Bourne's BIG Trip: Katrina Exhibit, Louisiana State Museum, Jazz Concert at Mint, Emril's Part 1

This blog post details the events that took place on January the 24th, which was a Tuesday, one day before my Dad's birthday:

As I turned the page of a hardback blue book that my old babysitter Lacy had gotten me for Christmas, the Mockingjay book, I both wanted to spit on it or dart my eyes down to the bottom of the page, to see what happened to the heroes of the book. I both loved it and hated it, loved it's thrill and action but hated the darkness of it and all the people dying. As I have stated before, I read the first one because many people, good honest people, recommended it. The first ended with a cliffhanger, and so I read the next one. But then it ended with an even larger cliffhanger, and so I needed to know how it ended, and then I was reading the next one on the day I am speaking about, instead of blogging. Well, that morning was not very interesting. Breakfast in the R.V., something like waffles for Rebecca or maybe even pancakes for me, but probably not. We took showers in that courtyard again, but I will not go over that because you've probably already read the last blog post, the three hour tour bus thing. Then, we got in the R.V., and drove to the Visitor's Center, to get a little head's up on what to do that day and where to start. Mom wanted to go to the Katrina Exhibit they had at a place in the Cathedral, and the State Museum looked interesting to us. There was a National Park at a mint, and we might go there in the day, and of course later in the night we would be having Dad's birthday dinner.

At the Center Mom and I walked in, and she came to a lady who was stiff in form, very skinny, very old, with hair like that of many women, but with some sort of handkerchief, a red one, tucked in her grey suit she was wearing. She had way too much make-up on, you might of thought she was from the circus or something of the sort at long glance. Mom asked her some things to do today, and she was the one who told us that two National Park guys were going to do a Jazz concert, and it was at three, and it looked very promising. It seemed that the day would bring us all our wantings, Mom to see more about Katrina and I to see a museum and a Jazz concert. Only the swamp and the carriage tour remained now. The lady was very forgetful, picking up a subject and then dropping it again, and also didn't know where her glasses were, speaking in a witchy kind of old voice, with pointed teeth too. She told us also about the Pharmacy Museum they had, that there was a tour guide there at 10 who would show you around and it was a lot better than just trying to go on your own. I thought that it would be interesting to go, because at a Walgreens I'd asked a guy all about it, the guy in the white coat, how they mix the things up and everything. Alas, but going to the Museum would not be so.

We got in the car, and drove by the Mississippi River on the right side, by the market, with a lot of people and a heater to our right on some steps and leading up to a statue, of a cannon. On our left was the beautiful Cathedral, grey steeples on either side of the main building, shooting up like a rocket, with grayish/white architecture. Sorry, I did not mention this glorious piece of architecture before when I was talking about the tour, and I also didn't talk about Congo Square, behind the Cathedral where slaves would meet and dance and do voodoo kind of things. Man, I forgot another thing to talk about that Jason talked about on the tour, the origin of all the Creoles and Cajun, who they came from and everything! One doesn't remember the things he was going to talk about in a past blog until it is too late, you are already done with it and it is already posted. Oh well. Before this part was some big buildings, and a lane going the sidewalk way for the pedestrians and the parking lot way for the cars. Up there were some spots right on the MS River, and we parked there. Getting out of the car, I didn't bring my book, a good choice. I still had no holster for my phone. Oh well. Outside, we saw a lot of rain and heard pouring, but where we were it was as dry as New Mexico, well we were. Grey sky though. This pouring some where away from us was a mystery to us....

