New Orleans Trip- Part 3
For a trip that was not without some hang ups, and the heaviness of taking a trip back to World War II, the performance by the Lewistown band was a huge bright spot, matched only by the euphoria in Across All Borders when Hitler dies, and the United States poured into the street to celebrate VE Day.
After the performance of the Vaughn Williams march, we proceeded to go to a shopping mall, the River Front Shopping Mall, and the jazz band performed some pieces.
They did a lot of performing on Sunday. A lot.
Scott Shaw absolutely killed it on the keyboard. Mr. Haynes shredded the guitar as well. The piece went on for something like seven or eight minutes. I am glad I got pictures. I am glad I got video!
We finally got some cajun soul food that night. There was barbecued chicken sandwiches with apple crisp that night at this one restaurant.
Then we got to march through the streets of the French Quarter.
And boy did the people turn out! I incidentally had my Steve Winwood shirt packed along for the trip. I had no way of knowing that the Steve Winwood and The Spencer Davis piece would be the cornerstone of the New Orleans French Quarter performance.
So it was serendipitous that I had these shirts with me.
The bystanders came right out onto the street and danced along. It was like a moment out of a movie musical or something! It was great for the students to see this lifestyle, this free-spirited living in the moment that they have in New Orleans. Their performing at the summit of their ability and being celebrated for it by complete strangers who just relished that someone had come out to perform for them.
So if it wasn't for the fact that I got married earlier this year, I think that walking through the french quarter singing "Oh my temperature's rising got my feet on the floor, crazy people dancin' like they wanna' know more..." (lyrics not 100 percent correct) may have had a shot at being the happiest moment of the year for me. While the band did a spot-on performance, seven, eight, nine, ten times of Steve Winwood, it was like the heavens opened and God smiled on me.
I make myself listen to only one Steve Winwood album a week.
Oh, I'll still listen to his songs on Greatest Hits, or find them on the radio.
But I ration it. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I got to listen to Steve Winwood Nine Lives on the drive to Lewistown at 6 am Monday morning.
So this was the highest concentration of Steve Winwood in one day I had had in over a year. Not since I saw his concert in Chicago in April of 2015.
We were all buzzing from this experience. I think it will be a high point of their high school experience.
Everything happened so fast. After our performance, we took the ghost tour of the French Quarter. The high point of it for me was the house where the woman who imprisoned her slaves was caught and threw herself off the balcony, leaving a curse on the house. Nicholas Cage moved in in 2006. He had one more hit movie, Ghost Rider. This period of his career was followed by the likes of Next, Invasion, Bangkok Dangerous, Knowing, Season of the Witch, Drive Angry in 3D, Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance, Trespass, and a remake of Left Behind.
To be fair, I liked Knowing. I liked what I saw of The Croods. And that one was a hit.
But the point was well made. His career was cursed, significantly, right around the time he moved into that haunted house.
After the Ghost Tour, the lightning and thunder that had been rolling in were accompanied by some rain. We boarded our bus, we made a quick Walmart stop for provisions, including Ozarka bottled water, tooth brush and toothpaste; and we hit the road.
By breakfast time we were in Perryville, Missouri. By just after lunchtime Sunday, we were back in Lewistown. I slept two nights in a bed on this trip, two nights upright in a seat on the bus.
And I use the term sleep lightly.
I know that I got like an hour and forty minutes honest to goodness slumber on the trip down. So I was okay through Thursday.
But I really did not sleep on the trip back. I had some half hour stretches of slipping in and out of lucid consciousness, but it was never solid sleep.
I spent Sunday trying to watch the Tony Awards at the SideTrax in Galesburg. But then I learned they were the next weekend.
I upped my states total from 28 to thirty in this trip. Traveling by land through Arkansas and Mississippi allows them to join California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming... and Washington, D.C.
I made much closer friends out of the students with whom I already considered myself close friends. I looked forward more than ever to just the possibility of coming back to Lewistown to serve as their Spanish teacher at the conclusion of this Louisiana trip.
After the performance of the Vaughn Williams march, we proceeded to go to a shopping mall, the River Front Shopping Mall, and the jazz band performed some pieces.
They did a lot of performing on Sunday. A lot.
Scott Shaw absolutely killed it on the keyboard. Mr. Haynes shredded the guitar as well. The piece went on for something like seven or eight minutes. I am glad I got pictures. I am glad I got video!
We finally got some cajun soul food that night. There was barbecued chicken sandwiches with apple crisp that night at this one restaurant.
Then we got to march through the streets of the French Quarter.
And boy did the people turn out! I incidentally had my Steve Winwood shirt packed along for the trip. I had no way of knowing that the Steve Winwood and The Spencer Davis piece would be the cornerstone of the New Orleans French Quarter performance.
So it was serendipitous that I had these shirts with me.
The bystanders came right out onto the street and danced along. It was like a moment out of a movie musical or something! It was great for the students to see this lifestyle, this free-spirited living in the moment that they have in New Orleans. Their performing at the summit of their ability and being celebrated for it by complete strangers who just relished that someone had come out to perform for them.
So if it wasn't for the fact that I got married earlier this year, I think that walking through the french quarter singing "Oh my temperature's rising got my feet on the floor, crazy people dancin' like they wanna' know more..." (lyrics not 100 percent correct) may have had a shot at being the happiest moment of the year for me. While the band did a spot-on performance, seven, eight, nine, ten times of Steve Winwood, it was like the heavens opened and God smiled on me.
I make myself listen to only one Steve Winwood album a week.
Oh, I'll still listen to his songs on Greatest Hits, or find them on the radio.
But I ration it. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I got to listen to Steve Winwood Nine Lives on the drive to Lewistown at 6 am Monday morning.
So this was the highest concentration of Steve Winwood in one day I had had in over a year. Not since I saw his concert in Chicago in April of 2015.
We were all buzzing from this experience. I think it will be a high point of their high school experience.
Everything happened so fast. After our performance, we took the ghost tour of the French Quarter. The high point of it for me was the house where the woman who imprisoned her slaves was caught and threw herself off the balcony, leaving a curse on the house. Nicholas Cage moved in in 2006. He had one more hit movie, Ghost Rider. This period of his career was followed by the likes of Next, Invasion, Bangkok Dangerous, Knowing, Season of the Witch, Drive Angry in 3D, Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance, Trespass, and a remake of Left Behind.
To be fair, I liked Knowing. I liked what I saw of The Croods. And that one was a hit.
But the point was well made. His career was cursed, significantly, right around the time he moved into that haunted house.
After the Ghost Tour, the lightning and thunder that had been rolling in were accompanied by some rain. We boarded our bus, we made a quick Walmart stop for provisions, including Ozarka bottled water, tooth brush and toothpaste; and we hit the road.
By breakfast time we were in Perryville, Missouri. By just after lunchtime Sunday, we were back in Lewistown. I slept two nights in a bed on this trip, two nights upright in a seat on the bus.
And I use the term sleep lightly.
I know that I got like an hour and forty minutes honest to goodness slumber on the trip down. So I was okay through Thursday.
But I really did not sleep on the trip back. I had some half hour stretches of slipping in and out of lucid consciousness, but it was never solid sleep.
I spent Sunday trying to watch the Tony Awards at the SideTrax in Galesburg. But then I learned they were the next weekend.
I upped my states total from 28 to thirty in this trip. Traveling by land through Arkansas and Mississippi allows them to join California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming... and Washington, D.C.
I made much closer friends out of the students with whom I already considered myself close friends. I looked forward more than ever to just the possibility of coming back to Lewistown to serve as their Spanish teacher at the conclusion of this Louisiana trip.