Tag Archives: travel

Cooper versus Cruiser

This is the latest in a series of posts about a road trip to New Orleans that starts here.

—

Finally, I will shut up about my car, I promise. I got to the garage, met Tracy, who was a woman, and after I paid the bill she flagged down a guy to lead me to my car.

“Honey,” she called out to him, “Will ya’ll show this here Miss Anne where her PT Cruiser is?”

PT Cruiser!?

Thankfully the guy got it. “Ya’ll got a Mini Cooper, right? Ya’ll insulted she called it a PT Cruiser?” he laughed.

“I’ve never been so insulted!”

In my opinion, PT Cruisers are novelty cars for retired people who really want a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) but can’t admit it. The PT Cruiser allows them to drive a giant gas-guzzling vehicle and pretend they’re quirky and eccentric. Despite the fact that I was getting all-new spark plugs, I still affirm that the Mini is a finely-engineered vehicle. And mine was nine years old, after all.

—

I raced back to the B&B, parked the car in front, and parked myself in the courtyard under the Kumquat tree with a book and a glass of wine. Molly texted to ask if I wanted them to come join me. “no enjoy yourselves and take your time.” If there was something called a “sub-text,” I would have typed, “No! Stay away! I need to be alone!”

This is how you know if you’re an introvert or an extrovert. It’s not about whether you like people or parties or crowds, or have a lot of friends. It’s about what you do to recharge when you’re drained. I’m an introvert, because as much as I love my friends and parties and crowds, I just want to be alone when I’ve been through a stressful experience.

So I sat under the Kumquat tree for hours. I was reading Memoirs of a Geisha, and I hadn’t expected it to be so fascinating. How accurate was it, I wondered? I would never dream of asking my sister-in-law Akiko, who has a PhD. I think she would be horrified that I would think she knew anything about geishas.

—

Hours later, Lynn, Christine, and Molly strolled in and I was happy to see them.

“Why was I so stressed about a stupid car?” I wondered out loud.

“Because you didn’t know if you’d get here,” Christine said.

“You’re emotionally attached to it,” said Lynn. “I had a Mazda Miata convertible that was my baby. When we moved to Scotland I finally sold her because I could only drive her once a year. When they took her away I cried!”

“It was five hundred and fifty bucks!” Molly chimed in.

—

When I was in my 20s and 30s, an unplanned $550 expense would have been a disaster. I would have had to borrow money from my mother, or put it on a credit card. I would have had to cut back on some other essential item, like food or cigarettes or beer.

Slowly, slowly, I’ve worked my way out of debt and into financial safety. If I had worked for Wells Fargo this would have gone a lot faster, but I’ve always worked for charities. Like I’ve written before, you can work for a nonprofit and have a good life, if you’re very, very careful about your spending. Saving, even small amounts, is super important too, because the interest eventually piles on and one day you look at your balance and think, “Whoa! How did it get so big!” Of course it can go down, too, if you’re invested in the stock market, so don’t look at it when the market’s down, and whatever you do, don’t sell at the bottom.

Sorry, I go off on tangents, I know.

You may be wondering if New Orleans is an expensive destination, and I think the answer is no, if you can find reasonably-priced accommodation. They’re still rebuilding since Hurricane Katrina, so there’s a housing shortage. Plan way ahead, especially if you’re going during a festival. If you can gather a group of friends together and split the cost four ways, it’s very affordable. And more fun.

Car Talk

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This is the latest post in a series about a road trip to New Orleans that starts here.

—

If you love cemeteries like I do, you would love New Orleans. Bodies are buried in above-ground crypts so the … whatever it is that oozes from decomposing bodies doesn’t seep into the groundwater. Thanks to the heat, bodies decompose quickly and fresh ones can be added onto the pile in after only a year.

Lafayette Cemetery #1 is not to be confused with St. Louis Cemetery #1, where the voodoo queen Marie Laveau is buried. I visited that one my first time in New Orleans, and the two cemeteries look the same except that Lafayette is in the posh Garden District and St. Louis is in Treme, which as depicted in the hit HBO crime series.

The four of us split up and wandered around. I was wondering over this rubber duckie-themed tomb when my phone rang and an androgynous voice asked for “Miss Anne.”