We walked and saw the statue of the Washington Cannon, and we passed by, seeing a man with an earpiece, a backpack, and a walkie talkie. What was going on? He had a clipboard also, and was ordering a line of people beneath the monument, and they would go down all the stairs and then go down the street. From some of the terms I had heard said in my "movie speaks" book my sister Lauren got me, I knew this to be a movie set. I wish I had brought that book that day, but oh well. I had already supposed there was a movie going on, and tidied up and straightened my hair, for perhaps I could be an extra! We talked to one of the guys with a little blazer and newspaper, and he said all the extras had already been chosen and it had happened a week ago, and confirmed only yesterday when and if it was going to happen. That guy with the walkie talkie told us to wait as the guy went out, saying that they were filming and if we would just wait a sec. I wanted to ask him if I could be in it, but Mom and Dad said no, we had stuff to do, the opportunity could come later, and that they had already done all the process. There were people on these steps, with trees around and a ramp going down to a food place of some sort. The people were all soaking wet, close to a heater, trying to dry off their wet clothes and body parts. So wet. What a person will do to be in a movie.

The A.D. (for that is the name for the guy with the walkie-talkie, the Assistant Director) gave us the okay to go across the street, and so we crossed the busy street toward a black fence with a garden in front of the Cathedral, and walked to our right, toward the movie set. It was all this movie equipment with an open cafe, with only a little fence, some dollies and some cameras that I couldn't see. The weirdest part though was a cylinder tank truck, with a horizontal metal rail that had sprinklers going down, positioned over the sidewalk. So that's why the people were so wet! The truck had water in it, spurting out fake rain for the scene! Wow! The guy had told us that the movie wasn't Treme, it was The Hustler with Woody Harrison. And Mom when we had passed a street now facing the cafe on a corner, not on the block of the Cathedral, told us that Mrs. Deedee, who had been to New Orleans before, told us to go to Cafe Deumont, that cafe. I'll describe it in a later blog. For now, let's have the Bourne family walk down one street on the right side of the Cathedral, and then have them turn left, onto a sidewalked street, with a Jazz musician making a good few tunes on a trumpet, with a driving hat, sitting down, with his case open with money in it, for tips. Ah. A perfect scene of New Orleans.

It was a brick building, with many windows, plus being kind of square but also rectangular. There was a boat in front, that someone had and some other things. Walking in, we found a podium with a lady and computer, and also was a medium sized room, with a door to the right, going to the museum. There was a platform with one of Fats Domino's pianos, and it was pretty messed up, on loan from their family. While Mom and Dad paid and went through that long strenuous process, I read a little about the piano. Fats lived in a pretty poor and low area for such an old superstar, well, I never knew about him before, and some others probably didn't either, but he's a superstar in New Orleans. Anyway, we got our tickets and walked through the room, now with a carpet, and museum panels, a timeline of the history of New Orleans. It was very interesting, talking about the Indians and their preventions of floods, plus a little bit about the French and then the Spanish, but not too much, as this was about Katrina, not about the whole history. It focused on flood methods and past floods, as it approached into the 20th century, with a few videos on small T.V.'s. Mom and Rebecca needed to go to the restroom, and so went through the whole exhibit, while I read at some words on a wall with a picture in the background, and it talked about Ike and Camile, and then it discussed a few days before the dreadful day of Katrina, with dates and times about when they issued warnings and news reports, and when Katrina came into Florida or out of the Gulf of Mexico. It was cool to break it down into hours, what happened when.

I was moving my self up and down, wanting to go in order but at the same time needing to pee. I was also hungry, as it was almost lunch time. There were a few restaurants before coming to the building on the right of the Cathedral, and we thought of going in, but never came to it. And now I needed to go, badly. So I went in front of some people watching a movie on a projecting screen in a little room, and then went through another room, to a corridor where there was bathrooms on my right, Men's and Women's. Dad was in there, and he got out before I was done. Fairly nice restroom, I thought as I did the whole process and then came outside again, retracing my steps, determined to do it in order. I read a few more things, and then sat down with Dad, Mom and Rebecca, and Dad was on his phone, talking even though other people came in. Sorry about that, guys, the teenage girl and her mother, my Dad is just trying to do business. The movie was crazy beyond belief, no narration, or captions, and it wasn't very long, but it was three screens that projectors projected off, with the one in the middle the largest. They were all tapes of all the storm, trees in roads, animals stuck in the water, homes and people on roofs, I mean I was shaking my head in disbelief that all this terribleness happened.

