OFF TO NEW ORLEANS
To my readers: I"ve been in a writing drought for a while. Hope I can get back in the mood. Try this one.
We moved to New Orleans in 1974 and went into culture shock. We managed to acclimate though and lived there for fourteen years. I sold real estate in there in the late 70s and early 80s and believe me, that was interesting. New Orleans is an interesting place anyway, but when you go into other people's homes with strangers, it's even more so. I drove a 1976 emerald green Cadillac Sedan deVille with a white hardtop in those days. I learned many years later that my kids called it a "pimpmobile". It had white leather seats and was a darn good looking car.
One hot summer day I was showing property a South American client and I wasn't making any progress in the selling field. After I had shown him several houses, I asked him to tell me again the kind he was looking for. He turned to me, panting, and said, "I can't concentrate right now. You make me so hot, I can't think"! With that I reached over, turned the a/c ducts toward his crotch and said, "Here, THAT ought to make you cool off!" As soon as I could, I pulled over on the Westbank Expressway and told him to get out. I left him standing there, lusty thoughts and all and drove off. He never did call me again about buying a house. Gee, I wonder why?
Then there was the house with a different colored shag carpet in each room. There was an orange shag with orange and white dapple paint on the was, a bright blue shag in another bedroom with matching blue and white on the wall and a lovely red shag running the length of the hall;and so on it went throughout. The house smelled like mold and there was a sliding "to-go" window in the master bedroom. The listing agent asked me later what I thought and why it hadn't sold. When I told her that she might consider asking them to rip up the carpets and paint the walls white, she became indignant. Go figure!
We lived in New Orleans for 14 years and I never could get used to those accents. There are several different ones, like the one that sounds as if they are from Brooklyn, the Cajun one and the 9th Ward one. One lady who wanted to sell her house was showing me around and she said, "Come upstahs dahlin, I want to show you how big the lockahs are". Thinking I was going to have to look at some footlockers, I trudged up only to discover that she was referring to the bedroom closets!
Then, not long after we settled into our house the plumbing went haywire. After the plumber had a look around he called me over and said, "The trouble is that your terlit has backed up. Asking for further explanation, he said, "the pernt I'm tryin' to make is that your terlit done backed up into your zinc." My WHAT has done WHAT?" Well, he got it fixed and it is from that experience that I learned sinks used to be made out of zinc. You learn something every day.
Before we moved to New Orleans, I had never seen fresh mushrooms or an artichoke. I thought mushrooms came only in jars and sure didn't know what an artichoke was. My cousin Jean, a native New Orleanian, told me how to cook an artichoke so I tried. After it cooled, trying to get to the inner delicious bit, I started peeling off those outside inedible sharp things. However, I kept peeling until there wasn't anything left. Mine didn't look like the ones I had enjoyed at her house. Better let someone else do the work. Speaking of that, I saw no pleasure in working and getting so messy just to glean a few bits of crawfish meat. True, the taste is great, but let someone else suck the heads and pinch the tails!
On the occasion of a Thanksgiving meal planned by those in my real estate office, I volunteered to bring the gravy. No big deal. Daddy taught me how to make gravy many years ago. So, on the celebratory day I proudly displayed my bowl of gravy and they said, "What's that?" I told them it was the gravy and they said, "But it's white". I asked, "What color do you think it's supposed to be?" "Well, brown, doncha' know?" I was a bit put out by this but I didn't make a remark about frying turkey when you can cook it in the oven without the risk of burning your legs!
Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed living in New Orleans even though I sure missed Texas. The food and the music are the things I miss about that life now. Being back in Texas I can reflect on all that I learned there and be glad I had that opportunity.
We moved to New Orleans in 1974 and went into culture shock. We managed to acclimate though and lived there for fourteen years. I sold real estate in there in the late 70s and early 80s and believe me, that was interesting. New Orleans is an interesting place anyway, but when you go into other people's homes with strangers, it's even more so. I drove a 1976 emerald green Cadillac Sedan deVille with a white hardtop in those days. I learned many years later that my kids called it a "pimpmobile". It had white leather seats and was a darn good looking car.
One hot summer day I was showing property a South American client and I wasn't making any progress in the selling field. After I had shown him several houses, I asked him to tell me again the kind he was looking for. He turned to me, panting, and said, "I can't concentrate right now. You make me so hot, I can't think"! With that I reached over, turned the a/c ducts toward his crotch and said, "Here, THAT ought to make you cool off!" As soon as I could, I pulled over on the Westbank Expressway and told him to get out. I left him standing there, lusty thoughts and all and drove off. He never did call me again about buying a house. Gee, I wonder why?
Then there was the house with a different colored shag carpet in each room. There was an orange shag with orange and white dapple paint on the was, a bright blue shag in another bedroom with matching blue and white on the wall and a lovely red shag running the length of the hall;and so on it went throughout. The house smelled like mold and there was a sliding "to-go" window in the master bedroom. The listing agent asked me later what I thought and why it hadn't sold. When I told her that she might consider asking them to rip up the carpets and paint the walls white, she became indignant. Go figure!
We lived in New Orleans for 14 years and I never could get used to those accents. There are several different ones, like the one that sounds as if they are from Brooklyn, the Cajun one and the 9th Ward one. One lady who wanted to sell her house was showing me around and she said, "Come upstahs dahlin, I want to show you how big the lockahs are". Thinking I was going to have to look at some footlockers, I trudged up only to discover that she was referring to the bedroom closets!
Then, not long after we settled into our house the plumbing went haywire. After the plumber had a look around he called me over and said, "The trouble is that your terlit has backed up. Asking for further explanation, he said, "the pernt I'm tryin' to make is that your terlit done backed up into your zinc." My WHAT has done WHAT?" Well, he got it fixed and it is from that experience that I learned sinks used to be made out of zinc. You learn something every day.
Before we moved to New Orleans, I had never seen fresh mushrooms or an artichoke. I thought mushrooms came only in jars and sure didn't know what an artichoke was. My cousin Jean, a native New Orleanian, told me how to cook an artichoke so I tried. After it cooled, trying to get to the inner delicious bit, I started peeling off those outside inedible sharp things. However, I kept peeling until there wasn't anything left. Mine didn't look like the ones I had enjoyed at her house. Better let someone else do the work. Speaking of that, I saw no pleasure in working and getting so messy just to glean a few bits of crawfish meat. True, the taste is great, but let someone else suck the heads and pinch the tails!
On the occasion of a Thanksgiving meal planned by those in my real estate office, I volunteered to bring the gravy. No big deal. Daddy taught me how to make gravy many years ago. So, on the celebratory day I proudly displayed my bowl of gravy and they said, "What's that?" I told them it was the gravy and they said, "But it's white". I asked, "What color do you think it's supposed to be?" "Well, brown, doncha' know?" I was a bit put out by this but I didn't make a remark about frying turkey when you can cook it in the oven without the risk of burning your legs!
Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed living in New Orleans even though I sure missed Texas. The food and the music are the things I miss about that life now. Being back in Texas I can reflect on all that I learned there and be glad I had that opportunity.
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