“This here is Tracy,” s/he drawled, calling ya’ll bout your car. It’s lookin’ real bad …”

The line went dead. I hit redial. The connection wouldn’t work. I wandered around for another 20 minutes, clutching my phone and willing it to ring.

When it finally did, Tracy laid it on me: “It needs all new spark plugs,” s/he said.

“How much?” I asked.

“A’m sorrah Miss Anne, but I hate to tell ya it’s gonna be ….” Click.

Lynn, trying to be helpful, said, “That’s what I thought all along! Spark plugs—and now you know that your car has spark plugs!”

I don’t remember what I said but it wasn’t nice. She went silent. By then we had “done” the cemetery and re-joined a walking tour of the Garden District, featuring the houses of Nicholas Cage and Sandra Bullock. It was hot. The phone kept ringing then going dead. For an hour.

Finally, Tracy got through. “What?” I yelled. “I can’t hear you!” Other members of the tour were giving me dirty looks. I finally got that it was going to cost me $800. Since my worst case scenario had been that the car would be a total loss, this was actually a bit of a relief, but still not a welcome amount of money to have to lay out on vacation. Or anytime.

“It’ll take fahv days to get the parts from the dealership in Baton Rouge,” Tracy informed me.

“Five days! But I have to be in Minnesota on Wednesday!” I moaned.

“Unless ya’ll want to use generic parts, Miss Anne” s/he said.

“Of course I do!” I exclaimed.

“Then it’ll cost ya’ll $550.” Now I felt like I was getting off easy. It’s all relative.

—

After the walking tour we sought refuge from the heat in Starbucks. I apologized to Lynn, and she accepted. No drama. I don’t know what she would say, but I wasn’t surprised that in 11 days spending 24 hours together, there wouldn’t be some disagreement.

We caught the Hop On Hop Off bus again and got off at the restaurant recommended by the guide. I always figure these are the restaurants owned by the guide’s brother in law, but so what? It was really good. In no time Tracy called again to say my car was ready, and I left my pals standing on a street corner in the blazing sun to wait for the bus while I hailed a cab.

The cabbie’s English was not good, but that didn’t stop him from telling me that Tracy’s garage was “too many crooks, and too much expensive.” He informed me that I should have asked him where to take my car. Right. If I could have gone back in time … I changed the subject.

“Where are you from?”

“Palestine,” he replied.

“I was in the Palestinian territories last year.”

He stared at me in the rear-view window.

“You are a Jewish!” he said.

“Ye…sss.” Was he going to take me to a remote spot in Treme, stab me, and dump my body in St. Louis Cemetery #1?

But instead he exclaimed, “We cousins! You, me … Jew, Arab … we must try to get along!”

Big Talkers, Long Talkers

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This is the latest post in a series about a road trip to New Orleans that starts here.

—

I mentioned in a previous post that the owner of our B&B, Nancy, displayed photos of Donald Trump on her wall. There was also a picture of her with Bill and Hillary Clinton. As you walked down the hall toward our room, there it was on the left, and the Trump photos were on the right, appropriately enough. But there were about six photos of Trump vs. one of the Clintons.

I knew from stalking her online that Nancy had been the executive producer of Trump’s show, The Celebrity Apprentice, before moving to New Orleans and opening a B&B.

To make you travel lovers drool, she also produced The Amazing Race, in which pairs of contestants complete challenges in exotic locations, and she traveled around the world four times.

Nancy now had a darling six-year-old daughter who flitted around the B&B and they lived above us in their own snug quarters.

Running a B&B wouldn’t be for me. The first time some guest asked for vegan Andouille, I’d put up the For Sale sign. But Nancy was endlessly patient and sincere. She grew up in the south and went to graduate school at nearby Tulane. She loves New Orleans and seemed to truly enjoy helping other people explore the city. Maybe she didn’t get demanding guests. Maybe if she did, they were nothing compared with working for Donald Trump. Her time on the show would have been a great informal apprenticeship for running a service business.

The photos didn’t bother me; I thought they were weirdly amusing, but they bothered Molly, who is a Bernie Sanders fan.