We left when we began to see familiar images we'd seen before, and then got up. In the other room were some wooden posts, all with panels and paragraphs, and also shards of wood, artifacts, and maybe a life jacket or something of the sort. By one part was a slide show on a T.V. telling about heroes who stayed and helped out people in boats, and there was a manikin with a life jacket, bandanna, boots, and a hatchet, the clothes a guy used, a retired marine, to help out people in his boat. There were such stories as this, on those wooden things, a lady and her daughter who stocked up, and we listened to them talking about it by holding up these black sticks, with a microphone inside, to the left of the wooden things, that Rebecca and I listened about. The lady had food, and her daughter was in the bedroom, and she was on the couch. They heard the water and looked outside, and then went up in the attic with a hatchet, and made a hole, to not suffocate, with only a little bread. You could tell the interview and the tape recording wasn't scripted, as she had a New Jersey accent and said uh, a lot. She wasn't exactly a rocket scientist either. "I were sitting on the couch, watching my T.V., and thens my daughter, she says, 'Ma, I hear water running in your bathroom.' I knew it was that right away a hurricane, 'cause I looks outside and I see water all around, and I say to her, 'GET UPSTAIRS! HURRICANE!' and I get the bread, and the hatchet, and the water." She went on to tell about the days they stayed in their attic, awaiting help.

Another guy had to leave his cats behind, because they were fighting and killing each other. On those wooden posts were some stories about being at the hospital, and on another one about the hostilities of The Government, how they would take a few in buses and then just leave, or how some Red Cross people picked up survivors with helicopters and then just dropped them in another part in town, and other things. But then there was actual stories from the rescuer, who had to hold a baby in her arms because there was not enough sacks to be lifted up, and the mother didn't trust her with it, and she described it as a very emotional experience, to have the baby's life literally in her arms being hoisted up in to a helicopter. We listened and watched movies on the posts, of people who were outraged, who had to stay put, and how at one hospital the president in a helicopter passed over, and we had personal stories of how excited people were to meet him and get his autograph, and it was sad to listen to them talk about how he just flew over. They were very bummed out and mad at him. Now, in President Bush (Jr's) 's defense, his advisers advised him (for that is what advisers do) to go over, because they had no secret service and someone could just come out and harm him. So they flew over, maybe even against Bush's wishes.

The saddest thing, in the right corner, was to learn about the Super Dome, all the people in there, sweating in cots and with their children and little food, finding anywhere they wanted to pee and going, and then all the sicknesses that sprung from it, with a few personal people talking. I liked the whole first person deal; it made it come alive and be very interesting to learn their stories, plus the pictures helped that also. People on the roads and such were afraid of snipers and gangs, and there were parts that talked about how the National Guard shoving everyone inside and then either staying inside or going away in the cars. One person described them as cowards...to just leave your duty like that. Pathetic. And let me tell you something else in case you didn't know, do you remember in 2005 how all the reporters talked of all the gangs, loitering, and things like that? Well a guy on the tape said he only saw it in little neighborhoods and bad places in towns, that reporters exaggerated the truth a lot. He went around in his boat helping out people one day and he didn't see any loitering, but at the same time people described the snipers and we saw frightening images of the stuff. I couldn't believe that people serving our military and rescue force was that bad at helping people and just abandoned them. I am sure we don't know the whole truth...even years later.

But then again they were scared, and had never really been trained for these kind of things and also weren't at all prepared for it, so I get why they were kind of bad. Still though, some of the things we heard about and saw were a little too bad, like them being rude and then just leaving. One reporter from the Chicago said into words what millions of American's were thinking in their brains, saying in her article, "Is this America?"

