of her van to take a picture. She declined to give her full name. She looked at Rue, wondering if he was the signs’ author and hence the man who lived their fate.
“Is that you?” she asked Rue.
“It has been me for most of my life,” he answered mysteriously.
“So how’s the dog,” she asked, looking at Remi. “He’s not the gumbo, is he?”
“No,” Rue answered, giving his only direct response. “He’s Remi the Prince of Poodles.”
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ocasillas@tribune.com