“How can she have pictures of Donald Trump on her wall?! She’s so sweet! He’s a misogynist! He’s a racist! He’s a smug, arrogant asshole!”

So I asked Nancy, “We’re curious to know what Donald Trump is like. Is he the same now as when you were working with him?”

Nancy seemed to consider her words carefully. “He’s a very good businessman.” We waited for the rest, and we got it, but I won’t quote her. She only used one word, but that said it all.

“She must get asked all the time,” I said to Molly after Nancy left us to help another guest.

“Leave it to you to ask!” Molly replied, laughing at me.

I get this all the time. In my job review a few months ago I was faulted for being “too direct.” I really must practice hinting more, instead of just saying what I’m thinking.

—

Nancy had a guy working for her named Johnny. He cleaned, baked, fixed things, and most of all, talked. He was the southern version of our friend David at the Old Chicago Inn. Johnny was one of the reasons it took us so long to get going in the morning. He would plunk himself down in a chair near the four of us and talk. And talk and talk and talk. He talked about his previous jobs, being in the marines, and the secrets of making kumquat marmalade.

People who play wind instruments like the flute do something called circular breathing which allows them to play without interrupting the music to inhale. I think long talkers do something similar so there’s never a pause where you could interject, “I’m sorry, but we really must leave now.” The good thing about one-way talkers is that—usually—they know they talk too much. You can be direct with them and they don’t take it personally.

“We have to leave now, Johnny,” I would say.

“Ha, ha, ha! Ah know ah talk a lot. Ya’ll have a wonderful day now.”

—

We wandered for an hour trying to find the stop for the Hop On Hop Off bus, which had been rerouted due to the festival. We finally caught sight of one of their familiar red double-decker buses and rode it to Lafayette Cemetery Number 1, which is where I got the call about my car.

Gators and Haints

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This is the latest post in a series about a road trip to New Orleans that starts here.

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As I wrote in the last post, I had been to New Orleans before and toured a plantation, something my traveling companions didn’t want to do this time. Another thing we didn’t do but which I would highly recommend is an alligator boat tour.

If we had alligators in Minnesota, and if we had alligator boat tours, you would be required to sign a legal waiver, watch a 15-minute safety video before the boat left the dock, and wear alligator-proof helmets and vests.

Not so in Louisiana. About 40 of us tourists, many of whom were very obese, crowded onto a pontoon boat and headed into the swamp with our Cajun guide. He joked about how you should never wear white if you went canoeing in the bayou, because an alligator’s favorite food is egrets, and egrets are white. Half of us were wearing white.

To demonstrate the “alligators like white” principle, he pulled out a bag of giant marshmallows and scattered them onto the surface of the water. We were quickly surrounded by alligators, some of which were nine or 10 feet long. Then the Cajun pulled out a bucket of chicken parts. He extended a rickety plank out over the water, then knelt and held a chicken leg over the water. It was kind of like feeding a goat in a kiddie zoo, except here you could get your arm ripped off. Each time a gator launched itself out of the water and grabbed a hunk of chicken, the Cajun would yell, “Whoa! Whoo daddy! Whoo mama!” and jump back, causing the boat to rock precipitously. This went on for a couple hours.

Now, some people would get bored with this but I found plenty to keep me interested. The other tourists, the Spanish moss, a little abandoned cemetery in the middle of nowhere, and what looked like a hunting shack. The highlight was when we got to pass around a baby alligator.

No one wanted to go this time around in New Orleans. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the part about the boat rocking.

—

Each morning we would amble over toward the French Quarter via the wonderfully-named streets of the Marigney: Burgundy, Esplanade, Elysian Fields, Spain, Dauphine, Chartes, Mandeville, St. Roch, and of course, Music Street.

Here’s a suggested philosophy for life. “Dream Big as Fuck!”–on garbage can?

I could walk around New Orleans all day and just look at houses.

Some of the porch ceilings are painted light blue, which I took to represent the sky. However I later learned from the New Orleans Gambit newspaper that this color is called “haint blue” and it’s meant to keep out “haints,” or evil spirits.

“It was believed that haints could not cross over water and painting these entrances to resemble water was a way to trick them. This folklore can be attributed to the Gullah, a group of African-Americans, originally from rice-growing regions of West Africa.”

