Money Wasters Second Line

Money Wasters Social Aid and Pleasure Club

As anyone will tell you, nothing bad, not even professional wrestling, ever came out of Stamford, Connecticut.  Just ask Mayor Pavia.  Your humble narrator's certified birth certificate is filed away in city hall.  He has turned the corner at East Main Street and Houston Terrace more times than he can remember.

Where would you take your mother on her first day in your fair city?

Treme

Since we live in Treme, we went to a second line parade.  The Money Wasters Social Aid and Pleasure Club were going down North Broad Street, three blocks from our house.  It was 40 degrees in Connecticut yesterday.  It was in the mid-eighties in New Orleans today.  We walked the three shady blocks up Esplanade Avenue, but the parade hadn't arrived yet.  We decided to walk uptown and meet them en route.

We got as far as Zulu Headquarters.

Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club

It was election day.

Temmer Fox is running for Mr. Big Stuff 2014

I don't know if you have to provide a birth certificate to be a member of either the Zulu or Money Wasters clubs.  I don't know if there are any rules against being members of both clubs.  I don't see why there would be, but, unfortunately, I'm not a member of either.

The brass band rounded the corner from Orleans Avenue onto North Broad Street.  They had just come up from Kermit's Treme Speakeasy.  The second line paused for a spell.  Some people went inside the building.  Other people got something to eat on the neutral ground.  The police blocked off the street so that everyone could laugh and talk and dance.  You meet a lot of friends in New Orleans.

The Money Wasters' Queen

We followed the brass band as far as our eye doctor's office on North Broad Street, past the Crawfish House.  It was the next stop on the route.  We watched the queen offer a toast to our eye doctor.  In our neighborhood, there is a different surprise around every corner.  Then, we walked down Bayou Road, back home, where we sat in the garden behind our inn.  

Our back garden

This morning, a couple from Amsterdam asked me what our chairs are called.  Answer: Adirondack.  "That's a Creole word?" they asked, "They are native to here?"  They are named after the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, close to where I'm from.  They are very comfortable chairs, as our guests agreed.   

This week, our guests are being treated to an unexpected bonus.  They get to chat over breakfast with three family members.  

A couple from Akron are having a romantic bed and breakfast getaway with us.  They mentioned to my mother that she must be very proud of all the work Frau Schmitt and I have put into our inn.  "He always showed promise," my mother told them.  "That, and he married himself a good wife."  My mother is usually right about these things.

Blue hydrangea

The hydrangea are blooming in our back garden.  My grandparents had a blue hydrangea bush in their back yard.  Good memories are made on Esplanade Avenue.  Our blog will be on a brief hiatus while Frau Schmitt and I squire my mother around New Orleans, and my mother and I stroll down Memory Lane.  

We'll be back on June 3rd.  Why not June 2?  Because Frau Schmitt and I thinking of taking a group scooter ride up to Baton Rouge on June 2nd and that promises to take all day.  

Two wheels set you free

A votre sante,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.