I have been to New Orleans (or N’awlins) twice, once in 1969 coming home from a baton competition in Houston, Texas and the second one in the mid 80s when I went with Myles to set up the opening of the World’s Fair in New Orleans. The first time, I was too young to explore much of the nightlife; however my parents made sure we saw Pat O’Brien’s, Court of Two Sisters and ate good gumbo and jambalaya. The second time, we were hosted by the World’s Fair committee and our schedule was dominated by the things that they wanted us to do. Myles wasn’t much of a partier anyway.
So this time, I planned to fully enjoy what New Orleans has to offer. I was going to be there for a week and for much of that time, son Jeremy was joining me. We were going to experience New Orleans as it had become. He had a long list of things he wanted to see and do, and we got most of them done.
The afternoon that he got in, we settled in and then immediately went downtown to the French Quarter. Our first stop was Pat O’Brien’s for hurricanes. Then, we started exploring to see what we could see. We checked out gift shops, some other bars, spots playing music and the comedy club. It was a Tuesday night and French Quarter was not jumping, but it was still active enough to know that we were in Party Town, USA.
We ate dinner at Rue Royal Antoine’s. It’s the little brother restaurant to the very famous, fancy and reservations required Antoine’s. The food is approximately the same, but a little less pricy and much more casual. It was an excellent meal for Jeremy, who had his first taste of true Creole cooking!
We wandered around the French Quarter and found this very recognizable landmark. It is the rear view of the Saint Louis Cathedral with a shadow that the locals call ‘The Touchdown Jesus” shadow. One of the oldest continuously operating churches in the country, it was last redone in 1850 and is a central part of the French Quarter. The next day, we got to see it from the front with all of its architectural details.
The next morning, we got up and headed to the Mardi Gras Museum, which is in the industrial park down along the Mississippi River. It was less of a museum than a production factory, but watching the way they make the floats — carving them from Styrofoam and then using Paper Mache or resin to finish them — was quite interesting. There were plenty of interesting former floats and pieces in the warehouse for great pictures.
We had a delicious brunch in the quarter at the Two Sisters. The Courtyard of Two Sisters is an iconic New Orleans restaurant with well-dressed servers and white linen tablecloth napkin service even for the brunch menu. The reason we went to the Garden District is because it’s a collection of homes that was built in the 1840’s. This district’s homes are well known for their wrought iron, interesting architecture, and landscaping. Instead of walking, we listened to a walking tour while driving, which was somewhat tricky because there were one-way streets in the walking tour that we couldn’t drive. Instead, we had to finagle a bit. But we got the history that we wanted to hear.
One of things we quickly figured out is that the normal directions of North, South, East, and West make no sense in New Orleans. For instance, you go to the East from downtown to get to the West Bank. Eventually, it does become the West Bank, but not from downtown. I spent so much time lost and not knowing where I was going. Multiple roads converge at once and you cannot tell on Google Maps or Waze which lane is the correct one for you. So, I ended up in the wrong lane a lot. The good news is we got in some sightseeing that we weren’t expecting. The bad news is everything took us more time than it should have.
The city manager in me will probably never leave my mind, and Jeremy has a background in Municipal Administration as well. One of the things we were quick to notice was how poorly the infrastructure was managed and how late the city seemed to be in taking care of obvious issues. The Super Bowl, which was going to invite millions of guests to the city, was less than a month away, and they were just fixing the streets in the French Quarter. It would be one of the most populated places for the football visitors. It also wouldn’t be long after the Super Bowl before the Mardi Gras would begin and again, millions of tourists would come to town. They were just getting around to taking care of the paving and curbing. Almost simultaneously, Jeremy and I looked at each other and said our Public Works directors would be fired if they waited this long to tackle important tasks like these. I understand why the infrastructure is a big issue in New Orleans. The water table is so high that it’s continually putting underneath pressure on concrete and asphalt, so it is easy to see why they have issues. But I don’t understand why they waited until the last minute to address a problem that was more than a year old.
The next morning, we went to visit the St. Louis Cemetery #1 and found the information there quite fascinating. For instance, a family buys an above- ground crypt and commonly cremates the bodies of the deceased and puts the ashes in the crypt. One crypt monument can have as many as 30 cremains and names on the monument. This keeps the bodies from floating up due to the high ground water table, and in days of old, reduced the potential for infection from decaying bodies that could be exposed due to flooding. The monuments included very simple structures, as well as huge, elaborate ones.
New Orleans is known for its jazz music, and we heard a little bit of jazz on the street as we wandered around the French Quarter. There were small combos playing outside on the sidewalk, and music coming from a number of different bars and venues. But we hadn’t heard what I would consider great jazz. Jeremy had done enough research to know that the place that was likely going have that was the Spotted Cat. Apparently, it is well known for its live entertainment. We crowded in there one night. I literally sat on the stool that I had brought, and Jeremy stood, because it was standing room only. However, we were rewarded with the sounds of a great jazz band.
Before I took Jeremy to the plane on his last day, we stopped at the Beauregard-Keyes House. We learned several things there that were previously unknown to me. For instance, they call it the French Quarter because it was settled by the French. Many of the customs and culture are French. However, due to the fires and floods of the city’s early days, what exists today was actually rebuilt by the Spanish during a short time when they occupied the city. Much of the architecture that we refer to as French is really Bastille Spanish. We were not supposed to take pictures of the house, but I snuck a couple in while the guide pretended not to see. The ornateness of the trims was beyond compare.
And, of course, no trip to New Orleans is complete without having Beignets from Cafe Du Bond. We also made the rest of the requisite trip to the French Market. I then reluctantly took Jeremy to the airport, having thoroughly enjoyed every minute of having my son for companionship; someone who was interested in the same things I was.
