Chat
10-29-2016, 08:59 PM
I'm in a city that reminds me of New Orleans, down on Canal St. and the French Quarter area. The street is filled with people, all college aged young people. It's like spring break or some other celebration. There's a parade with floats. People tossing stuff from the floats and people on the sidewalks scrambling and scrabbling for the thrown stuff. I'm standing with some girls. They want me to go clothes shopping with them. I'm not interested in buying clothes but I go with them anyway. When we come out of one store, it's raining. The parade has ended but there are still people in the street. It's raining so hard that water has risen to about thigh height. People are swimming in the street and floating about in inner tubes. Yet the water hasn't risen above the sidewalks or median. People are walking and milling around like normal. I walk along the median. At the end of the street, the end nearest the river, there's an old sailing ship floating in the water. It's flying a Jolly Roger flag. I hear music and think this is ridiculously Disney-esque. A man dressed in a white poet's shirt, trousers, and boots sits astraddle the deck railing near the bow of the ship. He calls down to me and I wave at him. He invites me aboard the ship to sail the 7 seas with him. The college girls, who are now with me again, crowd around me, wanting to know what I'm going to do and asking if I knew the guy. I peer up at him and ask if we know each other. He laughs, then grins down at us and tells the girls that he and I have never met but we've known each other for years. He extends his hand down to me. I take his hand and he pulls me aboard. The girls cheer as the ship pulls away from the dock like it has an engine. What about them? I ask, gesturing at the city. He laughs and says that they'll manage fine without me, that I have other work to do. I laugh, too, and say it's about effing time.
Notes:
At first I didn't recognize the city, thinking it was one of those dream cities that are anonymous but represent somewhere else. Then I realized I did recognize the scene, that it was Canal St. from New Orleans. I don't know what the celebration was but there was a parade, which isn't that unusual in NO, really. Nor is the stuff being thrown from the floats. I was there a few years ago and attended a parade where every float or group that went by seemed to toss stuff into the crowd(I fielded a few items that would have nailed some people in the heads if I hadn't been paying attention. They didn't even notice how close they came to being cold-cocked by frisbees or plastic cups. LOL).
What struck me was how no one seemed to care about the flooding. People on the sidewalks went about their business while the people in the streets saw it as a chance to have fun.
The sailing ship really did remind me of the Black Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean movies but the captain was not Johnny Depp. More like Eric from The Little Mermaid. No kidding when I say it was very Disney-esque.
Notes:
At first I didn't recognize the city, thinking it was one of those dream cities that are anonymous but represent somewhere else. Then I realized I did recognize the scene, that it was Canal St. from New Orleans. I don't know what the celebration was but there was a parade, which isn't that unusual in NO, really. Nor is the stuff being thrown from the floats. I was there a few years ago and attended a parade where every float or group that went by seemed to toss stuff into the crowd(I fielded a few items that would have nailed some people in the heads if I hadn't been paying attention. They didn't even notice how close they came to being cold-cocked by frisbees or plastic cups. LOL).
What struck me was how no one seemed to care about the flooding. People on the sidewalks went about their business while the people in the streets saw it as a chance to have fun.
The sailing ship really did remind me of the Black Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean movies but the captain was not Johnny Depp. More like Eric from The Little Mermaid. No kidding when I say it was very Disney-esque.