My hometown is Mangum, Oklahoma, located in Greer County in the very Southwest corner of the state, adjacent to The Texas Panhandle. In fact, at one time, Greer County was a part of Texas, but was later ceded to Oklahoma while it was still part of the Indian Territory. It was a pleasure to grow up in a small town.
Mangum is a small city of about 4,000 people. At one time, there was a sign outside of town welcoming people to the city of some 4,000 friendly people and one old grouch. And that was fairly accurate. I was born there and educated in Mangum.
I started school in the first grade (there was no kindergarten then) with about 40 children. While a few families moved out of town, and others moved in, I went through twelve grades of school with at least 25 of the original group. We were close and were acquainted with each other quite intimately, knowing each other's capabilities and shortcomings, but through it all, we were friends and companions.
It was traditional for senior classes to take a trip at the end of their graduating year. Classes began collecting money for the trip early in their tenure at school. The first real opportunity to collect funds was to put on our Junior Class Play in high school. We staged "Charlie's Aunt" which was very successful. All of the money collected after expenses for staging, etc. went into our fund.
During our senior year, we were given the opportunity to run concessions at all football games, basketball games, and other school activities. The profits from these concessions were very profitable for us. While I played football and was unable to participate during football season, I was able to participate during basketball season since I did not play the game. We staged our Senior Play, "Come Over To Our House" and again it was a financial success. By the time we graduated, we had collected several thousand dollars, which, in 1948, was quite a sum.
We decided to take a trip to New Orleans. After examining transportation means and costs, we decided to take a novel approach. We hired a flatbed tractor-trailer with a canvas cover. We arranged with the school system to take seats out of the school buses and bolt them to the floor of the flatbed. Our class sponsors agreed to be our chaperones, and they traveled behind us in an automobile.
Our truck took off early on a Monday, leaving Mangum in the early morning mist. We drove all day, going through Sherman & Paris, Texas along U.S. 82, and ending up late in the evening at Texarkana, Texas, we stayed overnight at a motel. The next morning, we left and traveled to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where we stopped for lunch. I had my first mixed drink, a martini, at the restaurant. Oklahoma, at the time was one of two or three Dry states, including Mississippi and Kansas. Louisiana was a very liberal state, allowing about anything a person wanted to try. Even though I was on the cusp of being eighteen, no questions were asked, I was just served the martini, and most of my classmates reveled in ordering their own concoctions. Our chaperones were conveniently out of sight.
After lunch, we boarded the truck and took off for New Orleans, arriving late afternoon at the Arcadian Gardens, a very nice motel/hotel on the Northeast side of New Orleans on Gentilly Boulevard. It was on a streetcar line, which ran to downtown New Orleans. The streetcar named "Desire" was still running at that time. All of our hotel costs and evening meals and entertainment were provided by our class fund. We paid for all other things out of our own pockets. I think I spent something like $50.00 in the two weeks we were on the trip.
I have traveled half way across the world, and have visited most major cities in the United States, including Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Denver, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tampa, Miami and Atlanta, but I have never enjoyed any city as much as I enjoyed New Orleans during that trip. Since that time, I have visited the city at least 15 times and even lived there for 3 months in 1967, and every time I go, I find something new to enjoy.
On group expeditions, we had a dinner and dance in the Starlight Room of the Roosevelt Hotel one night. Later, we went upstairs to the radio studio of WWL where we participated in Poole's Paradise, a highly popular radio program of that era. Those who are over 60 years old, might remember hearing his program since the station was one of the clear channel stations that reached long distances during the nighttime.
Another night, we went to Pat O'Brien's, a popular nightspot in New Orleans. That night we convened in the "hurricane" room where they had a hurricane sound every hour or so, and in the meantime, served a very popular and powerful drink called a Hurricane. In subsequent years, I returned to Pat O'Brien's but in another area - the piano bar. Every night, two piano players, on facing grand pianos, play joyous bistro songs and lead sing-a-longs. With a few beers or hurricanes, one melded into the group and was swept away in a wonderful camaraderie that could last long past midnight.
(In subsequent years, my wife and I have spent many hours in Pat O'Brien's piano bar, and always want to return at any possible opportunity. Those who have been there, know what I am talking about, and if you have not been there, please plan on visiting it one of these days.)