—

I like to take the Hop On Hop Off Bus in a new city if it’s available. It’s a good way to get oriented, and especially if the weather is clear and there’s a space on the top deck, it’s a nice respite from walking and crowds. Then, as the name implies, you can hop on and off to see various sights.

We hopped off in the Garden District to take a walking tour. The bus stopped at a gas station that had The Filthiest Bathroom I’ve ever had the displeasure of using. Nonetheless, I always feel obliged to buy something when I use a gas station bathroom, so I grabbed a bottle of water and stood in the non-line of people waiting to pay. An impeccably-dressed man was next to me, and when I said “Have a nice day,” to the cashier he looked at me for the longest time, trying to figure out what I’d said. Then he said something to me in such a southern drawl that I couldn’t understand him. We laughed and smiled—the universal language—even when you’re supposedly speaking the same language.

Creole, Cajun, Casserole

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This continues a series of posts about a road trip to New Orleans that starts here.

—

We had the same conversation every morning:

“What do you want to do today?”

“I dunno. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t care. I’m up for anything.”

“Okay then, let’s go!”

I had been to the city before. One of the most memorable things I had done was a tour of a Creole plantation called Laura. It was about what you’d expect: a wide lawn, big house, antiques, and vignettes of how people lived 150 years ago. The house was a different style from Tara, the plantation you might recall from Gone with the Wind:

This is actually a photo of Oak Alley, another plantation near New Orleans on which Tara was based. I think. Don’t quote me on that. Anyway, it’s built in the English style, symmetrical and staid. Built to impress.

By contrast, here is Laura:

Very French, don’t you think? Because that’s partly what Creoles are—a people of French or Spanish descent, sometimes with Afro-Caribbean or Native American mixed in. They speak Creole, cook Creole, and make Creole music.

I was enjoying the tour of the plantation. Then we stepped out back to the slave quarters and it was like everything turned from brilliant color to grey. We “toured” a restored slave cabin, but only two or three of us could fit inside at a time. Meant for a family, it was about half the size of a boxcar, made of rough-hewn wood and sparsely furnished. Next we gathered outside so the guide could talk to us all at once, and that’s when I happened to turn and notice this behind me:

You don’t need to read French to know this is a bill of sale for people. My eyes welled with tears. I’m teary right now. The poor woman at the end of the list is a “lunatique.” What did that mean? Was she schizophrenic? Autistic? Rebelious maybe? Would someone have bought her because she was cheap? For what purpose? Ugh. Double ugh.

—

I passed around the brochure about the tour and told Lynn, Molly, and Christine about it. No one wanted to go. Maybe I should have left out the part about the lunatique.

When I was younger I would have pressed and wheedled until I guilted everyone into going, because I thought it was an important, historically significant tour.

But I got it. Lynn and I had spent half a day in the civil rights museum learning about slavery and lynchings and Jim Crow. Molly is a head start teacher whose kids live in trailer parks and whose parents are in jail or on drugs. Christine works for Oxfam, which aids people in disasters and wars. I got it. We didn’t need to be “sensitized.” And we were on vacation!

—

You may be wondering, “What’s a Cajun?” since I wrote about Creoles above. Cajuns are descendants of Acadians, who lived in eastern Canada and the Northeast U.S. When the British took over this region, the Acadians, who are French and Roman Catholic, refused to sign an oath of loyalty to the crown. They wound up in Louisiana, either voluntarily or forcefully exiled, and that was a much better fit for them. As with the Creoles, the Cajuns have their own food, music, and language.

So there’s this theme in Louisiana of cultures coming together—French, English, and Spanish; African, Caribbean, and American Indian. It seems like they mostly got along, although that may be because they stuck to their own territories. In New Orleans, for instance, Canal Street marks the boundary between the old English and French parts of town.

—

Back at the B&B, we had our own little cultural casserole. The English couple avoided the Germans, who were sour faced but friendly in their serious German way to the Dutch pair. The French couple seemed anxious about everything while the Scotts and Canadians were outgoing. I had two free bus tour tickets and offered them to the group. The Germans recoiled as if I were trying to hand them a rotting fish, while the Dutch couple eagerly grabbed them.

