Long ago in February

One February, I went on vacation to New Orleans. I was teaching then in Cambridge, and two other teachers and I decided to take in the city. Another teacher had wanted to go, but her boyfriend had just surprised her with an engagement ring, so she felt she shouldn't go. (We recently reminesced about our old teaching days and she said she'd always regretted not going with us. She married and divorced that ring-bestowing trip spoiler.) We'd wanted to go for Mardi Gras, but couldn't get reservations until after that event, so we arrived in The Big Easy in time to see all the celebratory trash, and a few celebrants themselves, strewn in the streets and alley-ways. We stayed in the French Quarter at the Hotel Monteleone, and we had the time of our lives. Pat was an exchange teacher from England and she was bound and determined to experience every attraction that New Orleans had to offer. She was super-sociable and so had a network of friend contacts with people and places in New Orleans. So we had the "Letter of Introduction" to the trendy Playboy Club in town. Three nice young men met us and escorted us as their guests to the club, where they knew everybody, and to a Revue, a play where one of the guys was a cast member, though he wasn't then performing. The title was "Nobody Likes A Smartass," and it was a riot. That cast member, Dave, and I became quite good friends for the 5 days or so we were in town. But it all had to end! I think we 3 girls ate in every famous restaurant in the area, at Pat's insistence, no doubt. My favorite was The Court of the Four (or was it 3) Sisters. Pat had ordered frogs' legs, and gamely did her best to enjoy her dinner. I had ordered some kind of game hen, and it came flaming, and with live musical accompaniment--a gong, and maybe trumpets, I don't remember but it was exciting. One morning we had breakfast at the famed Brennan's, which Pat and Liz really enjoyed, but I couldn't find anything to order that didn't have eggs in it. We spent an evening at Al Hirt's Nightclub; he wasn't performing that night: I think we saw the young Checkmates, and they were very entertaining. We walked into Preservation Hall, where mostly older black musicians performed live for donations, and one afternoon we witnessed an elaborate Jazz Funeral procession right down the middle of the street Then, I don't know about now, you could drink on the streets, and at night everybody seemed to do so, carrying their drink glasses with them. You had to be careful where you stepped to avoid stepping on discarded glass. I was 24, maybe 25, at the time, the same age as the other 2 girls, but I was proofed at the clubs, even though the drinking age was 18. I thought I looked at least as sophisticated as they did, so felt a little embarrassed at having to prove my age. (Those good old days.) Pat was from England and loved to walk---we didn't mind, but within limits! One morning we took a streetcar to the outskirts of town. (We saw The Streetcar Named Desire, but it was on display, not in service.) I followed whatever was scheduled for the day, willing to let somebody else make the plans. The only other riders were black women, who it turned out were traveling to their housecleaning jobs in the wealthier section of the city. We got off, near Lake Ponchartrain, and Liz and I proceeded to follow Pat on her walk. We walked, and walked , and walked, miles. Finally I asked what was our goal, and it turned out she wanted to circle the lake. I think that would have taken several days, so we persuaded, well, forced her to turn back, and we eventually got back to civilization. We cruised the Mississippi on the "Mark Twain" where the Cajun operator told us we were in danger from crocodiles and rocks in the river, but we thought he was just trying to make a rather boring trip interesting. Oddly enough, on that boat, Liz encountered her mother's neighbors, who had no idea Liz would be there. Liz lived in Cambridge at the time, and her mother lived in Greenwich. They were surprised to run into each other, joking that it was fortunate they hadn't been seen with a different partner. We went to several plantations, old churches, and to the capital, Baton Rouge, which seemed oddly deserted. The people in New Orleans were invariably friendly, and offered us all kinds of unsolicited advice. One woman stopped us to tell us that if we wanted genuine food,to eat in the cafeteria of whatever office building we were near at the time, so we did. The specialty of the day was red beans and rice cooked in New Orleans style. I don't remember anything about how the others reacted, but I regretted that meal, for sure. I remember when we flew into NYC , it was dark, and we were so exhausted and befogged, that we set our watches the wrong way. When we landed, we thought it was almost morning so decided to drive home instead of staying over. Pat had driven us in her car, which was a borrowed-in-this-country really really old clunker. The roads were snowy, slippery,and eerily deserted, but we finally made it home, back to Cambridge. There we discovered we had made the time mistake, and had driven through the dead of the snowy, slippery night. Back then, though, we didn't worry or care about that type of thing---as I said , "The good old days."