Strolling down memory lane, New Orleans style
This story ties in with the time in my life where briefly (for one season) – I was a ‘Carnie’
After that season ended (with us being arrested and then escaping justice – much like a non-violent Bonnie and Clyde of the transient set), I basically told my love (Tommie) that I was done being a ‘Carnie’. I didn’t want to live like that anymore. (and yes I promise to write about it someday, gang).
Cleveland was a really bad place economically to be back then – especially job-wise. There were no jobs – the economy was horrible. One of Tommie’s cousins suggested he had seen advertised jobs in the South (Houston) – almost begging Northerners to come take them and that they currently had a friend who lived in New Orleans we could stay with for a little while on our way to ‘greener pastures’ in Houston.
So we packed up cousin Mark’s van and we headed south. It was Tommie, myself, and his cousins Mark and Dale. The trip down was uneventful – for the most part – we partied all the way down. If you are a Yankee and you head down South it can be an eye-opening experience. From having grits served with every meal, to the entrenched southern drawl, to the kind of creepy, I think I am stuck in the movie ‘Deliverance’ feeling.
We landed in New Orleans around the end of spring/beginning of the summer. I had never been there before and when we got there I was absolutely amazed and fell in love instantly with the culture, the sights, the French Quarter - where it was pretty much a party every night. The first time we went to the French Quarter it was a weekend and from Friday until Sunday in the AM the streets were cordoned off to allow people to just ‘walk’ and drink and cavort and eat and dance and sing and you name it. The sights, the sounds, the music, the smells – it was like my senses were all on overload. Indeed. We met up with Mark’s friend who of course did not have enough room for all of us (which we should have been aware of, but being young planning is not a forte). So mainly we ended up living out of the van – not glamorous at all. We all scrambled for jobs – for me it was pretty easy, I found a job waitressing at a Shoney’s – I hated it – I had been a waitress up North too but this was different, the attitude of the other waitresses was just too much for me to take many a morning. And they didn’t like 'YANKEES' at all. I have to say I was in for a lot more of that once we got to Houston but not having my crystal ball handy I could not see that far ahead.
The guys had a harder time finding jobs. Mainly they got counter jobs as retail clerks. Tommie had no skill set other than running and operating games for a midway and although we were at one of the most famous places for ‘carnivale’ where after Mardi Gras the season started in earnest, working it’s way up North. I am sure in retrospect it made him sort of depressed. In fact, Tommie was depressed just about the entire time we were in New Orleans – he was pretty unbearable to live with.
Mainly I spent my days (from 6AM) mindlessly working; we were lucky to be near a KOA campground and I was able to get showers a couple times a week in between the campground and Darryl’s apartment. Every now and then we’d have enough money to stay in a hotel near the outskirts of New Orleans. I tried staying upbeat, at times, it got kind of rough.
I never tired of going to the French Quarter. I was the only one among us who spoke any French but the patois was very different, and then of course once you start mixing in the Cajuns, it’s a whole new ball game. I do remember a really tense moment once when we were camped by a beach and the Cajun residents thought we were trying to horn in on their crabbing territory. *MY* guys all started acting macho and puff-puff with their chests but then I realized rather quickly that these people with the accents meant business and I managed what must have been an acceptable apology. We were left alone after that, but I forced the guys to break camp because I seriously felt we were in a bit of danger. Yeah now there’s a laugh, here *I* am living in the Bayou with three guys in a van and the 'danger' I 'perceived' was from the Cajuns (I am sure some would say rightly so..).
