Fall Break to the Big Easy

Walking in the French Quarter

During my university’s fall break this month, I spent a few days to head to New Orleans and take in the city. I’d never been there and was looking forward to exploring a new place. I connected with one of my good friends at the Louis Armstrong airport who flew down the day before to visit family. (Side note: I love the fact the airport is named after a musician!) We spent the next four days checking out the various sites & sounds of NOLA. I can definitely say that New Orleans is unlike any other city I’ve visited. It has its own unique brand of eclecticism. And I would definitely go there again!

Some observations:

• The history in this town has been preserved (despite the hurricane). I’m referring specifically to the French Quarter and the Garden District. When you walk into the Napoleon House for lunch and learn that this building was supposed to be a residence for Napoleon (he never made it here to use it) and it was built a couple hundred years ago (1797), you get a sense of the history here. So many places have razed their old buildings along the way, but New Orleans seems to have recognized that history is more than just something in a book.
• The names of places (and streets) are unlike anywhere else I’ve been. For instance, the Voo Doo Barbecue where you are asked, “To sauce or not to sauce? … It’s all good!” Also, the pronunciation of certain things is not what you might assume. Example: Callliope Street is pronounced “Calley-ope.” And this: Tchoupitoulas Street (pronounced chop-uh-tool-us).
• The “cities of the dead” (cemeteries) are a world all their own. We walked through Lafayette Cemetery in the Garden District. It is still an active cemetery in that we saw a few 2008 and 2009 burial dates. The odd thing was how a mausoleum that looked to be in pristine condition was right next to one that was falling apart. We saw that continually throughout the cemetery. Interesting side note: according to a tour guide we heard, it  takes about 50 years for a coffin and body to break down in the humid conditions of New Orleans. In fact, I read somewhere that the most famous cemeteries in the city (St. Louis #1 and #2) have had their real estate reused so many times that it is estimated over 100,000 souls were laid to rest on (above) that small patch of ground.
• The National World War II Museum was amazing and very moving. I think every American should go through it. New Orleans was the home of the Higgins boats (famous for landing on the beaches of France on D-Day), so it seems somewhat fitting that the museum is here.
• Other venues we visited/liked: Jackson Square in the French Quarter (with Cafe du Monde on the corner of St. Ann)
  

  St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square

  , the Moon Walk along the Mississippi, the Audubon Zoo, the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, Garden District Books (and the Garden District in general!), the Borders on St. Charles Avenue that used to be a funeral home, the Blue Plate Cafe, the streetcars along St. Charles Avenue and in the French Quarter, the Mardi Gras beads in the trees along St. Charles Avenue, and the music (of course!).

  

  Mississippi River - photo taken on the Moon Walk, French Quarter

   

  

  Streetcar in the French Quarter

• To get a flavor of the city and its people, I highly recommend the book 1 Dead in Attic: After Katrina by Chris Rose. Rose is a columnist for the Times-Picayune and details the city, its people, and the struggles and triumphs in its recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

Finally, I’ll close with a sign we saw near Magazine Street. It, too, captures part of the spirit of New Orleans. “You can’t buy happiness, but you can drink it!” Let the good times roll, indeed.

 

Apollo 11 – 40 Years Later

Apollo 11 Moon Landing - July 20, 1969. Image courtesy of LIFE archive via Google Images.

Apologies to anyone who has been checking here wondering when I’d ever post anything besides “quotes of the month.” I’ve been working like crazy teaching my first online class for summer school, and it has been a LOT of work. I’ve been on the computer. Just not blogging…

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing as it approaches on the calendar. Perhaps some of you heard this interesting piece on NPR about the video footage of the landing. (You will find video clips as well as an interesting story segment.) In addition, I took dinner out to my mother in her nursing home last night as I usually do once a week. While we were chatting, I began to search on the Kindle I gave her for Mother’s Day for a book to download. (She easily goes through one per week!) She likes history and biography, so I was searching through those categories when I stumbled across this title: Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home From the Moon by Buzz Aldrin (part of the Apollo 11 crew), and Ken Abraham. I asked her if that sounded good as it was very timely since the anniversary is coming up. She agreed and was anxious to read it. Then, she told me a story I’d heard several times over the years…

