Posted on 02/25/2007 1:47:41 PM PST by Strategerist
On a related note....
Me too. Are they still 'hawking' the cameos on the street there like they were in the early 60's?
I enjoyed those...
Thanks!!
Deal. But at least allow me to observe that I had no idea old Mr. Spock was related to the Italians: "the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology".
I just drove through NO on my way to Houma LA. 9th ward is still a ghost town. I was surprised at how little traffic there was, especially being just two days before Mardi Gras. Are you from NO?
Where I was wandering around the Bay it was more tourist-like than along the pier where our ship tied up in 1972. I don't know if there is still a pier about where the Navy ships dock, but suspect there is. I also suspect that is where the hawkers congregate. There were some shops and kiosks and a few street entrepreneurs where we were, but nothing like those days. I simply thought the neighborhoods where we rode the bus teemed with high rise tenements that bordered on blight. It was quite depressing compared to so many other places in Italy that we saw.
In those days there was a NATO headquarters in the neighborhood. I remember playing a round of golf on a multi-tiered golf course reserved for NATO folk. It was inside a mountain that was a was an ancient volcano. It was as magnificent a vista for a golf course that I ever saw...to this day.
I also remember in those days meandering around a cosmopolitan gathering place that presented as seemy a side of humanity as I have seen anywhere. One night's liberty was reminiscent of that bar in Star Wars where Obi-Wan Kenobi bargained with Han Solo for a ride on the Millenium Falcon. The memories from those days are better than not bad as are those from this most recent trip to that part of the world. I'd recommend it to anyone who can arrange it.
Yes, left there in 1985 to see the world in the USAF retired back there in 2004. I actually went to a private Catholic school in the 9th ward, Holy Cross High School, 175 years old and now relocating to another area.
My wife and family made it back for Mardi Gras with the family, I was stuck here in Georgia :)
I've been here in GA for almost a year now. still miss home a bit though. Funny, never thought I would. Atlanta is so big and busy. I guess I'm just a small town girl at heart.
At the risk of sounding all girly man :) New Orleans was a city that had a rhythm to it, a soul. The neighborhoods, the suburbs, the Quarter, the city, it all had a different sound that made up New Orleans. I am afraid that Katrina may have destroyed that though. But I miss it too.
Atlanta is what I call a soul-less city, no real core to it you know? I am down here in Middle Georgia, I hit Atlanta when I have to :)
Not girlie at all. You just really knew the place. I think you are right about it never being the same though. There was a certain attitude to the place that made it the "Big Easy". I don't think it will ever have that feeling again. It was a kind of "Devil may care" place where no one took anything too seriously. Kinda sad I think. I have some good memories of the place.
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