One night we had dinner at Tujacques where they serve French food in a family setting. A normal meal consists of at least ten courses. One course was a thin slice of meat called Cheviot. It was several years later before I realized Cheviot was a fancy name for horsemeat. Each morning, we went to the French Market for Beignets (French doughnuts) and chicory coffee.
We had breakfast at Brennan's, and on one special night, we took a long limousine ride out to Lake Ponchartrain to the My O My Club. This was a female personator nightclub where all of the performers dressed and acted and sang as women. It was unusual to say the least - and it was good that we were chaperoned.
We took a day trip via the Crescent City Tour Company to see the sights of New Orleans. The most memorable were the cemeteries and the museums. One museum on Jackson Square had a death mask of Napoleon, which was interesting. The cemeteries in New Orleans are very unique. Because of the high water level, they cannot dig normal graves. They have mausoleums, but the are unique. One family might own one receptacle. A casket is placed into the receptacle, and the name of the person is carved on the door. After a year and one day, the receptacle is opened, the casket is crushed and the bones of the dead person are pushed into the back of the receptacle into what is called a bone cache. The year and one day rule is based on the New Orleans climate, etc. during which time an unembalmed body will decay. It is normal to see ten or more names carved into the front of a single receptacle. A more affluent family might have a "condo" of five or more receptacles in one large str ucture.
One day, we took a river tour on the U.S. President, a large paddlewheel steamboat. The tour took us around the entire crescent of the Mississippi River which curves around New Orleans and which gives it its nickname, The Crescent City.
One more interesting trip was to Mother's - a cafe‚ located downtown at 101 Poydras Street, but outside the French Quarter. It serves old time New Orleans Creole and Southern food. A favorite meal was a "debris" sandwich, red beans and rice. The term debris came from the small morsels of beef left over from carving larger pieces of roast beef for hot open-faced sandwiches. The debris was marvelously brown and soaked with herbs and spices, and my mouth still waters when I think of one. Mother's is still located at the same address, and if any of you visit New Orleans, make certain you include it in your itinerary.
Finally, our visit to New Orleans came to an end, and we decided to return home by going to Galveston, Texas and spending the day at the beach. We drove through Cajun country, and when we drove through New Iberia, a group of Cajuns thought we were a bunch of gypsies or something odd, and began throwing stones and vegetables at us. We got out of there very quickly.
We arrived in Galveston without further incident and spent the day at the beach. We had a wonderful time, even though most of us got sunburned. Late that afternoon, we boarded our truck and left for Mangum, and traveled through the night, reaching home early the next morning. Our 50th class reunion in 1998 refreshed our memories of that wondrous trip - something to be treasured and reviewed frequently with happiness.
During the Korean War, in August 1950, my National Guard Division - the 45th, was activated and sent to what was then Camp Polk, Louisiana. I was attending the University of Oklahoma at the time and was a NCO in the 120th Ambulance Company, a part of a medical battalion. We drove our ambulances and trucks and personnel to Camp Polk, following the same route my Senior Class took on its 1948 trip to New Orleans, going to Sherman and Paris, Texas, but then going to Shreveport and South to Leesville, Louisiana where the camp was located.
During our training phase, several of my friends took a short leave and drove down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. We stayed at the Roosevelt Hotel on Canal Street. It was wild and crazy and a lot of fun. It has grown in tremendous proportions since that time until now when there is barely any wiggle room left for the spectators and the participants.
A very short time later in April 1951, A train shipped our division to the Port of New Orleans where we boarded several troop carriers to take us to Japan. My group was on the worst ship in the convoy, the U.S.S. General Buckner. We had about 5,000 soldiers on the ship and we slept in hammocks hung four high. We only had two meals a day due to the number of people on the ship.
We left New Orleans going down the Mississippi, through the Delta and into the Caribbean Sea. The water was a beautiful deep blue unlike anything I had ever seen before. We went through the Panama Canal, stopping for a short shore leave at Colon. Sometime during this phase of the voyage, a malaria-carrying mosquito bit me although I did not know it at the time.
