By Tom Poland, A Southern Writer
TomPoland.net
New Orleans-bound, Georgia Dawgs Andy and I left Columbia, South Carolina, December 31 at 7:30 am Headed to the Sugar Bowl, our rooms waited at a Marriott in NOLA, that lady-like acronym for a city with its share of fame, and some will say filth.
I’d visited NOLA before. In 2000 I departed a cruise ship moored in the meandering Mississippi to wander city streets. I remember buying a book in a voodoo shop. The owner, a frantic woman, shouted, “Are you planning to kill someone?”
“Just doing some research.”
I recall too drinking a hurricane at Pat O’Brien’s.
Twenty-five years, a 10-hour drive, and 679 miles later, I checked into the Marriott on St. Joseph Street. I opened the drapes and there smoked the funnel of a cruise ship. “Been there, done that,” I thought.
New Year’s Eve in N’awlins … the year’s final and darkest darkness had set in as we made our way to Mother’s Restaurant on Poydras Street. In business since 1938, its long been famous as a hangout for Marines, the few and the proud. It has a down-home feeling and the Jambalaya and shrimp and oysters go down easy, as they should in the Big Easy.
Dinner done, we stepped into the night with its crowds of revelers. I stopped to photograph Mother’s Restaurant. As I crossed Poydras Street to catch up with Andy, a speeding car gave me reason to hustle across the intersection. Andy asked if I wanted to go to Bourbon Street.
“No, let’s go back to the hotel and watch the Penn State Boise State game.” The game bored me. Around 3:30 sirens woke me up. You expect that in cities. I went back to sleep.
The next morning when I turned my cell phone on, it blew up: “Are you okay?” I turned the TV on. Shock of shocks. In our fine, civilized era barbarians walk amongst us. Death comes with no warning.
Officials delayed the Sugar Bowl and folks scrambled to extend hotel rooms, book new flights … general bedlam ensued. Some Dawgs left for home. We stayed. Now we had a day to fill. Bowl games and an afternoon at Howlin’ Wolf whiled away the hours. Named after the legendary bluesman Chester Burnett, Howlin’ Wolf made for a good break. A guy sat next to me.
“Hey man, you look like Jimmy Carter.”
“Then I must look dead,” I replied.
Another night in the Big Easy, then . . .
Game day. We joined friends for lunch at the Bourbon House, where else but on Bourbon Street. A posh establishment with bourbon drinks that resemble milkshakes, it was near empty. To our left on Bourbon Street I watched armed soldiers and news media pass by.
We had hoped for a super time in the Superdome. The game did not go well. As we walked back to our room in that Louisiana night we passed barricaded streets, armored vehicles, and military men hoisting automatic weapons. Eerie with its blinking lights, a large drone silent as death hung over us, the eye in the sky that sees all. Friend or foe? Friend, we assumed.
Up at 6 the next morning we began the long drive back. We pass through legendary places . . . over massive Lake Pontchartrain, Montgomery—birthplace of the Civil rights movement, Tuskegee of airmen fame. A signpost jumps out at me, Selma. Later Auburn, the loveliest village on the plains, Opelika, a poetic name if ever, and West Point where my high school team won the state championship in football, skirting Moreland Georgia, home of Lewis Grizzard, and past the world’s busiest airport where a runway extends over I-285. We were making time.
Back home I did some thinking. We deplore drunk driving but name streets for alcoholic beverages. It’s 632.6 miles from Aiken’s Whiskey Road and Easy Street to NOLA’s Bourbon Street. All things considered, you’d think Uneasy Street crosses Bourbon Street and I’d say it does now.
One more thing. I just cannot think of New Orleans without hearing Arlo Guthrie sing that blue, blue train-fading song, City of New Orleans. Accompanying its hypnotic melody is this line, “Good morning, America, how are you?”
As I thought about my three nights in the Big Easy, as I thought about the victims and my blue mood, the answer was clear.
Not well I’d say. Not well at all.
Feature Photo: Mother’s restaurant where Marines love to eat.
