THE "BIG EASY"

 I sold real estate in New Orleans in the 1970s and 1980s 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 automobile.

One hot summer day I was showing property to 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 again to tell me the kind he was looking for. he turned to me and said, "I can't concentrate right now. You make me so hot, I can't think!" With that I reached down, turned the a/c ducts toward his crotch and said, " Here, THAT ought to cool you 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 rug in each room. There was an orange shag with orange and white dapple paint on the wall in one bedroom,  a bright blue shag in another bedroom with matching blue and white on the wall and a lovely green 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 red 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 the owner 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 could never 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 upstaihs dahlin, I want to show you how big the lockahs arh" Thinking I was going to have to look at some footlockers,, I trudged up only to discover that she was referring to the closets in the bedrooms.

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 yer terlit has backed up." Asking for further explanation, he said, "The pernt I'm tryin' to make is that yer 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 that sinks used to be made out of zinc.

Before we moved to New Orleans, I had never seen fresh mushrooms or an artichoke. I thought mushrooms came only in jars. My cousin Jean told me how to cook an artichoke so I tried. After it cooled I started peeling off those outside inedible sharp things trying to get to the inner delicious bit. However, I kept peeling until there wasn't anything left. Nothing looked 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 gravy and they said "What's that?" I told them it was gravy and they said, "But it's white." "What color do you think it's supposed to be?", I asked. "Well, brown, doncha know?" I was a bit put out by this and didn't even try to make a remark about frying turkey when you could  cook it in the oven without risk of burning your legs! You see, they fry turkey outside in a heavy vat filled with hot oil.

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