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| Rhoda was
born in 1947, and is a lifelong New Orleanian who attended lots of
schools through no fault of her own: kindergarten at Henry W. Allen,
then Holy Name of Jesus, Mercy Academy, Benjamin Franklin High School,
Neville High School (in Monroe, LA), Alcee Fortier High School, Washington
University (in St. Louis), Tulane University night school, and UNO.
She actually graduated from Fortier. |
Rhoda
Faust |
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She worked as a typist in a doctor's office, a
receptionist in a lawyer's office, a rental property manager, and as a dandelion
clipper in a "sweat shop" for a metal sculptor. For a year or two or maybe
a few months she worked as a hippie at the Love Shop in the French Quarter,
making leather sandals (tire strips on bottom optional), peace sign necklaces,
bracelets that spelled out "LOVE" in silver or gold rivets, and leather
weight belts for deep-sea divers that, come to think of it, weren't waterproof.
She somewhat came to her senses in 1970 when she
and two friends took over running the Maple Street Book Shop, which her
mother and aunt started in 1964. Because she went nuts over an excerpt she
read from A Confederacy of Dunces and to help Walker Percy get disentangled,
she got entangled for many months in 1979 in helping Thelma Toole get her
"genius son's" book published. She did volunteer work with Operation Mainstream
(the YMCA's adult literacy program) helping with their fund-raising book
fairs for several years. In 1993, she co-founded the grassroots group ERACE
that believes in Eracism ( . . . treating people of all colors with love
and respect).
These days she balances working at the Maple Street
Book Shop, doing Eracism stuff (including facilitating discussion meetings,
distributing Eracism bumper stickers, and doing presentations with a different-colored
Eracism person), visiting with friends at coffee houses, spending time with
family, fishing now and then (never enough), and walking almost daily in
Audubon Park. After lapsing from Catholicism for more than thirty years,
she now thankfully goes to mass several mornings a week at a nearby monastery
for Poor Clare nuns. She admits to watching TV (is addicted to "Law and
Order" and "Seinfeld"), but lies to people that she never watches it unless
she's doing paperwork at the same time. Her love life is a mystery, especially
to her.
She reads as often as possible. She is always happy to talk about books.
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