In New Orleans

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This continues a series of posts about a road trip to New Orleans that starts here.

—

And so we spent five days in New Orleans, and it was pretty much as fun and relaxing as I had expected. Different places have different vibes. You can’t explain why, they just do. New Orleans and Los Angeles feel similar to me—like “anything goes, no judging.” Within limits, of course. There’s plenty of crime in New Orleans, and my friend who lives there has a bar near his house that’s a noisy nuisance.

Did it feel relaxed because I was on vacation? No, that’s not it. I’ve vacationed in Berlin and Dubai, in Edinburgh, Scotland and Scottsdale, Arizona. I had some relaxed moments in those places, but they didn’t feel inherently relaxed.

Was it because the car had been towed and was now in a shop? Maybe. The most memorable part of that was that the tow driver’s name was Earl, and Lynn and Christine thought that was hilarious. I guess if you think about it, coming from England, no one there would name their kid Earl—you either are an Earl or you’re not—but you wouldn’t be named Earl. It would be like if I had named Vince Vice President.

—

I had chosen the dates for New Orleans to coincide with French Quarter Festival. FQF is smaller than Mardi Gras and more musically encompassing than Jazz Festival. There were concerts featuring blues, rock, soul, and all sorts of jazz, all performed by Louisiana musicians.

My favorite afternoon was when we were lucky enough to get a table on one of the rickety-looking balconies overlooking Bourbon Street. Here is Molly demonstrating that we’re on a balcony:

When we ordered beers, the server asked if we wanted large, medium, or small. That was an odd question; I’d never been asked that before. I figured a medium would be the safe choice.

Now, I don’t allow my photo be taken in potentially-compromising situations. But there are plenty of people who do, so here is a photo I found on the Internet of the “medium” beer, along with the “large,” which I think you’ll agree is an understatement.

We had all afternoon to sip our beers semi-responsibly, and we were lucky enough to be perched above a Dixieland jazz band which had attracted some energetic dancers of the Charleston. Here’s what the Charleston looks like. It’s athletic, exuberant, and just makes you feel happy.

—

We started each day slowly, which is how it should be when you’re on vacation. I was always the first up; I can’t help myself. Still, the freshly-made breakfast would already be waiting for me in dining room. It was different every day, and a labor of love. There would be a frittata, muffins or some sort of fruit bread, veggie or meat sausage, homemade marmalade, and of course, coffee. You could make toast or bagels, or instant grits or oatmeal. The fridge was stocked with milk and orange juice and yogurt.

I sat on the front porch and savored the morning quiet with my breakfast and a couple cups of coffee. There were the usual morning sights, like the trash men collecting the trash, parents walking their kids to school, cats skulking by the fence, and people commuting to work on bikes.

Back inside, my crew and the other guests slowly filtered out of their rooms. There were two women there from Vancouver, one of whom got up early to run despite how late they stayed out every night. She and I stretched together on the living room carpet a couple times and chatted. There are six guest rooms at the Ould Sweet Olive, so counting our suite which slept four, its capacity was 14. The rest of the guests were couples from England, Scotland, the Netherlands, and Germany.

Molly, Lynn, Christine, and I would sit in the front room for hours, chatting and drinking coffee, before we got our day underway. We talked about places we’d been, places we wanted to go, kids, pets, and—in hushed tones, politics—because our hostess had numerous photos of herself with Donald Trump on the walls.

Lake Eerie

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This continues a series of posts about a road trip to New Orleans that starts here.

—

We crossed the state line from Mississippi into Louisiana just as night fell. I had hoped and planned not to do any night driving, especially in the south, but it hadn’t worked out that way.

The car started making a subtle chunk-a-chunk-a-clunk-a noise so I got out my secret weapon—Abba. Yes, Abba. I have a friend who loves to compile CDs, and she volunteered to make a set for the road trip. Who was I to say no? She went above and beyond, and created a boxed set of seven, each with a play list, and two bonus CDs of classical and new age music.

I appointed Lynn the DJ of the car and away we sailed, singing along to Knowing Me, Knowing You.

I could no longer hear the noise—problem solved!