The 'other' locals of the City of New Orleans were something else. The days were interesting whenever we found time to wander. I prowled the ‘Quarter’ to make it my own. All the little shops – Tommie and I loved going to ‘Le Petit Soldier’ - but there were other great places to discover as well, like the Garden District, Jackson Square, the paddle boats on the Mississippi. I got to know the area pretty well. The nights, though, the nights were completely different – the nights didn’t belong to anything but the night. I looked forward to the weekends especially the ones where we could afford to ‘party’ a little – there was nothing like it. We would start out Friday night and just wander the French Quarter, get drunk (sometimes on hurricanes), eat and then stumble back ‘home’ and sleep and start the whole thing again Saturday night. I saw things that I will never forget and the memories are burned like indelible ink on my psyche. The street performers, the jazz music, the food, the houses of debauchery (girlie shows, diva shows, drag shows, orgies on stage (seriously), etc.) – all in one convenient locale, all seen through an alcoholic glaze, all part of the fabric of this city. The nighttime life WAS basically ‘Sin City’ in blazing technicolour. The feelings all of this aroused in me ran pretty deep from fear and loathing, to horror, acceptance and finally, compassion. I will tell you that even though the place was teeming with tourists and that was the bread and butter for the businesses, the locals aren’t fond of ‘strangers’ yes they’ll take your money but it’s like (in a lot of ways) working in a carnivale – we’ll take you for every penny but we don’t much like you…
I think the most interesting place I stumbled across I found on my own, and that was the Voodoo museum – I had never been an initiate of anything even remotely resembling this type of spirituality. And I did not walk in there on purpose I just kind of wandered in. I was suddenly immersed in another world. The room was impossibly small (as are a lot of the shoppes in the French Quarter). There was a huge statue of the Virgin Mary, there were glass cases holding innumerable ‘trinkets’ and, I am sure, accoutrements of the practice. When I looked up, I was greeted by an imposing black woman – statuesque, striking, powerful. She didn’t glare at me but she measured me. And I think she recognized me as a fellow priestess. She was suddenly kind and softer and she new I was out of my element – literally as well as figuratively. She asked me if I missed home (I did not at that point, yet) then she asked me if I needed a love potion. I told her no. She began showing me things in the cases – it was then that I noticed the tarantula crawling across the case as well as a snake wrapped around one of the statues. I would normally have been afraid but something about her was regal, calming and I just stayed, looking around a little more and talking. When some tourists came in I left but she made me promise to come back. I did a week or so later and she then talked to me about having to practice an ‘underground’ religion (gee I could sure identify with that) – she mentioned that not even the congregants knew who the priests or the priestesses were because of the danger involved to those who administered the rites. It was a religion that seemed steeped in mysticism, symbolic portent and secrecy (again because it was not considered ‘fit’ or should I say ‘Christian’ enough for the main stream populace to feel comfortable in welcoming it’s activities). She kept insisting that I take a love potion, but I guess I must have felt my ‘love’ was safe enough to not need any added protection (of course that was proven wrong later)…who knows, perhaps she was trying to give me something to bring a different love into my life – I guess I will never know…
We left New Orleans after 6 months. I’d say they were tough times (and sometimes they were), but I was having too much fun – besides I’ve been in worse situations. All I know is that those memories and those feelings stay with me, lurking just under the surface at times and every now I then I get to take them out of my old trunk of a brain and reminisce.
I’d like to think it would take more that a hurricane to destroy that incredible city – a city of antiquity and mystery – a city where the people know how to party, how to eat, and, how to really celebrate a funeral in style. A city that lives on in my heart and mind and hopefully will rise from the depths of this disaster to be the ol’ New Orleans I loved.
After that season ended (with us being arrested and then escaping justice – much like a non-violent Bonnie and Clyde of the transient set), I basically told my love (Tommie) that I was done being a ‘Carnie’. I didn’t want to live like that anymore. (and yes I promise to write about it someday, gang).
Cleveland was a really bad place economically to be back then – especially job-wise. There were no jobs – the economy was horrible. One of Tommie’s cousins suggested he had seen advertised jobs in the South (Houston) – almost begging Northerners to come take them and that they currently had a friend who lived in New Orleans we could stay with for a little while on our way to ‘greener pastures’ in Houston.
So we packed up cousin Mark’s van and we headed south. It was Tommie, myself, and his cousins Mark and Dale. The trip down was uneventful – for the most part – we partied all the way down. If you are a Yankee and you head down South it can be an eye-opening experience. From having grits served with every meal, to the entrenched southern drawl, to the kind of creepy, I think I am stuck in the movie ‘Deliverance’ feeling.
We landed in New Orleans around the end of spring/beginning of the summer. I had never been there before and when we got there I was absolutely amazed and fell in love instantly with the culture, the sights, the French Quarter - where it was pretty much a party every night. The first time we went to the French Quarter it was a weekend and from Friday until Sunday in the AM the streets were cordoned off to allow people to just ‘walk’ and drink and cavort and eat and dance and sing and you name it. The sights, the sounds, the music, the smells – it was like my senses were all on overload. Indeed. We met up with Mark’s friend who of course did not have enough room for all of us (which we should have been aware of, but being young planning is not a forte). So mainly we ended up living out of the van – not glamorous at all. We all scrambled for jobs – for me it was pretty easy, I found a job waitressing at a Shoney’s – I hated it – I had been a waitress up North too but this was different, the attitude of the other waitresses was just too much for me to take many a morning. And they didn’t like 'YANKEES' at all. I have to say I was in for a lot more of that once we got to Houston but not having my crystal ball handy I could not see that far ahead.
The guys had a harder time finding jobs. Mainly they got counter jobs as retail clerks. Tommie had no skill set other than running and operating games for a midway and although we were at one of the most famous places for ‘carnivale’ where after Mardi Gras the season started in earnest, working it’s way up North. I am sure in retrospect it made him sort of depressed. In fact, Tommie was depressed just about the entire time we were in New Orleans – he was pretty unbearable to live with.