After we left the Panama Canal, the ship turned north and followed the Baja California and California shorelines - some 100 miles out from land, up to San Francisco. During this voyage, we saw many whales, porpoises and innumerable flying fish. As the ship approached their schools, they would take to the air and fly 50 feet or more to escape the ship.
I had one of my prized possessions with me on the ship. It was a GE portable radio. This was in 1951, long before the introduction of transistors and alkaline batteries. The radio had a wet cell battery similar to an automobile battery although it was quite a bit smaller. It required recharging periodically by plugging it into an electrical current socket. Fortunately, one of my friends was a barber by trade and he worked in the ship's barbershop. He allowed me to plug in my radio in the barbershop to recharge it periodically. The real point of this part of the story is that we used to gather on the deck at night and listen to clear channel stations such as WOAI out of San Antonio, etc., as well as the Mexican stations, which broadcast in English.
Upon reaching San Francisco, we passed under the Golden Gate Bridge into the bay where we docked at a Naval Station and picked up some more troops from other divisions. After 24 hours, we departed for Japan. This segment of the trip took about two weeks through very choppy seas and ugly green water. Most of the soldiers were seasick, but it never bothered me.
We sailed to the northern island of Japan, Hokkaido into the bay at Sapporo during the middle of the night. I awakened to the noxious odor of feces, which permeated the air. It was a smell that lingered until I finally left Japan on another ship some 8 months later. Things may have changed by now, but then; all farmers collected human feces to be used as fertilizer in their fields. They had carts we called "Honey Wagons" that were driven into the towns and cities where the farmers used buckets to dip up the human offal and put it into the carts. While our camps had modern sewage systems and toilets, all of the homes I visited had indoor Benjo's that were similar to our old country outhouses.
Speaking of outhouses, many of my friends in my hometown still used outhouses into the 1940's, and almost all of those who lived on farms had outhouses. My mother belonged to a quilting circle where all of the members met at a different house each month. There were about 12 members, so every family would get a new quilt once a year. All of the children went along with their mothers because we could play and there was always a wonderful potluck lunch. At least half of the members still used outhouses, so I remember them well. There is a funny story about the building of outhouses that I will tell in another episode - it is fiction, but most people enjoy the tale. Getting back to our introduction to Japan, we disembarked from our ship early in the morning and our part of the division was loaded onto a Japanese train going from Sapporo southward about 30 miles to Chitose. Almost everyone remembers Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, since one of the Winter Olympics was held there. C hitose was a former Japanese Air Force base. They had set up squad tents for us to live in. We were replacing occupation troops who were being sent to fight in Korea. It was late April, but still very cold. Most of the snow had melted by the time we arrived. One of the first things that caught my attention in a new land was seeing a number of people on bicycles being pulled by dogs. I asked some old-timers what they were doing, and he told me the people were keeping their dogs in condition for pulling sleds when the snows started again in October. Hokkaido is the Alaska of Japan.
My Ambulance Company carried sick soldiers from a field hospital in Chitose to a large hospital in Sapporo. In addition, we supplied medical services to a Rest & Recreational Resort at Noboribetsu some 40 miles southwest of Chitose where soldiers fighting in Korea were brought to recuperate from the rigors of the war. The resort was an old Japanese resort for the rich Japanese and featured a famous Roman Bath in the basement. There was a large round pool in the center of the room that was about 30 feet in diameter. Seven small pools were located around the outside perimeter of the room creating a circle of pools around the large center one. Each of the pools was of different temperatures and a variety of minerals. A person started at pool 1 on the perimeter and gradually worked their way through all seven pools, finally climbing into the central pool, which was very hot. After an appropriate time, we would get out and go to a table where we would be massaged. It was a lovel y experience, and I would love to have the opportunity to go to a place like that today - it would do miracles for my arthritis!
While the Japanese lived with the malodorous atmosphere emanating from the feces in the fields, they were personally very clean, and loved to lounge in hot tubs. They did not bathe in the tubs. They washed themselves carefully with soap and water out of a bucket or pan before getting into the actual bath. Moreover, most Japanese, who lived on a fish and vegetable diet, could not stand the smell of Americans who were beefeaters. Apparently, we emitted an unpleasant odor. Many times, when visiting with some friends I made, we would bathe first as a matter of custom and courtesy.