—

If you’re unfamiliar with New Orleans, here’s the lay of the land. The city is bordered on the south by the Mississippi River and on the north by Lake Ponchartrain (pronounced ponch’-a-train), which is the 11^th largest lake in North America. If you don’t count the Great Lakes, which are outliers, it’s the 6^th largest.

To get to New Orleans (pronounced nu or’-luns, by the way) from the north, you have to cross the world’s longest causeway, which is a bridge over a body of water. The Lake Ponchartrain Causeway is 24 miles long.

Ponchartrain is a salt lake. Supposedly there are sharks in it but I didn’t want to think about that. I also didn’t want to think about my mom’s friends who had crashed in the lake at night in their small plane and drowned because they’d lost their bearings. In the dark, you can’t see the horizon. There are no landmarks, no trees or lights to tell you how far you are from land or how far you’ve got to go. It was pure darkness on either side of the road, except for the one oil rig we saw off in the distance.

“Is that New Orleans?” I asked excitedly.

Lynn, as always, had the US map in her lap. “No, I think it could be Baton Rouge.”

We drove on and eventually it became apparent that the “city” was an oil refinery. We’ve got one south of St. Paul that everyone calls The Emerald City.

—

After a half hour of feeling like we were hurtling through outer space, we cleared the causeway and entered the crazy spaghetti-like New Orleans freeway system. Once again, I was flanked by semi trucks on both sides going 85 miles per hour.

“This is when the engine light turns red!” I joked—sort of.

“No! We’re so close!” Lynn said encouragingly.

And then we were there. New Orleans! I pulled up in front of the B&B and killed the engine. I would have her towed away tomorrow, but right then I just wanted a beer. Maybe three.

—

Our friend Christine and my cousin Molly had already arrived and they came out to greet us. “Welcome to New Orleans!” we all exclaimed, hugging and laughing and already feeling the relaxed vibe of the place.

My friend and former neighbor who lives in New Orleans had recommended the B&B, which was called the Ould Sweet Olive. It was lovely:

As is the case with old buildings that have been rehabbed for new purposes, the layout was a little weird. I had reserved the suite, and the entrance was through the bathroom. The shower had a glass door and the bathtub was in the middle of the room. There was no real door between the bathroom and the sleeping area, just these:

But hey, who cared? It was charming. We had arrived! The Ould Sweet Olive was in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood, which was quiet but just a few blocks from Frenchmen Street and the French Quarter where all the action was. There was a patio outside our suite with a fountain and a giant kumquat tree. There was beer and wine in a mini fridge for $1 a glass. Best of all, the weather was 70F and clear, compared with 30F and snowy in Minnesota.

Then and Now

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This continues a series of posts about a road trip to New Orleans that starts here.

—

We pulled out of Memphis and began our third 400-mile drive.

This was the most scenic part of the trip. The rolling hills continued, one long ascent followed by a long descent, followed by another and another and another. There were woods on both sides punctuated by blooming Magnolias and occasionally something that appeared to be bougainvillea blanketing a full-grown tree. That was spectacular. Most of the drive was through Mississippi, which does not have a motto. It does have a coat of arms which includes the phrase Virtute et Armis (by valor and arms).

And here I must correct what I wrote about Minnesota. “Land of 10,000 Lakes” is what’s on our license plates, but our official motto is L’étoile du Nord (Star of the North, or in Latin, “I long to see what is beyond.”)

That could explain a lot about me.

Once again, Lynn and I postulated about what could be wrong with the car.

“Maybe it’s overheated,” she said.

“But why?” I asked. “We’ve only driven 50 miles.”

—

I had driven many cars that were in much more alarming shape than this one. When Vince was a baby I had a Buick LeSabre that was so old it didn’t have seat belts. I would stick Vince in a banana box and put him on the back seat.

There was the 1964 Chrysler Imperial with push button gears on the dashboard. Now it’s a very cool collector’s car, but in 1978 it was just a “winter beater,” as we called cars that were expected to just barely get us through the winter.

There was the car whose driver’s side door had to be held shut by…my arm. There was one that never ran. Never even started. I bought it from a neighbor for $125. He pushed it down the alley into my backyard after assuring me that all it needed was a carburetor.

