Thanksgiving in New Orleans

St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square

Dear George,

We’ve had many terrific trips to visit our family in New Orleans over the years, but this Thanksgiving was clearly the best. Our grandchildren V and L are growing up by the day, and they become more wonderful each time we see them. This time we went for a full week and did a whole bunch of things. Here are some photos which track our adventures.

Love,

Dave

At the Races (J, L, V, & Katja)

It was opening day for the 2011-12 horse-racing season at the Fairgrounds, and J took us over to check out the scene. They’ve held races here since 1852, the third oldest thoroughbred meet in the U.S., and the day’s events featured a $75,000 purse. V and L liked the brisket sandwiches and pork and beans, and we all enjoyed the horses. The best part, though, was the motley crowd, with women in extravagant hats and couples dressed in 40’s vintage clothes. New Orleanians seem to love their finery.

The Audubon Zoo Carrousel (V & J)

The New Orleans Zoo, with its 58 acres and 2,000 animals, is a gorgeous place, one of the nation’s top ten zoos. That includes the best merry-go-round we’ve seen in years (maybe ever). V chose the alligator for her ride, and L (accompanied by Katja) picked the orangutan.

City Park

Our family spends a lot of time at City Park which is within walking distance of their home. It’s the sixth largest public park in the U.S., about 50% larger than Central Park in NYC. K took me over with the kids on an outing, and I could see why it’s so beloved. City Park contains the world’s largest collection of live oaks, some over 600 years old. Definitely one of New Orleans’ most splendid features.

On Bourbon Street

We made multiple trips to the French Quarter, usually riding the trolley down Canal Street from Mid-City. On our very first trip to New Orleans with my parents and Jean and Ann W. in 1970, we all fell in love with the Maison Bourbon jazz club, and we’re pleased that it’s still thriving four decades later.

Drinks at Arnaud’s

Speaking of family get-togethers, we met up with my sister-in-law Faith, my niece Jessica, and her husband Sean for pre-dinner drinks at Arnaud’s on Bienville Street. They’d come down from New York state and Michigan. Arnaud’s was founded in 1918 and is one of NOLA’s four classic creole restaurants. A great bar.

St. Louis Cathedral

We always visit the Cathedral on Jackson Square. It’s been around since 1718, though the current structure was built in 1850. It’s very beautiful, inside and out. After taking in New Orleans’ seamy side on Bourbon Street, St. Louis Cathedral reminds us that there are also more spiritual matters in the universe.

Café du Monde

As soon as possible, Katja headed for the French Market and beignets and café au lait. Café du Monde has been there since 1862 and is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (except Xmas and hurricanes). We snacked on beignets three times during our stay, could easily have done many more.

On the Way to Domenica’s (JML photo)

We enjoyed two big downtown nights out with K and J, first at Ruth Chris Steakhouse, then at Domenica’s Restaurant in the Roosevelt Hotel (once Huey Long’s hangout). Here we’re in the Roosevelt lobby, dressed up for dinner at Domenica’s.

Lunch at Drago's

Lunches were oyster time for Katja, Po-Boy’s for me. We finally got into Bourbon House Seafood for lunch after a couple of failed tries on previous visits (too filled up). Katja also had great oysters at Drago’s. The oysters were gigantic – at the very peak of the season.

In the Sculpture Garden

We thoroughly enjoyed the Sculpture Garden in Audubon Park, beautiful for its lagoons and live oaks, live oaks, and pines, as well as its fifty-seven elegant sculptures (Henry Moore, Jaques Lipchitz, Louise Bourgeois et al.). We’ve been going there since they opened in 2003. And we visited the wonderful Art Museum too.

Doing the Art Fair

At J and K’s suggestion we took in the monthly Sunday Art Fair on Carrollton Ave. in Mid-City. With fifty or sixty excellent vendors (paintings, photography, wood, jewelry, etc.), it was lots of fun for browsing.