Hokkaido has a population of indigenous people called the Ainu. They are Caucasoid rather than Oriental in nature and live much as the American Indians do in America. They are very distinguishable because they have a custom of tattooing a large area around their lips with a blue dye. They are very hairy contrasted with the Japanese who do not have much body hair. They made their living carving wooden bears and they worship bears.
After I had been in Japan about six weeks, I developed a high fever that kept alternating with chills. The cycle would start about 4 PM every day. I was admitted to the hospital at Chitose and received many tests but the doctors could not determine what was wrong with me. They usually made their rounds in the morning hours and never saw me in one of the attacks. After a week or so, during which time I was growing weaker, I was sent to the hospital in Sapporo. The same thing happened there. Finally, after a week or so, a Major walked by my ward one evening and saw me shaking violently and came in to examine me. He said I was exhibiting classic signs of malaria, and subsequent tests revealed that was the correct diagnosis. No one had thought of testing me for malaria since there are no malaria bearing mosquitoes in Hokkaido. I told them I had come through the Panama Canal and that explained the anomaly. A few days on Cloroquin stopped the malaria cycle and cured me of the disea se.
Malaria cycles itself through the liver, and I was left with a form of hepatitis after the long bout with malaria. The doctors decided to send me to a major hospital in Tokyo, over 1,000 miles away for more tests to see if there was any damage to my liver, etc.
I was flown to Tokyo on an unpressurized cargo carrier. My ears still suffer from damage done to them during that flight. I stayed at a large hospital in Tokyo for about two weeks undergoing numerous tests which all proved to be negative. During my stay, I saw several entertainers come through the hospital to cheer up the patients. Bob Hope came and put on a large show for us in an outdoors garden area.
When I was released from the hospital, I was given a train ticket to take me back to Hokkaido and was turned loose in the city. Since my train did not leave for about 8 hours, I wandered through the Ginza and downtown Tokyo. I did not see any other Americans but did run into some Filipino soldiers on leave. They could not speak English and I could not speak Tagalag, but we could speak a little Spanish and had a good time for several hours visiting various stores and pachinko parlors. Finally, I caught a taxi to the train station and boarded a sleeper for the long trip back to Hokkaido. Unfortunately, I am 6'1", and the sleeping berths were made for 5'5" Japanese. I learned to curl up in a fetal position and slept through the night, (I don't believe I could manage it today.) The next day, we reached the end of the Island of Honshu and the train rolled onto a large ferry that would take it across a body of water about 50 miles across to the southern end of Hokkaido. Fro m there, we made our way back to Chitose.
In November of 1951, my extended enlistment ended and I was given the opportunity to re-enlist or be discharged. I opted for coming home. Several of my friends had the same opportunity and we traveled together. First, we took the long train trip back to Tokyo, and then took a ship back to San Francisco. The accommodations of the ship coming home were a great deal better than those on the General Buckner, and I actually enjoyed the cruise. We took a train back to Fort Sill, Oklahoma where we were discharged and we returned to civilian life. By the way, the last thing I remember about Japan was seeing Mt. Fuji disappearing on the horizon and the odor finally leaving my nostrils. I enjoyed the experience, but would not want to return to Japan.
I was working as a Service Manager (clerical operations) for Dun & Bradstreet, a commercial credit reporting company, in Fort Worth, Texas during 1967, and lived in nearby Hurst, Texas. D&B had embarked upon a new form of increasing the efficiency of its clerical force. The typical office in that era had a large clerical staff engaged in activities such as typing, filing, printing, collating, mail room duties and sales support. Usually at least 60% of the staff was clerical, 30% were business analysts, 7% were salespeople and 3% were in management.
Coopers & Lybrand, a large national accounting firm developed a new system for measuring units of clerical work, assigning values to the units, and the ability to input data into a large computer to determine individual productivity. Their studies indicated that the average clerical staff works at about 60% of their actual capability, and the introduction of their CSP (Clerical Systems Program) could increase productivity to at least 90%.
