He was taking to task the crews that are currently working Uptown, laying new gas lines. When they dig on the corners, they are breaking the classic tile letters that mark the streets of old New Orleans. He told me I should write about it.

To anyone, but particularly to Morris, this is more than a crime against aesthetics or history. It is a crime against New Orleans. And to prove his point, he sent me a photo of "our corner," where indeed, the letters were gone, and only freshly poured white concrete remained.

What caught me was the phrase: "Our corner."

Our corner?

I e-mailed him back. I asked him who he was and what he meant by "our corner."

He identified himself. Turns out, he lived across the street from me. That pain in the ass Ashley Morris was my neighbor!

And it turns out I loved this guy; he gave my kids candy (and me a cigar) on Halloween, and he often invited me over to drink fresh Abita beer from the kegerator he kept plugged in on his porch.

I never accepted the invitation. I don't know why, really, other than I am generally anti-social. And I had no idea who he was.

What I loved most about this neighbor of mine was that he, like me, still has not taken down his Christmas lights. Our street shines prettier than most. That's such a New Orleans thing, the not taking down Christmas lights.

So Morris, now identified, invited me over for a beer and a smoke. "When I get back to town," he wrote to me in an e-mail dated March 29. And this time, I accepted.

Thing is, Ashley never made it back to town. He died April 2 in a hotel room.

I don't know the cause, but he was huge and he lived too large and laughed too loud and that kind of behavior can kill a man.

He left three very young children. And he was married to a Big Easy Rollergirl so, at his funeral last Friday, her teammates paraded on their skates. "It looked like a fleet of black angels," his widow, Hana, told me.

The Hot 8 Brass Band played. There was a crowd. The nameless, faceless players on the New Orleans blogging underground. Amateur curmudgeons and armchair editorialists all. Minus one.