We had finished up on that room, and there in the one corner before the corridor on the left was a sign saying that the images and words in that section weren't for kids, so I didn't look around in there, just closed my eyes and searched for Rebecca, because Dad didn't know where she was and so we thought be in there. She wasn't. Mom and them went along ahead while I went to the restroom again, and on the left of this little hallway was some news reports from various networks on T.V.s. I passed on into another room, where there was many displays about the science of the levees and how the water went up and around things, and broke the levees, and all the weather stuff and how they track Katrina. I looked around a little, but didn't stay long, as I was so hungry and Mom and Dad and Rebecca were already gone, up ahead, and we were going to go eat at a restaurant and then thereafter come back to the left side of the Cathedral, the old Presibeter, or in other words the present day Louisiana State Museum. Back outside under the porch, we listened to the guy on the trumpet belting out a song from The Sound of Music, and I wanted Mom to come out, but she was talking to somebody inside. By the time she came out, he had changed to the Sesame Street tune. Oh well.

As we passed under the Cathedral, I looked up and it looked really cool, the mass of building overlooking me, with a few gargoyles, and everything. Rebecca gave the African American Jazz singer with the trumpet a dollar or two, and the man said in a deep voice but with a passion, "THANK YOU, SISTER! GIVE ME A HIGHFIVE!" And Rebecca gave him a high-five. He was in his sixties, maybe. We went a little ways down after seeing a little restaurant called the Oyster Bar, but due to lack of time and wanting to eat quickly we walked into this restaurant on the right side of the Cathedral, with the circular sign and the little tables, and bar in back, with many signs, and open air, with doors open and a podium, and some large windows right by the tables, open, which is a popular trait found in New Orleans restaurants. We were seated at a pretty long table, and we looked up at the ceiling, with all of the sports flags, and the other T.V.'s with ESPN and different sports stations. Bars always have sports things on, for some reason. Now, a pale skinned black haired, that was short, came to us and said hello, and had a slight lisp in her voice. She asked if we "weres readys for ssome sdrinks?" And we were. I got water, and Rebecca water. Mom had some water and Dad miller light.

I wanted to try the po-boy thing that Jason talked about the day prior (he was a tour guide if you didn't already know) and looked at the different seafood choices they had, with po-boys. Oysters, trout, catfish, tuna, man I could go on and on. But I won't. I asked our waitress which one. She said any of them were good, and it didn't really matter which. Not feeling like seafood, I got a Philli Cheese Steak Po-boy, and the girl said it was a good choice. While waiting when we had told her what we wanted, I scared pigeons away, and laughed with Rebecca about calling them voodoos.(The following day we had...oh, just read that blog post) I also searched a little bit about this Fats Domino guy, and saw a video of him singing a certain song. We talked a little with the waitress on her comings in and out, and she told us that she hadn't been here long, but her family was in the area and she hadn't seen the Super Bowl season or the Mardi Gras season yet. We told her about the trip and also about going to Emril's that night, and she had been to one of them but not the one we talked about. We had lunch after talking, and the po-boy was brought out. It is really a New Orleans term for sandwich, and was a little bit shorter and everything, and thicker, but as I ate it it tasted like any other Phili Cheese steak, and there was nothing special about it. I'm sorry to say, but there was not.

I'm glad I satisfied my curiosity though in getting it. Rebecca however, was less than lucky, as she got a waffle that she said tasted bland, like a bad funnel cake at Six Flags. Mom got a salad and Dad a hamburger. After paying I found out the waitress's name, Catherine, as I went into the restroom. There was a few by the counter of the bar, and I walked in one that said Men's. A very small door for a bathroom, I thought, as I came in a dirty white walled restroom with little brown toilet and dirty window. It was just a narrow kind of small area, and here's a way to describe this narrow small bathroom, it was like fitting an elephant into a cupboard. I won't even go to describe me bumping into everything and not even being able to stretch my hands from one room to the other; no, it was not possible. Done with it, I got outside, and Rebecca by this time had rejected the waffle and had cheese sticks. A big lady came out, and asked me about the po-boy, and saying sorry that Rebecca didn't like it. I said I liked the sandwich(for we're not going to call it a po-boy, let's just call it what it is: a sandwich) a lot, but it was in fact a sandwich, there was nothing special about it. So, we got outside, walked over to the left building, the Louisiana State Museum, the Presbytery.

