I crammed myself into the storage space behind the two seats of a Nissan 280ZX back when people still called them Datsuns. It was the summer of 1984. We were on our way from Grand Prairie, Texas to the World's Fair in New Orleans. The city was alive. I know it is not wise to say "Those were better times," but as far as The Big Easy goes, those were better times.
For what felt like forever, I sat on a pillow with my feet propped up on a cooler. I had no idea where we were going, or why we would take this particular roadtrip in this uncomfortable hunk of metal. But there I was, making my way to a city I would visit over and over for years to come.
The World's Fair to a 12 year old was a deluge of sights and sounds. Who knew at the time that it would be the last one in the United States? The collection of machines, inventions, displays was like walking into a giant grown-up science fair. The only thing missing was a live volcano.
I remember the glorious shrimp sandwich covered in lettuce and Louisiana hot sauce. I remember strolling along the boardwalk eyeballing the enormous river boat my mom and stepdad kept telling me we would ride tomorrow, which by the way, we did. I remember seeing a boy my age in a wheelchair at which point I started crying, because it seemed wrong and unjust. What I do not remember is the ride home. Maybe it's better that way.
I returned to New Orleans eight or nine years later with my wife and our best couple friends, Toby and Missy. Missy grew up there, so being with her was like having your own private expert tour guide. On the trip from Abilene, Toby's main goal was to find other cars with fuzzbusters and then tail them for miles at a hundred.
We arrived at Missy's parents' house after the obligatory flat tire stop only to get back in the car and make our way to a family run grocery store on the river. Missy greeted what must have been an old friend and said, "We want ten." The girl went in the back and soon returned with what looked like a steaming garbage bag. I did not find out what was in the bag until we got back home. What did we just retrieve on this strange trip? She threw the bag in the trunk with the confidence of a gangster, said, "Let's go," and off we went.
I started getting nervous as Missy's Nawlins accent was becoming more and more exaggerated. Although I had been to this city before, I felt I had somehow missed out on this particular, more local, more mysterious feeling that tourists never see.
We made it back to the house, grabbed the bag out of the trunk, and went inside. Missy strutted into the house and asked her dad, "Where's the newspaper?" He said something that slipped past me because all I heard was, "Did you get ten?" Aha! He's in on it too. He's complicit. And then he said, "Let's suck heads."
Creeping Jehosophat! What is going on?
And then it happened. They spread the newspapers out on the dining room table, opened the bag, and proceeded to pour out ten pounds of hot crawfish. Missy's mom came in with a pot of potatoes and corn on the cob. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I was no longer in danger. Then, with everything back in its right place, the meal began. We ate and ate and ate. I had never broken open a crawfish before, and I had certainly never sucked the cayenne water out of a crawfish's head. And while we did many other things on that trip, including hours of playing spades while listening to Neil Young Unplugged on MTV, that was the most memorable.
Jen and I returned to New Orleans in 1997, months after Thompson's funeral. We were numb. Nothing exists in the heart of 25 year olds that prepares you for the death of your firstborn son. We boarded the cruise ship, smoked cigars, and stared at the water for a week in silence. And that's all I have to say about that.
My dad and I went to the city together in 2000 for the opening of the National D-Day Museum. Since my grandfather landed on Omaha Beach in June of 1944, this was going to be something special.
We spent our days taking in all the displays, the short films, and memories. I was fascinated by the homefront section, remembering the stories my grandmother told me about Hershey bar rations and collecting bacon grease in coffee cans to hand in for making ammunition. Seriously. Everyone was a part of the war effort. It is no wonder that the museum continued to expand into the official World War II museum, especially considering that Eisenhower said we would not have won the war without New Orleans. That's where the Higgins Boat was made, right there on the Mississippi. And when I stood in that Higgins Boat in the front of the museum, I could almost hear the racing heartbeats of teenaged soldiers standing next to me just off the Normandy coast. It was like connecting with another world. That's New Orleans for you. Another world.
Especially after Katrina.
The last time I was there was in 2006, once again with Jen. It was two months and a year after the hurricane slammed into a city that would never be the same. We went there for the Voodoo Music Festival to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Joseph Arthur, and the Flaming Lips. But we rode home from that trip talking about the broken streets, and the houses each with a large spray-painted X on the front door, a grim sign of an abandoned dwelling. We actually walked down Esplanade Avenue from the French Quarter to the City Park for both days of the festival. Three or four miles of destroyed homes burned into our minds. Juxtaposed against the celebration of music, something felt slightly out of place.
But then it didn't. It suddenly made sense. This was the right time, the right place. Rock and roll has always been, and always will be, about a party. To remember the joy of being alive. To physically feel the drumbeat deep in your chest. To dance.
A wise king once said that there is a time to mourn, and a time to dance. After fourteen months of mourning in the city, it was a time to dance. After nine years of mourning for Jen and I, it was a time to dance.
It was also a time for another bag of crawfish.
Today I can still smell the smells associated with both the good and bad memories of New Orleans. Jen and I are talking about getting on Sunshine and riding down for a few days sometime in the near future. No definite plans just yet. But when we go, once again, it will be a time to dance.