I went to a junkyard and bought a carburetor out of wrecked car for $50. My brother and his friend Hans came over to install it. The result was Hans running down the alley with his hair on fire, waving his arms trying to put it out. My brother tackled him and rolled him in the dirt before any serious harm was done beyond a temporary bald spot. I had to pay $75 to have the car towed to the same junkyard where I’d bought the carburetor.

So why was I so worried now?

—

But then a second, bigger engine light came on with a loud DING DING. I pulled off in the nearest town, Canton, Mississippi, and parked in front of a liquor store, where I called AAA while Lynn read the manual. I had forgotten there was a manual.

The AAA representative had such a heavy southern accent I was forced to admit, “I’m sorry, but I can’t understand what you’re saying.” She repeated herself slowly. “We can come and tow your car, and you’ll have to find a motel in Canton for the night.”

Just then a monster truck roared into the parking lot. An enormous black man got out and came storming toward us—Lynn literally leaned away from him as he loomed into her window, while I fumbled to lock the doors.

“Ya’ll okay?” he asked. “Ah didn’t mean ta scare ya! Ah seen yur car and it don’t look ya’ll from ‘round here and ah thought ya might need help.”

Lynn and I laughed with relief and assured him we were fine. When he was out of earshot, we analyzed our reaction and agreed we’d been scared because he was a huge, aggressive man and we were in a strange town, not because he was black.

Lynn read from the manual, “If the engine light is red, you should pull over immediately and call for help. If it’s orange, you may continue driving but have the car looked at your earliest opportunity.”

The lights were orange. Surely, another 200 miles couldn’t do any harm. On to New Orleans!

Jim Crow, Old and New

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This is the latest in a series of posts about a road trip from St. Paul to New Orleans that starts here.

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If you don’t learn something about yourself when you travel … well, that’s okay—I’m not going to sermonize—but I was pleased to learn something important about myself in Memphis.

—

In the morning, Lynn and I took a walk along the riverfront, which is beautiful:

We walked back to Beale Street, found a restaurant, and ordered breakfast. We were excited to try southern foods like grits and biscuits. We waited, and waited. You could say this restaurant put the “wait” in waitress. She kept coming by and giving us a dose of another southern treat—calling us “honey”, “sweetie”, and “darlin’” as in: “Your food’ll be up in just a minute, darlins’”

It seemed like half the morning passed away before we got our meals, then we wolfed them down and headed over to the National Civil Rights Museum.

It was difficult to find—there was no signage—but then we turned a corner and there it was, the former Lorraine Motel where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. I recognized it immediately, having seen it a hundred times in iconic photos.

And this was the beginning of learning something about myself, because I got so choked up I had to turn away so no one would see me in tears.

I have been to Holocaust museums in Washington, DC; Jerusalem, Berlin, Prague, Chicago, and elsewhere, and they’ve been tear-filled experiences too. But then, I’m Jewish. Were my tears only because the story was about my people? That fear—that I only felt empathy for my own kind—was laid to rest in Memphis.

I wiped my tears away but they welled up continually inside the museum, which was one long, sad horror show that traced the abuse of African Americans from slave days up through the assassination in 1968.

There was a large group of school children, mostly African American, going through with docents. I wondered what they felt seeing Africans in chains, the police dogs, the fire hoses? If it was my kid I would want to be on the tour to put my arm around him. There was the usual laughing and fooling around that any group of kids will exhibit, but I wondered if they would have trouble sleeping that night.

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I commented to Lynn, “A coworker of mine at Oxfam used to find every opportunity to mention, ‘the UK never had slavery’ in a superior tone.”

“We may not have had slaves in the country, but we certainly benefited and participated in the system,” Lynn replied as we read a display about how global the slave trade was.

And of course it didn’t end with the abolition of slavery. “Jim Crow” was the system in the southern United States from reconstruction up through the civil rights era in the 60s that kept “negros” in their place. Here are a few of the ridiculous laws from that time:

Really? Checkers!? Who knew checkers could subvert the social order?

Then we marched slowly through exhibits about bus boycotts, lunch counter protests, and strikes. Then there were the cross burnings, lynchings, and bombings by white racists; somewhat counterbalanced by the support of white and other allies (including Jews).