In there was a large lobby, with ceiling over 8 feet tall and a door going to another room with rope over, and a counter with some ladies and a computer, plus displays around the room. I looked at a few of these while Mom and Dad purchased tickets. Then we thanked the short haired young African American lady who gave us them, and she said we could come in and out as we liked, which seemed promising. To our left, we came into a room with museum panels, and artifacts, shaped like a little rectangle, from an Aeriel view, and had no doors, just these open doorways. It's like many museums, just like that. I looked around a little, as Dad said that we were going to see the upper level, to see the stuff that talked about the agreement between the American and French, in the Louisiana Purchase, and that we should just skip over all this. Well I, for one, was very interested in this, and wanted to do this more, to find out about the Indians and who was here first. So Dad and Rebecca kind of stayed for a while, awaiting us, as I went upstairs. Sometimes I don't like how they don't take time to read about some of the displays or parts of a museum, and go through without me, way ahead. It is one of my only regrets about museums on this trip. Sigh.

I read about how the French came here and explored the Mississippi, and with some artifacts it talked about the different explorers and a monk that went up in a canoe. Then came the founding of Baton Rouge, who's name finding was actually pretty simple. They found a red stick coming out of the ground, and so they named it the french words for "red stick", and it was "baton (like a baton in parades, which is basically a stick) rouge (with an r like red)". Baton Rouge. I believe French is backwards so a phrase is something that is flip-flopped. Pretty simple name choosing. Later in the trip we'd go through this city. But for now, I would look among cheap old maps of the New World (pretty more bulky and off, Florida is like a thumb) and looked among the every day life of the Indian...I mean Native Americans. They would play lacrosse and other things, and were pretty non religious, with not many major religions. Interesting to learn about the weaving, and hunting and gathering. Mom told me to come, and in another room I learned about some of the bishops who came here from the Catholic Church, and tried to make all the Ind... I mean Native Americans! (man that's hard) become Christians. Saw some paintings and a handheld (about the size of a thick huge sandwich) Bible, plus some crosses. Wasn't very interested in the other parts of that room, so Mom and I finished up and went upstairs, by way of stairwell.

One floor had jazz and rock and roll of New Orleans, and Louisiana in particular, but I am not a super music guy and even though I wanted to learn and see Jazz being performed, I had a greater taste for The LA Purchase and all about the old stuff. Besides, we only had a little time left before going to a Jazz Concert, so it would kind of waste time to do both, if you will. We went up some more stairs, huffing and puffing, saying we probably should of taken the elevator. Up on the fourth floor, with a big table and a long room, cut half in the middle, and part of it was a museum and part of it was this table with displays and little panels along the wall, by the windows. Many busts of heads. But then a problem arose. I needed to go to the restroom, # 2. (too much info?) So, I went down in the elevator, by myself, which was a little creepy. Imagining myself in there, getting stuck, alone, with no book, and thinking of the Tower of Terror and the Twilight Zone... man, it still makes me shudder, even in the comfort and safety of the R.V. But anyway, down on the ground floor, I went through the part on the left I prior went through, seeing Dad on a bench. He said he was already done with the upstairs, and was on his iPad. Sigh again.

I went there, and in this wheelchair accessible area I did a game on my phone called Word Jewels. I heard Rebecca and Dad. And I yelled to them. They didn't hear me. After wiping, flushing, and other parts, I washed my hands, without any detail or quality to it, and came out to see that Dad and Rebecca were going to the Jazz Concert at the mint, it was to come on in 15 minutes. I went back up, with Dad giving me a time warning and saying we better come back in a reasonable time. Mom called Dad, got where we were going, and comforted me, saying that it was okay, to take my time. I don't like being given an interval of time at a museum. I have a habit of reading EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING. So I don't like time periods that I have to stay inside. But that's just me. The majority of adults that have a busy job don't smell the roses and go through too much stress. But anyway, there were a few other things in this environment, besides us. A black haired guy with camera and hat, had a daughter about Rebecca's age that had a notepad and pen. Also, a really loud and annoying, but steady, clapping, and hooting, coming from the back street, by a large women of maybe thirties, African American, with a tip jar in front. Trying to read everything and hear that, looking out the window, it drove me crazy!!!