I was selected to become a part of the installation team, and was transferred to the New York staff assigned to the project, even though I continued to live in Hurst, Texas. My initial assignment was in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The office there had about 175 people. I flew from Dallas to Minneapolis during the first part of January 1967, to begin my training and participating in the program. My associate and trainer was a brilliant gentleman out of Chicago. We rented an apartment in the old Curtis Hotel located in downtown Minneapolis since we expected the project to last about 4 months. We were allowed to go home each weekend, but spent the week in the apartment.
Rather than discuss the details of my job assignment, I would rather tell about some of my personal experiences. That winter, Minneapolis had one of the worst winters it had experienced in many years. While snow and coldness always prevails in winter, both were exceptional in 1967. First, in December of 1966, they had a heavy rain that froze as it hit the snow already on the ground, creating a very thick layer of ice on buildings, lawns and streets. Then, heavy snow fell on the ice, and the temperature fell to below zero.
My first trip was a real eye-opener. I left Love Field on a Braniff flight in 70-degree weather. When we reached Minneapolis four hours later, the temperature was 20 below zero. While I had an overcoat and gloves, I did not have a hat nor snow boots. I purchased those items and earmuffs within the first 24 hours and started learning to live with the cold. My associate, Bill and I ate all of our meals in restaurants, and there were many fine establishments within a three or four block radius of the Curtis Hotel. There were times it was so cold and windy that we could only walk one block at a time and would duck into any restaurant we could find.
The residents of Minneapolis were used to the cold, but even they complained about the extreme weather that winter. Most of the people there had headbolt heaters in their cars. They would take out a headbolt from the engine in their car and replace it with a special heater bolt that was wired and could be plugged into an electrical outlet to keep the engine warm enough to start. The Dun & Bradstreet office had a parking lot with electrical outlets where employees could park and plug in their heaters while they were at work. By the way, if you saw the movie "Fargo" - then you know how the average citizen of Minnesota speaks, They say "Jeez", "You betcha", etc. and have an excellent sense of humor.
The snow was so heavy that the ever-present snowplows would create huge banks of snow on the sides of all streets. The snow banks were so high; it was difficult to see over them. Most people put red flags on the top of their radio antennas to give a visual signal to other drivers that they were coming down the road.
There was a large office tower in Minneapolis that had an elaborate light system on the top of the building. They used the light system as a weather indicator. When the light was white, the weather was clear. When it was blue, it was going to snow. One night, the light turned red and started flashing, and we had no idea what it signaled. By morning we found out what it meant! We had 24 inches of snow that fell overnight. The city of Minneapolis was paralyzed for the day while snowplows struggled with the snow removal. For one time in its history, Minneapolis closed the schools and asked businesses to close.
One weekend when I went home, it was 15 below zero when I left Minneapolis and it was 85 when I reached Dallas. I worked in the yard and garden most of the weekend. I captured a horned toad and a grass lizard, which I placed into a small plastic box. I took the animals back to Minneapolis with me on Sunday night and gave them to one of the supervisors in the office who had children in school. They took them in for "Show & Tell" and it made their day! The school kept them and fed them and studied them with great interest. (I wonder what would have happened if I had taken one of our Texas Rattlers to them?)
I had one horrible experience on a flight to Minneapolis. (Norman Sykes, a pilot, may have seen something like this before - he is Linda Sykes husband and was an airline pilot for Continental airlines.) I boarded the plane and had a seat near the end of the aircraft. When we took off from Dallas, a cascade of water fell from the ceiling directly on me and on the person seated next to me. Apparently, the water came from a stopped up condensation line in the air conditioning system. We were soaked to the skin. The stewards took us to the lavatories and closed off the rear of the plane. We had to strip out of clothing. They could only give us some blankets to wear while they tried to dry our clothes. Both of us had checked our suitcases. Fortunately, the flight lasted four hours, and somehow, they managed to get our clothes into a condition where we could get dressed. We were wrinkled and bedraggled and very unhappy, but the quick and continuing attention given by the flight at tendants soothed our feelings and we did recover.
One morning in April, as it started warming up, I was awakened by loud noises in the street outside our hotel. It was the city, using bulldozers, front-end loaders, and all kinds of equipment to scrape the snow and ice from the streets. I was finally able to see pavement after four months of snow.