I watched a video about James Meredith, the first black student to be accepted to the University of Mississippi, in Oxford Mississippi. Of course he hadn’t mentioned his race in his application, and when he showed up to enroll all hell broke loose. After weeks of rioting by whites, which resulted in two deaths, he was reluctantly let in, and as Lynn read later, he did graduate and lived a normal life afterwards.

The museum was really well done. There was a second building that explored African American activism post 1968, but after three or four hours in the first building we had to leave.

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Last week Vince and I talked to a group about mass incarceration. One of the audience members referred to it as the New Jim Crow. I agree, although in my opinion it’s about poverty, addiction, mental health, and class as much as racism.

Viva, Viagra!

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This is the latest in a series of posts about a road trip from St. Paul to New Orleans that starts here.

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After recharging with burritos and bucket-sized ice teas, Lynn and I hit the road for the last leg of the drive from Chicago to Memphis.

We wanted to drive through Paducah, Kentucky. We liked the name. It would have been our homage to David, our innkeeper in Chicago, and we could have added a fifth state to our route that day. But even with a GPS and a map we couldn’t figure out how to get to it. For what seemed like hours—because it was hours—it looked like we were on the verge of crossing the state line into Tennessee and that Memphis would be right on the other side.

“There’s the sign!” said Lynn. “Tennessee—The Volunteer State?” Whatever does that mean?”

“I don’t know. Something to do with the Civil War?”

I tried to find out later why Tennessee is called the Volunteer State lost interest after 3,000 words about the conflicting stories about which war originated it. Suffice it to say it was some war with England or Mexico or the northern United States.

All 50 states have mottos. We had passed through five states so far. The slogans of Minnesota and Illinois are straightforward: Land of 10,000 Lakes and Land of Lincoln (Abe Lincoln was born in Illinois). Arkansas’, through which we had passed briefly, was Regnat Populus, which means “The People Rule.”

Missouri’s slogan is the strangest—it’s The Show Me State. The official explanation is that in 1899 a Missouri Congressman said:

“I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.”

I liked it better when I thought it might have something to do with voyeurism.

—

We checked in to the Holiday Inn in downtown Memphis, which I had chosen because it was two blocks from Beale Street and had $22 overnight parking. I checked the odometer—we’d driven 995 miles since leaving St. Paul.

Within 15 minutes we were out on Beale Street, which is supposedly where rock and roll was created. Or the blues, I can’t remember. Because Chicago also calls itself the Home of the Blues, and of course New Orleans’ claim to fame is jazz … so it’s hard to keep it all straight. If you’ve ever been to Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis or Division Street in Chicago on a Saturday night, that’s what Beale Street is like. Neon signs. Bars and more bars, with music pouring out of them and tipsy people wandering from one to the next, laughing.

Lynn and I got some drinks and sat on an outdoor patio, listening to the house band. This was the first of many moments when I would feel like I had been dropped into a giant, never-ending Viagra commercial. I said this—or shouted it—to Lynn and she gave me the blank look of someone who has never seen a prescription drug commercial. Because there are no prescription drug commercials in the UK. So to Lynn, and other readers who have a National Health Service instead of a Medical Industrial Complex, that link’s for you. Imagine seeing adverts like that 5-6 times during your favorite TV program.

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We’re everywhere, we post-WWII western baby boomers. Now that we’re beginning to retire in mass numbers you will see us at every festival, concert, and tourist attraction. Boomer men, in particular, have a thing about guitars, and being cool, and fancying themselves as musicians. Their standard gear is jeans and a white T-shirt with a plaid shirt over it, and either cowboy boots or sneakers. Fedoras are required at jazz venues.

I don’t mean to be critical. I’m a boomer myself, although at the tail end, so I’ve seen “my generation” surge along through the pipeline of history all my life. We get blamed for ruining the economy and we are said to be blazing a trail for “vital aging” for younger generations. Thank god there was no Viagra in 1946.

Breaking Free

Living Well, Despite what Life Throws at You

Tag Archives: travel

Cooper versus Cruiser

Car Talk

Big Talkers, Long Talkers

Gators and Haints

Creole, Cajun, Casserole

In New Orleans

Lake Eerie

Then and Now

Jim Crow, Old and New

Viva, Viagra!