Trained Elephants

We haven ‘t been to a circus for a long time, and we’d forgotten how magical it can be (especially in the company of the young). We sat up close at the Shrine Circus and enjoyed the trained animal acts (tigers, elephants, dogs) and well as the clowns and trapeze artists. The daredevil motorcyclists, doing acrobatic tricks 50 feet in the air, blew our tiny minds.

World War II Museum

We think that New Orleans’ World War II Museum is one of the best museums we’ve ever been to. Originally centered on the D-Day invasion at Normandy, it’s been expanded to cover the Pacific Theater, and plans are underway to quadruple its size. We found ourselves choking up since my dad, Uncle Kent. and family friends and acquaintances were stationed in combat zones in Europe and the Pacific. We keep forgetting what a catastrophic, terrible war this was – unlike anything before or after.

At the Saints Game (JML photo)

We wound up our trip watching the Saints play the New York Giants at the Superdome (now the Mercedes-Benz Stadium). We hadn’t gone to an NFL game in years, and it was thrilling. Quarterback Drew Brees was at the top of his game, and the Saints fans were out of their minds. New Orleans won 49-25, and the newspaper the next morning said it might have been the most perfect game the Saints ever played.

V and L with Iko and Titus (JML photo)

Of course, compared to pro football players, giant elephants, abstract sculptures, speedy horses, stately cathedrals, and char-broiled oysters, we’d have to conclude that cutie-pies L and V remain the number one highlight of our most excellent trip!

Love,

Dave

G-mail Comments

-PSS (12-18): Dave, What fun. You make me want to go there. Especially the park…. Merry, Phyllis

-Donna D (12-15): how wonderful! donna

-JML (12-15): hey dad, nice memories already…. J***

Nasty Brawl, Tarnished Images

Dear George,

I’ve been a UC basketball fan since we came here in the late 1960’s. Oscar Robertson, perhaps the greatest college player of all times, starred for UC’s team from 1958 to 1960, and the school won national championships in 1961 and 1962. Part of that tradition is the Crosstown Shootout, the annual game between UC and local rival, Xavier University. Cincinnati’s two Division One college teams are frequently ranked in the top 25 in the country, and the inter-city matchup between schools a mere two miles apart involves the closest proximity of major college basketball rivalries in the nation. Xavier is a smaller, Jesuit university with a higher academic ranking and more of an elitist private school feel about it. UC is a much larger public university with slightly more of a blue collar aura. Members of the two teams play summer basketball together, know one anothers’ games well, and are eager to establish local bragging rights. The game has been going on since 1927, and UC has had the upper hand overall (48 vs. 31 victories). Xavier, however, had won 8 of the last 12 games, and, enjoying a No. 8 national ranking so far this year, they have been the clear favorite this time around. The competition was intensified the week beforehand when controversial local talk-radio show host Andy Furman interviewed UC guard Sean Kilpatrick and elicited Kilpatrick’s opinion that he was superior to Xavier’s All-American guard, Tu Holloway (who Kilpatrick suggested wouldn’t even be able to start on UC’s team).

Saturday’s game started off very closely for the first fifteen minutes – 8 ties and 6 lead changes. Then, with about five minutes left in the half, Tu Holloway sank a three-pointer which began a 12-0 run for Xavier. Xavier went on to outscore UC 42-28 in the second half, resulting in one of the largest blowouts in the series’ history, 76-53. With 15 seconds left in the game Holloway said something to UC’s bench as he ran down the court. Later he reported, “I was just saying that it’s my city right here. I’m cut from a different cloth. None of those guys on that team are like me.” With 9.4 seconds left, Holloway and UC freshman Ge’Lawn Guyn engaged in a heated verbal exchange, and XU freshman Dezmine Wells shoved Guyn to the floor. Both benches emptied, and players from the two teams engaged in an all-out brawl, pushing, shoving, and throwing elbows and punches, while coaches and staff members tried to break up the fight. During the melee 6’-9” UC senior center and star Yancy Gates landed a Mike Tyson-like punch over the left eye of 7-foot Xavier center Kenny Frease, and another of UC’s big men, junior Cheikh Mbodj, kicked Frease after he had fallen to the ground. When Frease was helped up, the left side of his face was bathed in blood. The officials declared the game over, and Holloway got on top of the scorers’ table, yelling about the victory. Eventually the two teams were escorted from the floor in what had become a tense and dangerous situation.

