New Orleans Day 3
It’s right at eight o’clock in the morning and I am walking towards the ever coveted Starbucks. As I cross the street three guys, coming the other direction, are having an ongoing conversation. I catch the end of a sentence as one guy says to the other two, "...well I would say so since she slept with me after just ten minutes.”
I more than gladly pay for my Starbucks and some bread-based item from their storehouse of food. I eat and sip. On the way back I notice a building whose ornamentation consist of plaques, each with the face of a lion holding a large metal ring in its mouth. I have seen similar such items in Paris on the Seine river whose boats tie up to the rings. Only these on the building are on the second floor. A man with hair to his shoulders passes me; his hair both black and gray. Black on the lower half and solid gray the rest of the way up.
Joshua is up and alive. We head to Mother’s for a bite to eat. Mother’s is a New Orleans stable. It’s the first restaurant to open and provide food for the people who came to help after hurricane Katrina threw her temper-tantrum. The Po’Boy sandwich is reputed to have started here in the late 1920’s when the owners would collect the leftovers from the slicing of roast beef. Prepared them in a broth and ladled on bread and served them out the back door to the poor who had little to eat. We readily eat the locals’ cuisine. It feels good going down.
I tell Joshua its time to head to the French Quarter. He asks why and I explain to him “to bid the city good bye and to say thanks.” He finishes my sentence with “..for not killing us.”
I still marvel as the difference in architecture. The changes are dramatic, from the old to the new. A building here and there, originally built sharing the walls with their neighbors, now are isolated with scars showing where the former building was attached.
In the French Quarter there is a Street Player setting up in the middle of the street, tip cup out. Stores are opening here and there. We walk up one street and down the other, seeing the Quarter in its preparation stage; getting ready for what comes out in the night.
Time to head back to the hotel, and to the airport and home. This section of the city has given us a ride for the brief time we were here. I thank it and its people for the entertainment, the frivolity, the laughter, and the lessons.
G. Steven Nolte,
New Orleans, May, 2009
PS: Joshua, there were a few things I left out simply because I could not understand or remember why I wrote the note. Such as the entries: “Because I'm a bitch,” and at the Opera House “Cute Brunette - hi! Can I ask you a question,” and “Buy me beer.”
There also were the miscellaneous events I choose to leave out such walking past the Corn Cobb Fence hotel and the girls flashing from the balcony of the topless bars.
I more than gladly pay for my Starbucks and some bread-based item from their storehouse of food. I eat and sip. On the way back I notice a building whose ornamentation consist of plaques, each with the face of a lion holding a large metal ring in its mouth. I have seen similar such items in Paris on the Seine river whose boats tie up to the rings. Only these on the building are on the second floor. A man with hair to his shoulders passes me; his hair both black and gray. Black on the lower half and solid gray the rest of the way up.
Joshua is up and alive. We head to Mother’s for a bite to eat. Mother’s is a New Orleans stable. It’s the first restaurant to open and provide food for the people who came to help after hurricane Katrina threw her temper-tantrum. The Po’Boy sandwich is reputed to have started here in the late 1920’s when the owners would collect the leftovers from the slicing of roast beef. Prepared them in a broth and ladled on bread and served them out the back door to the poor who had little to eat. We readily eat the locals’ cuisine. It feels good going down.
I tell Joshua its time to head to the French Quarter. He asks why and I explain to him “to bid the city good bye and to say thanks.” He finishes my sentence with “..for not killing us.”
I still marvel as the difference in architecture. The changes are dramatic, from the old to the new. A building here and there, originally built sharing the walls with their neighbors, now are isolated with scars showing where the former building was attached.
In the French Quarter there is a Street Player setting up in the middle of the street, tip cup out. Stores are opening here and there. We walk up one street and down the other, seeing the Quarter in its preparation stage; getting ready for what comes out in the night.
Time to head back to the hotel, and to the airport and home. This section of the city has given us a ride for the brief time we were here. I thank it and its people for the entertainment, the frivolity, the laughter, and the lessons.
G. Steven Nolte,
New Orleans, May, 2009
PS: Joshua, there were a few things I left out simply because I could not understand or remember why I wrote the note. Such as the entries: “Because I'm a bitch,” and at the Opera House “Cute Brunette - hi! Can I ask you a question,” and “Buy me beer.”
There also were the miscellaneous events I choose to leave out such walking past the Corn Cobb Fence hotel and the girls flashing from the balcony of the topless bars.
posted by G. Steven Nolte at 11:03 PM
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