On the evening of July 20, 1969, my two 30-something parents and their baby daughter (me) were sitting in lawn chairs in the driveway of our house. My dad hooked up the television outside so they could actually look at the sky and the television coverage of the Eagle landing. I’m sure they had Walter Cronkite on as the scratchy black and white pictures were broadcast around the world. It’s hard to imagine what that was really like, how thrilling it must have been, for my parents and for everyone who was watching it. Mom and Dad then would say they lifted me up into the sky and pointed at the moon and told me, at my ripe old age of seven months, that there were men who had landed and were walking on the moon, and that this was an important day like no other in history.

Maybe I’m just getting old and sentimental, but I’ve always liked that image in my mind’s eye. I certainly don’t remember it in real time. But, now that my dad is gone, I’ve grown fonder of this “memory” each July when this historic moment is marked. I see my dad, with jet-black hair still, messing with the antenna on the TV (pre-remote control and pre-cable) to bring in the picture more clearly. And I see my mom, with me likely on her lap, watching wide-eyed at everything, as babies tend to do at that age. Despite all the turbulence often referenced when the 1960s are mentioned (Vietnam, assassinations, etc.), it must have seemed like an incredible moment of possibility. I love that I had parents who cared enough to share that moment with me.

 

Quote of the Moment – May 2009

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness…”  – Howard Zinn

 

Obama Inauguration

As many of my friends and family know, I was fortunate to attend the inauguration of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on January 20th this year. Thanks to my cousin, Jan, and her family, I had an invitation and a place to stay. Yes it was cold and there were two million other people to deal with, but it was definitely worth it.

On Saturday, January 17th, Jan and I visited the National Portrait Gallery to see an exhibit on Abraham Lincoln – One Life: The Mask of Lincoln. When we walked in, the newest acquisition was featured – the Shepard Fairey portrait of Barack Obama. It was very popular as you can imagine. The staff was very welcoming and allowed people to take pictures of it. So Jan and I had to do this (of course)! While there, we also viewed a really interesting exhibit – Women of Our Time: Twentieth-Century Photographs.

On Sunday afternoon, Jan and I attended the We Are One concert at the Lincoln Memorial. We actually ended up quite close, although having a clear view of the show was impossible. Interestingly, when we couldn’t see the jumbotron to the left of the memorial (as you looked at it), there were so many people with their digital cameras up in the air, we could see what was happening on their mini-screens. Although it was a cold day, we were actually fairly warm because of all the body heat. At times, the crowd was so packed (pre-show and during the early part) that you could literally quit trying to keep yourself upright because there was nowhere for you to fall (the bodies were that tight). Everyone was happy and in a good mood though. At one point before the concert started people climbed a tree near us and then someone handed them a life size cardboard cut-out of Barack Obama. The crowd cheered and cheered. When Barack fell out of the tree, a very audible “Ohhhhh,” was heard. Too funny!

I should also mention that from the moment we got off the metro and were routed toward the Mall for the concert, there were street vendors everywhere. We saw a few on Saturday, but this was extreme. They literally lined the sidewalks. Of course there were the T-shirts, hats, scarves, gloves, posters, key chains, etc. However, I was rather amused to see earrings that were Obama’s face. And, at one point, some guy yelled, “Get your Obama condoms!” Now that was a new one. As you can imagine, Inauguration Day had just as many, if not more, vendors. Everything had Obama’s picture on it – even metro and train tickets!