The respective coaches and university officials quickly issued strong statements condemning the outbreak. UC coach Mick Cronin said, “There is no excuse for any of it, on our side, on their side…We accept full responsibility. It will be handled. There is zero excuse for that in basketball. You’ve got to learn how to win on one side. You’ve got to learn how to lose on the other side.” Xavier coach Chris Mack allowed his starting guards, Holloway and Mark Lyons, to do post-game interviews (a move that he later regretted), and neither player expressed any sort of apology. Holloway said that the game’s hostile atmosphere was due to Kilpatrick’s statements in his earlier radio interview with Andy Furman: “We got disrespected a little bit before the game, guys calling us out. We’re a tougher team. We’re grown men over here. We’ve got a whole bunch of gangsters in the locker room, not thugs but tough guys on the court. We went out there and zipped them up at the end of the game.” Mark Lyons added, “At the end of the day, if someone puts their hands in your face or tries to do something to you, where we’re from, we’re going to do something back. We’re not going to sit there and get our face beat in by somebody like Yancy Gates or somebody like that”

A day later UC issued six-game suspensions for Gates, Mbodj, and one of the freshman players who had swung punches, as well as a one-game suspension for Guyn who had been involved in the initial confrontation. Xavier suspended Wells for four games; Lyons and a walk-on player for two games; and Tu Holloway for one game. Players publicly apologized or retracted earlier statements. The Hamilton County prosecutor’s office announced it was exploring the possibility of felony charges.

The brawl elicited a lot of distress on many people’s parts: the players, the coaches, university officials, alumni and fans, reporters, and the general public. While the media took a moralistic tone, they also provided nonstop coverage of the incident, including Internet videos of the brawl, blogs, and endless hours of talk radio discussion. Everybody got some of the blame: the fighting players themselves, the coaches (who didn’t take their starters out of the game near the end when the game was essentially over), the referees (who failed to take steps to reduce mounting tempers), Xavier student fans (whose relentless taunting of the UC bench and coaches contributed to the scene), excessive pre-game hype from the media, and the university’s sports programs themselves. Some observed that incidents like this don’t happen at Harvard vs. Princeton games. Players’ reputations and even their potential professional prospects were damaged, as were images of the two universities and their athletic programs. Some have proposed that the game be cancelled in the future. Questions were raised whether UC and Xavier were recruiting athletes who met their schools’s standards, whether the intensity of inter-collegiate athletics has exceeded all reasonable bounds, and whether glorification of power, violence, and hyper-masculinity necessarily results in destructive consequences. On the other hand, it’s easy to get carried away with moralizing. Some fans noted that it’s not that unusual for team sports events to erupt in fighting. Maybe if Gates’s punch hadn’t bloodied Frease’s cheek and it hadn’t been captured on color TV screens, the whole event would have faded away by now. I do think that the statements and actions by the respective universities were appropriate, that the offending players need to take their medicine, and that various parties should examine what sort of adjustments can minimize a recurrence of the happening. Then it’s time to move on. I guess I’ll still cheer for the UC Bearcats.

Love,

Dave

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer (multiple stories at www.news.cincinnati.com, Dec. 10-12, 2011)

G-mail Comments

-Phyllis S-S (12-13): Dave, Wow - you make it come alive. I'm glad I wasn't there though. I hate seeing that stuff…. Phyllis

