Riverboats were the CDs of the first half of the nineteenth century.\u00c2\u00a0 An era that many U.S. inhabitants of the time thought would never end, for many it was all they knew.\u00c2\u00a0 Then Abe Lincoln persuaded the government to allow a railroad bridge at Rock Island and the paddle wheels stopped turning.<\/p>\n
I’ve never been to New Orleans before.\u00c2\u00a0 And as we were flying in over the lake, all I could think of was the Poco song, "Heart Of The Night".<\/p>\n
There’s a full moon in sight It’s gigantic.\u00c2\u00a0 And as one contemplates the breakage of the levees, one is confronted with destruction.\u00c2\u00a0 A Shell station that looked like a remnant from an old Spielberg movie, all twisted to hell.\u00c2\u00a0 And boarded up houses, with x’s on them, slated to be torn down.\u00c2\u00a0 Can’t Jimmy Carter and Habitat For Humanity come down here and clean this city up?\u00c2\u00a0 Can’t our great country, with all of its resources, help these people and rebuild their city?\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not like its destruction was their fault.<\/p>\n And Bourbon Street appeals if you’ve just turned 21 and are ready to PAR-TAY!\u00c2\u00a0 If I were still in college, I’d have a raucous time.\u00c2\u00a0 Otherwise, it’s a seedy street akin to Ensenada.\u00c2\u00a0 Not somewhere you’d want to visit.\u00c2\u00a0 But visit people do.\u00c2\u00a0 Short ones, tall ones, big ones, small ones.\u00c2\u00a0 The vast sea of humanity is overwhelming.\u00c2\u00a0 Only when you leave home do you realize there truly are 300 million unique individuals in America.<\/p>\n But the highlight for me so far, other than the historical plaques on Riverwalk, describing the history of the city, came as we left the French Quarter and crossed over the tracks to the Big Muddy.\u00c2\u00a0 There, on the station house, well, it was kind of a gazebo, was the location’s name: TOULOUSE STREET!<\/p>\n Locked in a room down in New Orleans I was not listening to the music.\u00c2\u00a0 But on a flight from JFK to Salt Lake, I was exposed to this album track, the title track, of the Doobie Brothers’ second album "Toulouse Street".\u00c2\u00a0 It made me a fan.<\/p>\n And suddenly the album cover made sense!\u00c2\u00a0 It was a New Orleans theme!<\/p>\n It reminded me of moving to L.A. and having Frank Zappa lyrics come alive.\u00c2\u00a0 And to still be able to discover musical history, to make the connection, titillated my soul.\u00c2\u00a0 And as I strode the banks of the Big Muddy, contemplating New Orleans’ slave trade, French ownership and construction below sea level, a song was playing on a loop in my head…<\/p>\n Old black water, keep on rollin’ <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Riverboats were the CDs of the first half of the nineteenth century.\u00c2\u00a0 An era that many U.S. inhabitants of the time thought would never end, for many it was all they knew.\u00c2\u00a0 Then Abe Lincoln persuaded the government to allow a railroad bridge at Rock Island and the paddle wheels stopped turning. I’ve never been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-hU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Shinin’ down on the Pontchartrain<\/em><\/p>\n
My blood is a flowin’ fast<\/em><\/p>\n
Mississippi moon won’t you keep on shinin’ on me<\/em><\/p>\n