It talked about the process of the treaties, how it became under Spanish control because Napoleon III thought he didn't need it, and how the Spanish sold it only a year or two before the American's got it, which made them mad that it was sold to a lower price and a big thing went up... it is way too confusing to talk about in full. The guy and his daughter were confused with the dates, how they talked about one thing one place, and it didn't go in the order of who got it. I had a few guesses, but no real definitive "I'm-so-smart" answer. Then it talked of the American representatives that Thomas Jefferson picked, and the quotes from the treaties and papers and how they wanted NO as a valuable trading port. Forgot to mention earlier: The city was named after Saint Orleans, and I believe she's a girl. Some of the details are less in my memory because of the elapse of time, and I am sorry for that- I have so many reasons and people that want me to catch up, and so many reasons to do so. Bikers, grandma's, people on the trip who want to see their part in it, I could name many. Back to the blog though. I saw a couple of busts as I talked to Mom and moved down the line, and we saw the history of the Presbytery, how it was used for housing of the priests but never really used and then used as businesses and an orphanage before the state of Louisiana took it over. Then, on the left side of the table, was a death mask of Napoleon. I widened my eyes and came closer to the display, looking into the dead eyes of the great dictator and Emperor of France.

But as I read a panel saying that this was the death mask of Napoleon III, the real guy's nephew who called himself that. He was in New Orleans and died here, and they made the death mask. But some people think that this was III's double, that he lived on in recluse or something. Hmmm... We got out of the room, as the clapping finally stopped. Then started up again. I swore to myself if I had the chance to see the lady, I would tell her how annoyed I was with her clapping. I mean, how can someone clap so long? But I wander from the subject. We went left into a room with some cool stuff, and a Pharmacy sign, the pot with the spoon, for alchemy. I read about the Antebellum Period and Voodoo from the Congo slaves as Mom talked to the man, who said he was an Irish descendant after Mom speculated about how they had to do all the hard jobs and their own slaves doing the soft work. That was for the French, not the more brutal Americans. He said he was from Long Island, that it is trafficy (as we told him we didn't go and about the trip) but really grassy and nice, unlike NYC. He said that he was taking his child places, and we talked a while before saying goodbye and going through a few parts of the museum, but not much, as Dad had texted Mom to come and that the concert was about to start. Got in the elevator. Went downstairs. By the counter in the lobby a man on a ladder whitewashing some white walls. His back was turned to us. I said, kind of quietly and offhandish, "Life is a Canvas. Paint it well." He knew it was toward him, as he chuckled and said, "It sure is" in a deep voice, African American. Life really is a canvas. It's up to you, reader, to paint it well.

We got outside, the young african american lady saying that we could come back after the concert. We might of later, but we never ended up on going back to the museum. Oh well. I had a great time learning there, very interesting. Well, we went down under the Cathedral, with Mom ushering me on, as she looked at the time frequently and we crossed streets, stopping at lights, crossing them, going on sidewalks, and feeling the gas of the cars and the smoke of the cigarettes. Along the storefronts were creepy voodoo dolls, and we went down many many streets before Mom said it was only a little longer. Five minutes 'til concert. More voodoo dolls and weird witchy stuff, that I don't really want to describe as it is late at night. Everything was in a swirling, and Mom speculated we really didn't know where we were going. Would we get there in time or go on more adventures and even get more lost? Would we get there in time? You'll only find out, if you read the next blog post, reader. I know, I torture you. But you'll see.

TO BE CONTINUED...(SEE "KATRINA EXHIBIT, LOUISIANA STATE MUSEUM, JAZZ CONCERT AT MINT, EMRIL'S PART 2" FOR END. )