New Orleans, Louisiana

Early in 1977, I was offered the only full-time non-teaching job I have held since I began teaching in 1973: sales manager for a new medical-services company called Edon Reference Laboratories. Edon sent me to New Orleans to market their service to hospital labs, rent and furnish office space, and hire and train a small staff. They leased me a company car (a beautiful gold Pontiac Firebird), rented me a furnished apartment in Metairie (a suburb of NOLA), paid me a handsome salary and put me on a generous expense account. My job was to offer the lab managers a one-month free trial of a service which promised them faster and more accurate test results at a lower cost than they were accustomed to paying — so naturally I had no trouble lining up an impressive client list. Unfortunately, Edon wound up unable to deliver on any of its promises, and the company went down the tubes. I spent three carefree months in New Orleans, though, easily beating my sales quotas by putting in three-hour workdays.

The Crescent City, in case you've never been there, is Party Central USA. My favorite activities included oysters on the half shell at the Royal Sonesta Hotel's Desire lounge, po' boy lunches just about anywhere in the French Quarter, chicory coffee and beignets at the Café du Monde ("The coffee is strong at the Café du Monde, the donuts are too hot to touch. But just like a fool, when those sweet goodies cool, I eat till I eat way too much." — from Jimmy Buffett's "The Wino and I Know," on his Living and Dying in 3/4 Time album), and late-night jazz from the house band at Steve's Paddock Lounge. Food and music, in other words.

After 25 years away, I went back to NOLA for a College Media Advisors conference in the fall of 2001. Not too much had changed, except that Steve's was apparently gone. At any rate, I couldn't find it. I ate some great food, though, at Ugelsich's and Liuzza's and Bozo's and Mother's and the Acme Oyster House and Desire, heard some smokin' jazz, reconnected with my cousins Bernie and Fran Marcus and hung out with some of my CMA buddies. It was the weekend before Halloween, and Bourbon Street was thronged with costumed revelers like the "Free Mammogram" guy, who'd picked up the nurse and the lady with the purple hair and the big ... well, the big go-cup full of beer, let's say.

Return to Places.