V and L: NOLA Sweeties, Age Three

V and L in their double stroller

Dear George,

Our granddaughter V and grandson L turned three in September. We hadn’t seen the children since May, and we were excited to spend Thanksgiving in New Orleans. V and L are growing up very quickly. As a duo, they sang the alphabet song, recited the pledge of allegiance, and counted to ten in Spanish. They can operate the remote for the cable TV (which we never figured out) and are working on using their dad’s I-phone. They’ve also gotten to the stage where they’re good playmates with each other and much more able to communicate. K and J are model parents -- loving, involved, creative, sensitive, and fully enjoying their kids. It’s not an easy responsibility. Having been a parent in a one-child family, I’d say two kids the same age are a much more complicated task. There aren’t many breaks during the children’s ever-busy waking hours. However, J and K remain remarkably calm and supportive -- I don’t think either one of them raised their voice a single time. They delight in the children so much that even the hard stuff becomes fun. The children have become still more sociable since we last saw them. V, in particular, seems very adept for her age. When we went to a big Thanksgiving potluck dinner, she mixed among all the adults with ease. On the way to the party, V had picked a little blue flower, and, when we passed a young woman sitting on her steps, V handed her the flower and said, “I picked this for you.” You could see the young woman’s heart melt right on the spot. L, too, has become much more outgoing and secure than he was six months ago. Here are some photos of these cutie-pies which give a sense of their lives at age three.

Love,

Dave

Katja with V and Iko

We did some baby-sitting our first full day while J and K were at work. Katja was a little nervous beforehand, but once V told her how much she loved “Nana”, all anxieties evaporated.

Katja, V, and L watch "Diego"

The children watch some TV each day, and they sit motionless, entirely transfixed. They introduced us to “Diego” and “Dora”, and we became transfixed too.

At the Lemonade Parade

We walked up to Carrolton Ave. and discovered the Lemonade Parade smoothie shop. V and L split a strawberry Smoothie, and Katja had one too. I initially declined, but then decided to have a dish of chocolate ice cream. V and L, of course, immediately decided that chocolate ice cream was the best. I wound up sharing, though I insisted that children take a drink of their smoothies before each spoonful of ice cream.

Two angels take a nap

The children get up really early, and after hours of high paced activity they’re ready for a nap. They drift off without a peep like little angels.

Feeding the ducks at City Park

One afternoon K took us to City Park which is a short drive from their house. There’s a fun playground, a Peristyle guarded by huge sculpted lions, and a flock of ducks who are happy to chase after a never-ending supply of bread crumbs.

Busy at Cooking School

“Cooking School” is a favorite activity at home. L and V were pretty accomplished at measuring out the flour, breaking eggs with their hands, and mixing it all together. I didn’t taste the finished product, but the children gobbled it up.

L is an excellent eater

My vague impression is that the children eat all the time. They zoom around at such a rapid pace that they need a lot of fuel, and they snack all day long. Unlike lots of children who can be more picky, V and L eat everything. Fruits and vegetables, nuts, granola bars, hummas, crackers, eggs, chicken, etc.

V greets Mr. Okra

Mr. Okra, New Orleans’ last traveling fruit and vegetable vendor, made his weekly rounds one day, and V ran out to greet him. Mr. Okra knows V and L by name, and they had a friendly exchange.

V and L on the Panther

We went to the zoo in Audubon Park one afternoon, another of the children’s favorite outings. It’s a beautiful setting because of the palm trees, live oaks, and tropical foliage, and the children loved the animals, whether real or sculpted.

Cotton candy at the Circus

There’s nothing that lends more magic to the circus than a pair of three-year-olds. I’d forgotten how wonderful cotton candy can be. Not to mention the wild tigers, trained elephants, trapeze artists, and motorcycle daredevils.

Building the gingerbread house

K brought home a gingerbread house package from the store, and the children enthusiastically helped to build it. Because of a few mishaps, it took some duct tape to get the structure to hold together, but it was a big success nonetheless.

V’s photo of Mom and Grandpa

V decided she was tired of being photographed, but would rather take the photographs herself. I gave her my digital camera, and (at age 3) she took this picture of her Mom and Grandpa. You can tell that the adults thought this was fun.

Leo climbs on Grandpa (photo by JML)

A nice thing about little kids, like doggies, is that there’s a lot of affection shown through physical contact. I enjoyed reading the Times-Picayune while L enjoyed climbing on my back.

