New Orleans Memories Continued

Evening events kept me busy this week so not much time for blogging or, more accurately, not much energy left for blogging.  However, sitting in my library on this scorching Saturday afternoon, my mind has returned to New Orleans.....

There have been many trips to New Orleans since my first memorable college experience--other conferences attended--with graduate school and working in education, academia has been a major part of my life.  One of my favorite conference experiences was when my ex-husband and I lived and taught at Sinte Gleska College, now University, on the Rosebud (Sioux) Reservation in South Dakota. 

Shortly after our arrival, we attended a Native American Education Conference with our friend who was tribal chairman of the Rosebud Sioux. Our friend was open-mouthed during our tour of the French Quarter and looked on in puzzlement as small boys accosted him in the Quarter, yelling, “I bet you a dollar I can tell you where you got dem boots.”  Our friend was dressed in the traditional Indian cowboy attire--jeans, ribbon shirt, silver and turquoise accessories, cowboy hat and boots-- and presented a handsome silhouette on Bourbon Street, so ladies of the evening also called out to him, much to his embarrassment. 

At another academic conference when we were still grad students, my ex and I had to travel on our own meager budget.  I remember this conference because we stayed in some small Canal Street store-front hotel where you had to get buzzed in.  The rooms had high ceilings, ours was spacious and kind of sectioned off, so we shared it with my husband's major professor because we were too poor to get our own room!  We presented academic papers on Social Foundations of Education at the conference, enjoyed the intellectual give-and-take of the discussions, and explored the city with colleagues after the sessions ended each evening.

Dauphine Orleans Hotel, New Orleans

Later, I went to work as a regional preschool coordinator for the Louisiana Department of Education, a project then housed in the School of Allied Health Sciences, LSU Medical Center in Shreveport.  Preschool coordinators were then part of a summer seminar in New Orleans. My colleagues and I stayed in the French Quarter on Dauphine Street, enjoyed late afternoon teas at our hotel and compared seafood dishes at various restaurants around town.   

Courtyard, Dauphine Orleans Hotel

Our week long class was held each summer at the University of New Orleans (UNO) and, as I’ve never been one to pass up a book store of any kind, I browsed through the UNO book store during breaks, purchasing esoteric titles on the history, sociology, anthropology or philosophy of education.

My husband Ricky and I love New Orleans. Before we were married, we attended Mardi Gras where we dived for beads and slept in passion tangled sheets on a pallet on the floor of a friend's small St. Ann Street house. We attended Jazz Fest to hear famous performers, then ended up in a tiny neighborhood club where a sensual man played the saxophone in a smoke-filled room and mesmerized patrons swayed to the music like snake charmers.

Our friends' second story front porch where we sit and people watch

When Hurricane Katrina and the flood hit, Ricky and I took in a family who were evacuated to the V.A. Hospital in Shreveport. They lived in our guest cottage until we could find them a house to rent. Though they were strangers to us when we met, like many relationships forged by the tragedy of Katrina, they have become our friends. This has been great for us because we have close friends to visit when we travel south to New Orleans.


When I first visited New Orleans so long ago, I never imagined this unique and troubled city would become part of who I am.