Mainly I spent my days (from 6AM) mindlessly working; we were lucky to be near a KOA campground and I was able to get showers a couple times a week in between the campground and Darryl’s apartment. Every now and then we’d have enough money to stay in a hotel near the outskirts of New Orleans. I tried staying upbeat, at times, it got kind of rough.
I never tired of going to the French Quarter. I was the only one among us who spoke any French but the patois was very different, and then of course once you start mixing in the Cajuns, it’s a whole new ball game. I do remember a really tense moment once when we were camped by a beach and the Cajun residents thought we were trying to horn in on their crabbing territory. *MY* guys all started acting macho and puff-puff with their chests but then I realized rather quickly that these people with the accents meant business and I managed what must have been an acceptable apology. We were left alone after that, but I forced the guys to break camp because I seriously felt we were in a bit of danger. Yeah now there’s a laugh, here *I* am living in the Bayou with three guys in a van and the 'danger' I 'perceived' was from the Cajuns (I am sure some would say rightly so..).
The 'other' locals of the City of New Orleans were something else. The days were interesting whenever we found time to wander. I prowled the ‘Quarter’ to make it my own. All the little shops – Tommie and I loved going to ‘Le Petit Soldier’ - but there were other great places to discover as well, like the Garden District, Jackson Square, the paddle boats on the Mississippi. I got to know the area pretty well. The nights, though, the nights were completely different – the nights didn’t belong to anything but the night. I looked forward to the weekends especially the ones where we could afford to ‘party’ a little – there was nothing like it. We would start out Friday night and just wander the French Quarter, get drunk (sometimes on hurricanes), eat and then stumble back ‘home’ and sleep and start the whole thing again Saturday night. I saw things that I will never forget and the memories are burned like indelible ink on my psyche. The street performers, the jazz music, the food, the houses of debauchery (girlie shows, diva shows, drag shows, orgies on stage (seriously), etc.) – all in one convenient locale, all seen through an alcoholic glaze, all part of the fabric of this city. The nighttime life WAS basically ‘Sin City’ in blazing technicolour. The feelings all of this aroused in me ran pretty deep from fear and loathing, to horror, acceptance and finally, compassion. I will tell you that even though the place was teeming with tourists and that was the bread and butter for the businesses, the locals aren’t fond of ‘strangers’ yes they’ll take your money but it’s like (in a lot of ways) working in a carnivale – we’ll take you for every penny but we don’t much like you…
I think the most interesting place I stumbled across I found on my own, and that was the Voodoo museum – I had never been an initiate of anything even remotely resembling this type of spirituality. And I did not walk in there on purpose I just kind of wandered in. I was suddenly immersed in another world. The room was impossibly small (as are a lot of the shoppes in the French Quarter). There was a huge statue of the Virgin Mary, there were glass cases holding innumerable ‘trinkets’ and, I am sure, accoutrements of the practice. When I looked up, I was greeted by an imposing black woman – statuesque, striking, powerful. She didn’t glare at me but she measured me. And I think she recognized me as a fellow priestess. She was suddenly kind and softer and she new I was out of my element – literally as well as figuratively. She asked me if I missed home (I did not at that point, yet) then she asked me if I needed a love potion. I told her no. She began showing me things in the cases – it was then that I noticed the tarantula crawling across the case as well as a snake wrapped around one of the statues. I would normally have been afraid but something about her was regal, calming and I just stayed, looking around a little more and talking. When some tourists came in I left but she made me promise to come back. I did a week or so later and she then talked to me about having to practice an ‘underground’ religion (gee I could sure identify with that) – she mentioned that not even the congregants knew who the priests or the priestesses were because of the danger involved to those who administered the rites. It was a religion that seemed steeped in mysticism, symbolic portent and secrecy (again because it was not considered ‘fit’ or should I say ‘Christian’ enough for the main stream populace to feel comfortable in welcoming it’s activities). She kept insisting that I take a love potion, but I guess I must have felt my ‘love’ was safe enough to not need any added protection (of course that was proven wrong later)…who knows, perhaps she was trying to give me something to bring a different love into my life – I guess I will never know…
We left New Orleans after 6 months. I’d say they were tough times (and sometimes they were), but I was having too much fun – besides I’ve been in worse situations. All I know is that those memories and those feelings stay with me, lurking just under the surface at times and every now I then I get to take them out of my old trunk of a brain and reminisce.
I’d like to think it would take more that a hurricane to destroy that incredible city – a city of antiquity and mystery – a city where the people know how to party, how to eat, and, how to really celebrate a funeral in style. A city that lives on in my heart and mind and hopefully will rise from the depths of this disaster to be the ol’ New Orleans I loved.
posted by Colette at 10:08 PM
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