Reply #62: Lots of them.... [View All]

[XOKCowboy]

My "High School Trip" was 22 of us in a chartered bus going to New Orleans a week after graduation in 1972. There were 77 people in my Senior Class in a small town about 30 miles north of Tulsa. 22 people had saved enough from summer jobs or got it from their parents. The Baptist kids wanted to go to South Padre Island in ugghhhhhhh TEXAS of all places! Luckily my more "enlightened" classmates and I outvoted them and we were off to New Orleans. The bus let us off right outside a French Quarter hotel and while our 4 chaperones checked us in and sorted our luggage out, most of us took off for Bourbon Streen to find a bar that'd serve 18 yr olds. We spent 4 days right out of high school hanging out for the last time with schoolmates, doing the tourist thing during the day and going nuts at night. Rubes in the big city having fun. Oh BTW - Those Baptist kids who wanted to go to Padre? They partied harder than anyone and we spent most of our time taking care of them!

I've been back a few times to work at their Convention Center. Except for the times I had to go in the heat of Summer and even then I always have a good time in Nawlins. It was one of the last bohemian cities in America.

In 2003 I was driving back from a job in Florida. It seems that two of my oldest friends were going to be vacationing in Nawlins the weekend I'd be driving by so I dropped down and spent a couple of nights with them. We had a great time. As we walked out of the hotel to cross Canal Street headed to the French Quarter, an all black high school band came marching up Canal Street and they were tearing it up! They'd been hired by a convention of marketing execs to lead them up to the French Quarter so we joined right in. My friend said that she'd never had such a warm welcome to a city. It kind of set the tone for the night! We ate a lot of good food, met a lot of good people, saw all the historic places and got to watch marketing geeks party! Who could ask for more?

Then there is my last trip to New Orleans. It was for a job in a very classy hotel right in the heart of the French Quarter. We were 4 blocks from Jackson Square one way and 2 blocks from Bourbon Street the other. The people at the hotel treated us like family. Service above and beyond what I've come to expect from other hotels. I came down with a bad cold half way through my stay there. I had to work and several of the staff took it upon themselves to send cough remedies to my room. Some damn good people.

I'm gonna miss the New Orleans of my memory. I'll be watching with great interest to how they rebuild it.