On January 20th, we left the house at 5:45 AM to travel to a VRE (Virginia Rail Express) station at Backlick Road. We met some of my cousin’s friends and fellow campaign workers there. We boarded the train about 7:15 AM and headed into the city to the L’Enfant station. We arrived about 7:50 AM. This was definitely the way to travel as our train was not crowded at all. A couple times during the journey we could see a metro train on a parallel track and its cars were absolutely packed. We heard on the local NPR station that morning that 100,000 people had been counted on the metro system by 6 AM. [Later that day we heard that 900,000 had used it by 6 PM.] Anyway, when we arrived, our group took a few photos and then we were on our ways to our respective inaugural zones.

We had tickets for the silver zone (Jan, her husband Chris, me, and two campaign friends – Todd, and Barb). [Photo above is courtesy of Todd.]

Inaugural and train tickets

As we were ready to cross Independence Avenue, the crowd was stopped for a small motorcade. As we waited, we happened to see David Axelrod -  Obama’s senior advisor – drive by. After about an hour we made it through security, which was lined up all along the edges of the Mall. We decided to stake our standing claim where we could see the Capitol and a jumbotron (see the yellow dot “we were here” in the photo below). It was very cold and the wind increasingly picked up as the morning moved along. It also felt colder because people weren’t as packed in as at the Sunday concert.

Again, everyone was HAPPY! The Marine band was playing and the big screens were running, showing various dignitaries driving up to the Capitol, walking through the building, and sitting on the dais. Occasionally a big wave of cheering or chanting (“Yes We Can! or O-BA-MA!”) would occur, rolling all along the Mall. The first time the crowd really reacted was when Senator Ted Kennedy was shown on screen. The crowd went wild again for Al and Tipper Gore, the Clintons, the Carters, the Bidens, and, of course, the Obama girls and their grandmother, Michelle Obama, and the President-Elect. Interestingly, when the screen showed Senator Joe Lieberman, who actively campaigned for John McCain and spoke at the Republican National Convention, the crowd booed. He was obviously not a favorite.

At that point, I wondered what the crowd would do when George Bush and Dick Cheney made their appearances. One of my group mates made the comment during the morning that Dick Cheney, appearing in a wheelchair because he threw his back out the day before, would look like “Old Mr. Potter” from the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. And HE DID! Actually, the jumbotron screens didn’t show much of Cheney. In fact people around me began to wonder if he would attend. It seemed he was wheeled in right before the ceremony began, perhaps by design. He and George W. didn’t really receive the massive boos I thought they might. I think this was because George W. was often showed with Obama on screen and nobody wanted to appear to be booing the new guy and, as I said, Cheney was hardly shown.

Lest my dear reader think it was a completely partisan crowd, it wasn’t. There were great cheers for Colin Powell and the senior Bushes, especially when Bill Clinton embraced George H.W. Bush. Maria Shriver and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also received a cheer.

When Joe Biden completed the oath, there was (of course) much cheering.All around me you heard lots of happy comments like, “At least Cheney’s gone now!” I have to admit that I, too, experienced a sense of relief at that.

When Barack Obama took the oath and the Chief Justice fumbled it, we weren’t exactly sure who made the mistake at the time. Because of the sound delay, you couldn’t be sure what happened (until you arrived home and saw the endless replays of it on TV). Once the oath was completed and the cannons were shooting and the “Ruffles and Flourishes”/”Hail to the Chief” was playing, the crowd was absolutely euphoric. The cheering was so loud and ebullient you could barely hear the cannons. [Video is courtesy of Todd - one of my silver group mates]

Other observations:

• Aretha Franklin was great. Only the Queen of Soul could wear that hat so well.
• There were sharp shooters all over. We were directly across from the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian), and we could easily see two on the roof. In fact, there were lots of security people in the crowd. Although you can’t see the big automatic rifle this federal agent was carrying, here is what greeted us at the L’Enfant station. [Photo below is courtesy of Todd.]
• When Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Gabriela Montero, and Anthony McGill were playing that wonderful piece by John Williams, there were hundreds of birds (gulls, I presume) soaring and riding the air currents over the reflecting pool in front of the Capitol. Their flight seemed very complementary to the music.
• The news outlets estimated that there were 1.8-2 million people on the Mall for the inauguration. The next morning we learned that not one arrest was made. Wow!

