New Orleans, day one

Lunch Tuesday, in New Orleans Garden District, the Irish Channel, at Parasols! What a great place...it's been here more than 50 years, and the original owners closed it a few years ago. Within three months, it had been bought and reopened, with the same menu: po boys and beer. The walls in the place are covered with paintings by local artists, and framed magazine/newspaper articles about the restaurant. We're here because my nephew-in-friend, Matt, told us this place is 'must eat'. We should have ordered ONE beef po boy, but we stuffed ourselves on one EACH! We'll never eat another po boy as good as this one. Sanity won when it came to a decision about the fries/cheese fries/gravy fries. We just looked at them...Hey Matt, THANKS!
 

Before lunch yesterday, we went to the Upper Ninth Ward, to see how much work has been done. Work on the streets has created a no-rules traffic pattern, and the renovation was patchworked. A few beautifully re-done houses, beside boarded/damaged houses. We were energized by the amount of work being done, and impressed with the come back. We were also depressed over the amount of work still to be done. More about the flood levels later... We drove up to the Lake P shore, to see a lighthouse now on the campus of University of NO and essentially abandoned. There are houses along the lake shore that look like museums. What a comment about show-boating.

We're parked in the Jude Travel Park of NO, on US 90, just east of town. As we eased from the bayous east of the city, we saw houses perched precariously on pilings that looked to be 2 stories tall. The thin strip of land, home of fishermen, slowly turned into terra firma, and then we were in the edge of the city. Nothing is normal, and at the same time, everything is normal. Many damaged and abandoned buildings, houses and shopping centers, cleared lots growing tall weeds, checkered between pockets of the same architecture that has been renovated. A shopping center might have 3 tenants (a grocery store, nail salon and cheap clothing store), and 3 or more empty spaces. Many houses and small business have tall fences and bars on the windows. Some might be decorative, but I think some is for real secutiry.

After lunch Tuesday, we needed to walk in the glorious sunshine, on this 'last day of the year', the shortest day of the year. It is a perfectly beautiful day. We walked past a woman sunning herself on her front stoop, the house apparently new. We stopped to speak, and Margeret B. Smith invited us in to see her collections and hear her story. The house had been flooded with more thana 6 feet of water, but was still mostly standing after the storm. Volunteers helped rebuild it, and she moved her collections back in. She was out of town when the hurricane arrived, but friends moved her collections to much higher ground for her. How they knew to do that, we'll never know. On the walls of the bright turquoise front room are her collections of Ebony/Essence magazines, comic books, and sports trading cards. In notebooks on a small table, there are collections of postage modern stamps. We visited with Margaret for a while, her sunny face smiling and proudly showing us her prized collections.

Afterwards, we headed for the French Quarter. A parking place can be had for $5, if you're willing to walk several blocks. We took a carriage tour, had a beer at the Crescent City Brewery, and walked a while. Tonight is the longest night of the year, and we had a feast planned, so we headed home.

Happy New Year! This is traditionally the beginning of the year, when the days begin to get longer. We celebrated with shrimp/crawfish gumbo, collards and turnip roots, baked cornbread and cheap red wine. We even strung the lights, in celebration of the darkness ending.