Blind, barefoot organist missed by neighbors

We haven’t seen Blind Francis in a long time. He was once organist at St. Henry’s Catholic Church nearby and walked past on Laurel Street or the sidewalk trying to detect obstacles with a thin white cane. Given the potholes in the street and the upheaved sections of sidewalk, that was quite a challenge.
Our late neighbor Ann, herself a itinerant Catholic, told us that during one of her infrequent trips to attend mass, she saw Francis feeling his way down St. Henry’s aisle with his cane. He was also barefooted. She jumped up to help him the blind man find his way to a seat, not realizing that Francis was tapping his way to his usual seat at the organ that he played regularly in his bare feet.
After Ann recovered from her embarrassment, she was able to laugh at herself and share the story with us.
Francis was a regular visitor at a house two blocks down where Kenny once lived with his wife, children and a collection of beautiful, exotic birds. During most days, Kenny’s birds spent their time in cages and on perches on his front porch, which gave the block an exotic touch of color that passersby always looked forward to.
Francis would join them on the porch as would David, another neighborhood character who befriended Francis and walked with him down the street to help navigate the potholes. We never heard much of David’s story, but he was weird even in a city where weird is so commonplace.
Francis has disappeared and we haven’t seen anyone who knew him to ask his whereabouts. Kenny and family including the birds were uprooted by Katrina and ended up in Texas where Kenny later died.
Rosemary says that she occasionally sees David now walking by himself down the street, alerted to his approach by his beautiful, melodic whistling that can be heard from afar when the vehicle traffic has slacked.