When the cermony was over it actually took us more time to leave than it did to arrive. That many people can move only so fast through the available street outlets. As we were slowly making our way off the Mall, we could still see “our” jumbotron and we were able to see the official goodbye from the Obamas and Bidens to the Bushes (as they boarded the Marine One helicopter to head for Andrews Air Force Base). We saw it take off (on screen) from behind the Capitol and soon it was flying over us. When that occurred a genuinely happy roar went up from the crowd. I think people were just so glad that this last eight years were officially done. Also, the crowd around me began to sing “Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, Hey, Hey, Hey – Good-bye.” I have to admit that was amusing. After I came home, I was reading the weekly Garrison Keillor column in our paper, and he also described this moment in much the same way.

It was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I’m very glad I was able to be there.

 

2008 Year in Review with photos

One of the sites I occasionally frequent had a year in review of news photos for 2008. Scroll down and you will see three separate links that span the year. Very interesting.

 

December 6th: DPP

For 16 years, the city of Lawrence has held a Christmas horse parade. This year there were over 90 entries. Although the wind was cold, it was a nice day for it. Of course, the last wagon holds the guest of honor, Santa Claus.

The parade begins with these Union soldiers presenting the colors. It seems appropriate to have these soldiers in Civil War uniforms on Massachusetts Street as this is the main street that Quantrill burned and raided prior to the outbreak of the war. Lots of history here…

In keeping with the theme, here are men dressed as the famous Buffalo Soldiers.

A covered wagon…

and the guest of honor.

 

Quote of the Moment – September 2008

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” -Mahatma Gandhi

 

New Semester

Classes started this week at the university where I work. The normal beginning of the semester frenzy is on around campus. I’m reminded how lucky I am to work in education. Those of us connected to this field get a chance to have a fresh start a couple times each year (not counting the normal January 1 chance we all encounter yearly).

This semester, I have a much larger online component to my on-ground class than I’ve ever had before. My class actually has a blog which I hope will really take off and grow with their various comments and topics. It’s called “Morgan 177 @ 1PM” as that’s when our class actually meets. Feel free to visit it and see what we’re up to. It’s really surprising when I think back to when I started my teaching career 15 years ago. We didn’t use the internet, have e-mail, etc. Now, so much of what we do is based in the online world. Times have certainly changed…

 

Oh the weather outside is frightful…

We are finishing up with a major ice storm here in the heartland of the country. I’ve had a relatively easy go of it where I live. The roads haven’t been too bad and I have power at my house. Everything else is encased in ice, which is actually quite beautiful despite its treacherous nature. So far, no major limbs have fallen in my yard. I know of others around the mid-west who have not been so fortunate.

Monday night, when the storm was coming on, I stopped at the grocery store on my way home. It was a packed house and busier than I’ve ever seen it. People were stocking up for a long haul. I got to thinking about the pioneers and people who lived in this area who didn’t have the modern conveniences of electricity, cell phones, microwave ovens, computers and the Internet. How did they survive? Or, did they really miss what they didn’t know about or what didn’t exist? I think we are probably major light-weights compared to the sturdy souls who endured winters around here in the past.

It brings to mind a very interesting book, The Children’s Blizzard, by David Laskin. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. Not only is it a history of the blizzard that hit the Plains on January 12, 1888, it’s also a history of how the national weather forecasting system was developed. Ted Kooser also has a book that serves as a nice companion to this history, The Blizzard Voices. If you have the time, grab a copy of one of these books, a quilt, and a mug of hot chocolate and treat yourself to an interesting seasonal read.

 

100 Milestone Documents in US History

I came across this web site today and found it quite interesting. It also seems to be a nice complement to the last post. It struck me that a class which focused on these 100 documents would be a fascinating angle to cover American History. Check out the link and see what you think!

http://www.ourdocuments.gov