New Orleans has been in my thoughts today. As a kid, it was more than the closest big town to home. It was the place to go to when I grew up, the place where dreams would happen. New Orleans was the cultural oasis, the city to go to for cool. My favorite memories are two road trips from college. On one trip, my friend CW and I walk up to two officers in the French Quarter after we learned her car had been towed. The officers were talking to two men. The men, as it turned out, were handcuffed. Just as we approached the cops, they got a call on their radio that another crime was taking place. For some odd reason, they uncuffed the two men and took off. CW and I stood next to the would-be criminals; they leered at us. CW and I took one look at each other and took off behind the cops.
Another time, a slew of friends drove down in my 1979 Dodge Charger. Too much alcohol and other substances were consumed and I remember all of us sitting in Cafe Du Monde at some ungodly hour, devouring beignets and trying not to pass out. On the drive back to Jackson, the car windows were rolled down and Bruce Springsteen blasted from the tape player. I remember looking out the windows, and up at the dark sky overhead and then seeing the glow of New Orleans behind us.
That's how I think of NOLA, as this town that just glows, and I don't mean from industrial waste.
So tonight, as I sit many miles from the place I have always thought of as my second home, I'd like to suggest two songs for those of you who miss New Orleans the way I do. The first one is "Louisiana 1927." Aaron Neville sings it, but I think Randy Newman wrote it. The second is that classic sung by Louis Armstrong, "Do You Know What it Means To Miss New Orleans." Download them from iTunes, listen, remember the good times you had in New Orlean, and if you are like me, the songs will make you a little misty-eyed and give you a powerful yearning for a town worth loving.
