Auspicious February

Last night Mr. Beloved and I nearly missed the PBS American Experience focus on New Orleans due to a review I read in the NYT: "City of Feel-Good Music and Feel-Bad History" By NEIL GENZLINGER. I am relieved we gave it a chance since it was very enlightening and I KNOW more about NOLA than most folks.

It's very obvious to me that Mr. G just doesn't get IT. Last night I realized that most Americans don't and perhaps IT's a place ya just have to live in to get tho that wasn't a requirement for moi. My first real New Awlin's experience was when I was a sophomore in college. I'd made some friends from the Gulf Coast who were planning to drive down for the ruckus of Mardi Gras. I was game. We left the Thurs or Fri prior to Fat Tues... I think. Its funny... I don't even remember who I rode down there with... nothing about the drive or where we stayed. Maybe with someone's parents someplace in the suburbs that first night. I wore my first pair of pointy cowboy boots... they weren't premium, since I was on an art school budget. That was a mistake.

I remember painting faces and taking photos of Lucy and Brian playing their juice harps by the light of the street lamp on Jackson Square. I remember painting faces on Bourbon Street with a little wooden sign Brian had made saying "Face Paints While U Wait." I'd use one hand to prop a slightly tipsy person against a wall so I could paint their face and they would hold their drink in one hand and the paint water in the other. It was interesting watching how often they would mistake the paint water for their Hurricane as the night wore on. I had NO MONEY. I took 20 dollars with me and if I didn't get tips from the face painting I probably would have eaten saltines from the salad bar all weekend... and I certainly didn't have money for drinking. When one is completely sober in the Zeitgeist of New Orleans during Carnival it is a true circus. We went to the Cafe du Monde. I had my first cafe au lait and beinets. I ran into people I hadn't seen in years. I felt like I was in the place I needed to be maybe for the first time in my life.

That night I wound up crashing with Jeff and Adele (an Egyptian scientist with three masters degrees and workin on a Phd who was flippin pancakes at the waffle house because he didn't have a green card) Don't ask me how we found these guys in a city crammed with revelers since I'll never know. Cell phones weren't even on the horizon back then. I didn't have any friends in NOLA at the time and barely knew most of the the people I was traveling with... we were all studying poetry or science or social work or fine art at a southern university about 5 hours north of NOLA... like minded souls in a land of southern belles, jocks, rednecks and good ole boys. Fraternities and Sororities tried to run things in those days but we did a pretty good job of giving them a run for their money.

That night poet Jeff drove us to his friends' apt and parked in the parking garage. I think we were in a Colt or some other small hatchback of the late 70's vintage. His friends never came home. We tried to sleep in the Colt. My legs were cramping from the walking, the boots, maybe from growing out of my tight levi's, from drinking bourbon...maybe from all those reasons. (Bourbon always gave me leg cramps. I don't drink it today... every)

I was 19 years old, almost 20. Adele and Jeff were so sweet. Neither of them ever made a move on me though I had a slight crush on Jeff and Adele had a slight crush on me. Those were the days when bohemia was full of kindness and people were just sweet... (what happened?)

That car, though. It was a disaster on wheels. Early in the morning after Fat Tuesday many of us (MSU bohos) were crammed in the same car and passing over the Lake Ponchatrain Bridge. The car died. There are 7 or 9 people crammed in this COLT and it is shaking as semi s roll past us. I have to admit, it was a little scary. Just like in a sweet fable, some Jed Clampet-like family with an open truck stopped on the bridge and let us all cram into the back of their truck. We were in face paint and costume and must have been quite something to see. The most amazing thing is they used what they had: jumper cables!!! - to attach the two cars and tow Jeff's Colt to the other side of the bridge.

We poured out of the truck at some fast food joint on the other side of the bridge and everyone SOSed their connections from a payphone for help. I had one phone number with me - my mother's old college roomate and her family. They lived on that side of the lake. They had visited us when I was kid and gave us our first Siamese Cat, Pepper. I hadn't seen the Rusts since I was a kid. I called them out of the blue. They came to the rescue, picking up me with Jeff and Adele and towed Jeff's car to their home.

(At this point - its Wednesday - I've missed three days of classes back at old Moo U...) They let us shower (encouraged us, I'm sure!), fed us and put us up for the night. In the meantime, their daughter's boyfriend proceeded to repair the car. I think it may have cost 35 dollars in parts. I never knew if Jeff had the money to pay him or not. We took off on Thurs or Fri. I missed a week of classes but found my muse for many years to come during that auspicious week.

New Orleans showed me what was possible when one lives in a place where "do what thou wilt" is laizze faire. No one judges as long as you aren't hurtin anybody. The most memorable Mardi Gras costume I saw that year (1980) was a young man dressed as Peter Pan. He was struttin past St. Louis Square with nothin on but a pot hangin from his waist over his peter. On the back of the pan was scrawled in black marker "Peter Pan". He was wearing high tops and nothin else. It was a mild, sunny Mardi Gras that year.... or this guy woulda been way ahead of the season!

When I reorganize my office I'll hope I can come up with some images of that time. It was pure magic for me. A much better education than anything I would have learned in class that week.