New Orleans

Jackson Square

I can't say that I'm much of a world traveller. Oh, to be sure, working with Greyhound has certainly kept me on the move, and I've done a few charters that have taken me away from Toronto and it's environs; Montreal, Quebec city, New York and Boston being the main places I've visited on those occasions. I have always been accompanied by a camera but, since I was working my main concern was, naturally, for the bus and for my people (Ah yes, my people. How cool it sounds to have people of one's own.). But what that really means is sometimes I don't have as much time for myself as I might like, time to tool around and take pictures. New York is a prime example. I never had enough time to take advantage of the city, of Manhattan, of the sights. Often I had to stay with the bus when I wasn't shuttling the people from one place to another, but I took pictures when I was able.

I've also visited other places on vacations. I've been to Mexico, this is a number of years ago now, to the Yucatan Peninsula and visited Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza and Uxmal, also to the Grand Canyon and a number of incredibly beautiful sites in that area (I'm big on gorges and canyons don't you know). More recently, and with my friend Sid who lives on the west coast, I've visited Vancouver, British Columbia, toured a number of places there, as well as, on another trip, visiting again Vancouver and then traveling to Victoria BC. On that occasion we took a side trip to Seattle, Washington. Very nice. I might do a little piece on those locations at a later date. I love the west coast, land of mountains and water and beautiful forests. But there is another place I visited with my friend Sid, a special place, and this is New Orleans, Louisiana. I have to say N'Awlinz is one of the special places in the United States, and a place that has it's own distinctly different feel. When we visited the city our accommodations were in the old French Quarter and from there we walked and walked, explored the sights and the sounds as they say, stood on the banks of the Mississippi River and watched the paddle boats sail by, enjoyed the food (like dirty rice and beans with cajun sausage, and po'boy sandwiches. My thanks to Sid for remembering their names), and took a gazillion photographs.

On the road, passing a southern mansion

Now if you want a musical score to accompany this little story then I don't think that you could do much better than listening to Dr John's album 'N'Awlinz, Dis Dat and Dudda', or 'Goin' Back to New Orleans'. I listened to those albums quite a bit during the months preceding the trip. Or you might like to listen to some Allen Toussaint, or any of the other wonderful music and musicians which came from that area. If you're into a little more of a rocky mood you could do a lot worse than to listen to a bit of early Little Feat as well, Sailin' Shoes, or Dixie Chicken (from which the Dixie Chicks derived their name).

For us traveling is a pictorial odyssey. Both of us love the taking of photographs, it's a way that we use to explore our surroundings, and we have similar tastes in what we photograph as well, we are enchanted by many of the same things; the scenery of course, but old buildings and machines, particularly the broken down or broken in variety, the severely aged or decayed ones (dilapidation as I like to call it), and those quirky things which have a certain humour about them, and places of the macabre, graves and stones and quiet. Being from Canada, and from Ontario, the trip really was an eye opener, as travel should be, taking me out of myself. The city and the sites were wondrously foreign. Staying and photographing in the French Quarter was magic. And you could feel the age of the place. And all right, we didn't just photograph, we might even have gotten a bit 'Burboned on Drunk Street', and it was a gas.



It should be said that we ventured away from the city as well. New Orleans was the point of arrival for us as well as the point of departure when we had to head for home. We stayed there a couple of days and then rented a car and headed out into the south, that is north, traveling to places like Vicksburg, Mobile, and getting as far as Tennessee on a special pilgrimage, which I'll explain later. From there we started heading back to where we started from, in a great loop. We travelled back along the gulf coast for a while and saw the incredible amount of damage which Katrina had caused: causeways collapsed, whole strips of buildings just decimated, trees torn up. It was humbling. Me, being the driver, did the driving. Isn't that the typical busman's holiday? And then we returned to New Orleans and rested up before we had to leave. But N'Awlinz, I'll tell you, has a special enchantment. A certain je ne sais quoi, pardon my french.

My home town is Niagara Falls, Ontario. I've always considered it the universal hometown because just about everyone has heard of it. There has always been a carnival side to Niagara Falls, you can see it in the major touristed areas that are located just up the embankment and not far from the Falls and park itself, the major tourist area is called Clifton Hill. I jokingly refer to it as the dark side of Niagara Falls. Well, Bourbon street has that carnival atmosphere but more so. There is the shine of the cheap beads, the iron railings, holiday masks, gaudy colours, music filtering through the air, and just underneath it all the slightly sweet smell of decay.

One of the places that we most wanted to visit in town was St. Louis Cemetery #1, one of the three catholic cemeteries that share that name. It's location borders on the housing project which was built over the site of the old 'Storyville' which was the prostitution district of New Orleans. The place is also in an area of town that it's inadvisable to travel alone in, or at night. While we were there we heard about another shooting taking place in another St. Louis Cemetery, #3 I think it was.



The cemetery itself is a stone city surrounded by high stone walls. I found it a quiet place for contemplation and a magical place for photographing. Many of the pathways are strewn with crushed sea shells that crunch underfoot when you walk between the rows of tombs. There is an amazing variety in the architecture of the structures; it is a place of grand mausoleums and humble rubble topped grave crypts, single graves as well as family crypts, and again some that appear like row housing for the dead, all built above ground because of the height of the water table. And within the cemetery the grave we searched out is the one which belongs to the famous 'Voodoo Queen' Marie Laveau, who is interred in the Glapion family crypt.



It takes a bit of wandering to find. We had no road map of the site so I can't remember whether we just stumbled upon it or whether we asked someone as to it's location, but once you find it it is unmistakable, with offerings placed in front of the entranceway (candles, flowers, cigarettes, alcohol, beads, food) and the XXX markings on the side (which I found out were drawn there by people asking Marie to grant them a wish).



I certainly wouldn't mind going back to New Orleans again. Maybe this time to take a ride on the Natchez, the paddle steamer, and check out more of the surrounding area, maybe this time head into Florida and check out some sites there. No, I wouldn't mind that at all.

Oh, I almost forgot that I was going to tell you about the pilgrimage. Sorry, sometimes the mind wanders. When we were planning this trip Sid and I made a list of things we might like to see in the area and then we tried to fit them into an itinerary, well like Vicksburg Mississippi and the Civil War museum (with the Union gunboat Cairo under it's awning) and a number of others. Just throwing out a possible name and destination I suggested Lynchburg Tennessee. And why? Well, if you can't guess or don't know it happens to be the location of the Jack Daniels distillery. We went, we saw, we bought the mugs, and the whiskey. And, not because I'm mean or anything I'll defer that discussion on that until a later time because that's another story.