V stomps her foot

Even though V didn’t want to have her picture taken any more, she became more cooperative when I captured her stomping her foot on the dining room table. L, in the meantime, shows the kind of concentration abilities that suggests that one day he’ll be a prominent scholar.

Family breakfast at the Ruby Slipper

We all went out to breakfast at the Ruby Slipper, right down the street. V and L have reached an age where they can do pretty well eating out, and they elicited many admiring reactions from the public.

Grandkids and grandparents

All in all, we had a wonderful time. Now we’re sad to be away, but look forward to our next get-together.

G-mail Comments

-Phyllis S-S (12-9): dear Dave, They are soooooooo adorable. You look very happy being with them… Phyllis

-Gayle C-L (12-9): David, What a great trip you had w the family.

The last photo w you Katya and the kids is just great! Everyone looks great and the kids have really grown:) Looking forward to your next letter:)

Lots of love, G

Report from NOLA: 1. Mid-City, Looking Good

Dear George,

Katja and I are recently back from a wonderful Thanksgiving visit to New Orleans to see our son and daughter-in-law, J and K, and our darling grandchildren, V and L. Their house is in the middle of Mid-City, which in turn is in the middle of New Orleans, about halfway between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. K and J live just two blocks away from Canal Street, so we could walk a short distance, hop on the bright red trolley, and, for forty cents apiece, enjoy a 2.5-mile ride to the French Quarter. Mid-City is a largely residential area, off the beaten track for tourists except during Jazzfest. It’s a hip, mixed income, well-integrated neighborhood with lots of young families. It’s bounded by N. Broad St., Orleans Ave., City Park Ave., and the I-10 Expressway. Canal St. runs through its center, and N. Carrollton Ave. and Jefferson Davis Parkway cut across it.

I spent some time every day walking around the neighborhood because I’d adopted the role of official dogwalker for the family pooches, Titus and Iko. I was particularly taken with Mid-City’s architecture which is unlike anything we have in Cincinnati. The majority of the buildings are double shotgun houses which date back to the late 1800s and which are decorated with wooden "gingerbread" ornaments. Shotgun houses are long and narrow and get their name because one supposedly can shoot a shotgun through the front door and it will exit the rear door without ever touching a wall in between. Mid-City borders City Park with its Art Museum and Sculpture Garden and is home to numerous excellent restaurants and bars, some of the city’s finest old cemeteries, and the Mid-City Lanes Rock N Bowl where J and K introduced us to Zydeco dancing years ago. The levee breech at the 17th Street Canal following Hurricane Katrina resulted in massive flooding of the neighborhood with virtually all of its buildings heavily damaged or destroyed. Like most local homeowners, J and K, who had just bought their first house two years before the hurricane, had to entirely gut the interior and rebuild from scratch. Mid-City has led New Orleans in housing reconstruction, and a casual observer might not even realize that the nation’s most devastating natural disaster occurred here just six years ago.

I took the photos below in J and K’s immediate neighborhood, mainly between Jeff Davis and Carrollton and between Canal St. and Palmyra. It’s a fun and interesting place in which to stroll around. Lots of dogs, cats snoozing on the stoops, palm trees and live oaks, tropical flowers, kids at play, friendly people, and interesting houses. Here are some of the scenes that caught my eye.

Love,

Dave

SOURCES FOR INFO ON MID-CITY:

www.city-data.com (“Mid-City New Orleans”)

www.gnocdc.org ("Mid-City Neighborhood Snapshot")

www.mcno ("Mid-City New Orleans Neighborhood Organization")

www.wikipedia.org ("Mid-City New Orleans")

www.wikitravel.org ("New Orleans/Mid-City and Esplanade Ridge")

G-Mail Comments:

-Vicki L (12-5): HI David, Thanks for the photos of J and K's neighborhood- great to get a feel for where they're living. Such troopers. Glad you had a good trip… Love to Katja, you, Mike and Duffy. Sis

-Donna D (12-4): this was great david. wonderful pictures! donna