Attraction to NOLA

Preface
I should have written this at the beginning of my first BLOG. All of a sudden I have an intense desire to write the stories that keep flying around my subconscious mind. I am not sure at this point why I have this need---but I do. So, please bear with me if I tend to ramble through time,
but after all that is why this is memoirs rather than autobiography.

Now to today's subject. I was a School Food Service Director for twenty five years in Owensboro, Ky. I was placed in a job which I had no formal training when I was 24 years old. I inherited a huge responsibility for providing food for about 7,000 children and a happy and meaningful career for about 100 employees. Most of my early years were on the job training provided by wonderful ladies who were for the most part old enough to be my grandmothers. It was to be the single most life changing opportunity of my life.

The first year that I was in my position the school board gave me the opportunity to attend my first ASFSA conference in New Orleans, La. Jim and I packed and drove to New Orleans. The conference was huge and I really didn't know anyone and knew even less of what to expect. I attended the meetings and Jim and I explored New Orleans, It was quite an adventure--our first time in a large city with a parking garage. New Orleans was an exotic place to a girl from Spottsville, KY. There were gourmet restaurants everywhere and foods we had never heard of like "dirty rice". The architecture was beautifully reminiscent of the Old South. I was in love with New Orleans.

About 15 years later I attended a second ASFSA annual conference. This time I attended the conference with about a dozen of my employees. This was a time that I had become very involved with the state association and knew who I was, what to do and more importantly what I wanted to share with "my girls' and my sister. We took a 12 passenger van and our husbands helped us load it to the gills, including a roof luggage carrier. We started our trek to New Orleans , looking like the Real McCoy's on their way to California. We had a wonderful trip and again , I couldn't get enough of New Orleans or the Cafe Du Mond's famous beignets.

I retired in 1997 and as my retirement gift, my friends and employees gave me an Amtrak trip to my favorite place--New Orleans. I planned the trip to coincide with the opening of school the first fall after my retirement. I would also celebrate my 50th birthday while I was there(I hadn't truly celebrated my birthday for 25 years, since it would always be the first week of school---my busiest time). A few days before we left, Jim had a wreck on his motorcycle and broke his collar bone. He was in quite a lot of pain, but the trip was scheduled. I loved the rocking and swaying of the train, but ever shift of the train produced more pain for him. Jim couldn't really enjoy the trip and New Orleans seemed to not be the magical city that I had known. Maybe it was because I had fantasized that it was much more than it could be or maybe the city had become something different.

Last week I returned to New Orleans---no longer for the magnetic appeal---but to visit one of my best friends. The day before my 60th birthday, my very good friend's (Toni Talbott) husband died. She immediately moved to New Orleans to live with her son and his family with her only grandchildren. I have learned that I can travel alone any where I want to go and actually enjoy it. So, I decided I needed to visit her and Mardi Gras week was the perfect time to check on my old love(New Orleans) and see how she was after Katrina. The 12 hour road trip turned into 14 hours as I sat on the Slidell bridge for two hours in virtual pitch darkness, except for an occasional car who would briefly turn on their lights. I arrived at4674 Venus Street,NOLA at 9:30 on Thursday the 19th as Mardi Gras was starting to wind up. On Friday, we worked our way to the French Quarter, while we could still find parking. We had a wonderful New Orleans breakfast and the world famous Cafe Du Monde beignets---yes they are still as good as I remembered and the coffee is still as blackish purple as the first cup in the early 70's. Jim assured the waiter the first time that he needed no milk in his coffee--what a mistake! We took a carriage ride through the French Quarter--the only way to see it. As the guide was trying to give us a history lesson, I was busy snapping pictures, and Toni was left to try to be interested and polite to the guide. The city was truly "glammed up" for Mardi Gras. There were purple, gold and green beads, ribbons, balloons, sequined decorations and masks everywhere. In my younger years I would have loved to spend the day and even a night in the middle of it all and people watch--but those days have alluded me now. While on the tour I learned something that made me want to hit the side of my head like the commercial ---Gee I could've had a V-8.
NOLA is the local acronym for New Orleans LA. I had thought all along it was a suburb or a community. Toni and I talked, laughed, cried,attended a parade, had breakfast at Brennans, Tyler Perry Madea movie and lunched at her favorite Chinese restaurant. She mentioned the name of the restaurant--Happiness Five and I remembered that it was the restaurant that I had celebrated my birthday number fifty--picked for the name--Happiness Five. What a lot has happened in those 11 and a half years. Toni's son graciously gave me a tour of the ravages and aftermath of Katrina. The sadness hung heavy in my heart. This year's Mardi Gras was the best since Katrina. You can take away material possession but not the human spirit.

I could have never imagined on that first visit that I would celebrate a 25 year career, a special birthday and return there and have lunch in the same restaurant with my very special friend.
NOLA is as special to me! The Lord truly does work in mysterious ways.