It's beginning to look like I'm going to New Orleans this weekend, and I couldn't be more excited. I'm asking Middle Son to make a shopping list and plan to stock him up with all the supplies he'll need fpr a while. I've promised him new bed linens for his birthday, which we'll go out and buy together, and I'll take him some Schweppe's Raspberry Ginger Ale, which (last time I checked) he can't get down there. We'll shop at the Wal-Mart on Tchopitoulous, the very same Wal-Mart that opened just days before his freshman move-in from which we stocked his dorm room, that temporarily served as a base of operations for a group of first responders, primarily NOPD, in the early days of The Aftermath of Katrina. We will go to NOMA to see Katrina Exposed. We will take the obligatory disaster tour, something he does anyway, from time to time. I'm hoping for at least one trip to Dom's for po-boys and a cold adult beverage (or two).
The Youngest is planning on going with me and my Best Friend is threatening to join us as well. While the oldest of her five children is ready to launch, heading to a junior college to play baseball, she has a daughter who might be interested in Loyola, so she says she wants to make a "scouting trip" and I'd love to have her along. We are squeezing the trip in between baseball games, leaving Thursday and getting home before Sunday evening's game. This could work, although I found out last night that The Oldest is coming home this weekend, or rather he's coming back to visit Atlanta, since it's become apparent that Wilmington, NC is now his home. Gosh. I sure wish he'd told me sooner. Gonna miss seein' him.
I guess the bad news is that Middle Son will have to work through my visit, as he's saving time off from his job for a trip home (or, rather, back to Atlanta) later this month. I'm as thrilled that he's coming as I am that I'm going there, so that's fine with me. I'll have plenty to keep me busy, whether or not my friend comes with me. I'll visit the campus, stop by the financial aid office and maybe buy something at the bookstore. So much has changed since those first trips to Loyola in the spring, summer and fall of '04 and even since my last visit in March of '05, not just in New Orleans but in my life as well. I did just learn, when I went to the Loyola website to check the summer bookstore and office hours, that Rev. Kevin Wm. Wildes, S.J, Loyola's President, has joined the Board of Friends of New Orleans, and that he's in fine company, joining John Barry, Donna Brazile, James Carville, Harry Shearer and a host of other luminaries who head up what appears to be a fine organization dedicated to supporting the city and it's surrounds. They've put together an excellent website with plenty of ways ordinary folks like you and me can do a little something to help. Check it out.
I'm hoping that when I'm there, I'll get to meet some of the NOLA bloggers I've gotten to "know" via the internet since Katrina. They have a get-together planned and I expect I'll attend, with or without my friend or my son (who will likely be working). I also plan to meet up with a dear friend from here, who's moved back to his native New Orleans since the storm and the flood that followed it (guess I better call him and let him know I'm coming, huh?).
Anyway... I know some people who, when they're approaching a trip, get all bent out of shape, upset with all they have to do, like it's some kind of bother to them, but I'm just not one of those people. I love the time before a trip, anticipating, planning, doing laundry and thinking about what to take. I like it almost as much as I like the trip itself, and here in the deep south (okay, maybe it was way back in the olden days too), that is what we call "journey proud". That suits me just fine.
Peace, out, ya'll
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