They say that only boring people are bored. If you find yourself bored in New Orleans, you must have a hole in your imagination. You can't be bored in New Orleans. If you are, you are dead from the heart up.
I once knew a man who had a hole in his soul. He tried to fill it up with adrenaline, with booze, with dice, with gunplay, with pornography, with MSNBC, and with expensive prostitutes. That's no way to live.
Be your best self. New Orleans is here for you. You cannot be bored in New Orleans.
I live here. I'm not bored. I never have been and I never will be ---- as long as I am in New Orleans. Home is where the heart is.
FIRST, SOME TRIVIA ABOUT LOUISIANA:
We don't have counties in Louisiana. We have parishes. What you call a county, we call a parish. A lot about Louisiana is similar to where you live, but it's different here, too. Sometimes it can be very, very different.
New Orleans is not the only city in Lousiana, but it's the only one you've heard of. There are reasons for that.
New Orleans is not the oldest city in Louisiana. That one has a population of 17,500 people. It doesn't take long to see what's worth seeing there. New Orleans is 302 years old, and counting. You never run out of things to be a part of in New Orleans.
YOU CAN'T BE BORED IN NEW ORLEANS.
Open your ears. Open your nose. Whet your tastebuds. Are you ready for a real New Orleans adventure? Hang on.
A brass band wedding goes past our house on Esplanade Avenue just about every weekend in season, sometimes twice in a weekend, sometimes three times.
Sometimes, for no reason that is apparent to people who don't live here, a half-mile long marching parade will go up our street, full of music and people dancing and having a good time. The police stop traffic so the parade can pass. Anyone can join in if they want to.
On St. Josesph's night, I'll sit in the back garden and listen to the drums and the tambourines and the songs of the Mardi Gras Indians making their way through our neighborhood.
Every city is a city of neighborhoods but New Orleans is a city of neighborhoods on steroids. Every neighborhood really is unique, with its own history, its own traditions, its own social aid and pleasure clubs, its own bars, its own holidays, its own sense of community.
Most people in New Orleans rarely leave their neighborhoods unless they have to work. Most people in New Orleans rarely leave Orleans Parish unless they need to go to Target or Best Buy.
The City of New Orleans and Orleans Parish are co-terminus. They are one and the same. To get to Target or Best Buy or Bed Bath & Beyond you have to go over the line into Jefferson Parish.
Here is, approximately, how you say New Orleans: Noo-OR-lenz. Here is how you say Orleans Parish: Or-LEENZ. I hope that clears that up.
For myself, I rarely leave Orleans Parish. I have very few suburban errands. Everything I need I find here, with the neighborhoods that make up beautiful New Orleans, Louisiana.
You can't get bored in New Orleans. If you do, I don't know what to tell you. There is always Jefferson Parish or Natchitcoches.
TODAY'S BLOG IS SPONSORED BY LA BELLE ESPLANADE.
No comments:
Post a Comment