Minneapolis is located on the upper end of the Mississippi. While I was there, I made a trip on a train down to La Crosse, Wisconsin to assist the small office there in using the CSP system. The train ran adjacent to the river all of the way down to La Crosse, and was very wide - even at that point.
At the latter part of April, I left Minneapolis and went to Kansas City, Missouri to install the system in that office. During my three months in Kansas City, I had an apartment in the Bellerive Hotel. It was an old, beautifully maintained hotel located several miles from downtown. Kansas City had a "Theatre Under The Stars" program during the summer months and most of the stars stayed at the Bellerive. During my time there, I saw and ate dinner with stars such as Shirley Jones, Gordon MacRay and Anna Marie Allberghetti.
At the time, the Kansas City Athletics were still playing in Kansas City prior to their moving to Oakland, California. I saw my first major league baseball game there in 1967, when the Athletics played against the Minneapolis team. Harmon Killebrew and Rod Carew both hit home runs during the game.
Many of the Athletics stayed at the Bellerive Hotel when they were in town. One morning, the Kansas City police knocked on my door and awakened me at 5 am. They questioned me about whether I had a rifle or gun in the room. I told them, "No!" and asked what was going on. They said that someone from a room near mine had fired several shots from the hotel across the street into the Phillips Petroleum Computer Center and had damaged their mainframe computer. Later on, I found out that one of the Athletics, staying in a room above mine, had become intoxicated and had done the damage.
That summer the tornado season was terrible; we were awakened most nights by tornado warning sirens. My associate, who was a worrier, stayed up most nights sweating out the terror. I made up my mind to ignore the problem and generally slept like a log. One weekend, we had to stay in Kansas City, and my associate and I decided to visit the Truman Presidential Library in Independence. We spent most of the day in the library and enjoyed it very much. It had an exact replica of the Oval Office as of the time Harry Truman was President. After we left, we drove by Mr. Truman's home and was surprised to see he and Bess sitting on the front porch, and they waved back to us as we waved to them.
About the first of July 1967, I finished in Kansas City, and moved to New Orleans to install the system there. I rented an apartment in the Garden District on St. Charles Street. The office was located on Canal Street. I took the only remaining streetcar line, the St. Charles Street Car, to work each day and back home in the evening.
I worked at this location without an associate and spent most of my evenings in my apartment typing notes regarding each day's work. From time to time, I would take an evening off to visit Pat O'Briens or eat breakfast at Brennans, but most of the time; I worked in the office and returned to the apartment - then went home on the weekends.
In September 1967, I was offered a position of District Service Manager in the Atlanta, Georgia office, and I accepted it. I had to finish the work in New Orleans while moving my family to Atlanta. We sold our home in Hurst and moved into a new place in Atlanta. For the next four weeks, I commuted to New Orleans from Atlanta rather than from Dallas.
During 1974, I was promoted to the position of Regional Manager of the Southwest Region of Dun & Bradstreet covering offices from Richmond, Virginia to Miami, Florida and westward to Mobile, Alabama and New Orleans.
Our New Orleans office had many problems due to a common New Orleans affliction - people worked when they wanted to work and played when they wanted to play, and unfortunately, they wanted to play most of the time. Backlogs were always a problem and numerous visits by upper management were required on a continuing basis to keep the office functioning. I traveled to New Orleans a number of times during the next two years, and rarely was able to participate in the fun side of the city.
In early 1975, I took my wife, Elizabeth and my youngest daughter, Jill on an extended trip to several offices in my region, starting in Orlando, Florida, then on to Tampa. We rented an apartment in the Aegean Sands Hotel in Clearwater on the beach for a three-week period. Liz and Jill spent the day on the beach while I worked in nearby Tampa. It was a lovely experience for them.
When I finished my work in Tampa, we drove up the western coast of Florida and crossed over to Mobile, Alabama where we spent a day or so. Then, we drove the coastal highway from Mobile to New Orleans. This is one of the loveliest drives in the United States, and we enjoyed it very much.
Arriving in New Orleans, we went to the Royal Sonesta Hotel located at 300 Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. While the rooms are small, it was an excellent hotel with fine dining rooms and an interior court with a swimming pool. Our room overlooked a street, which intersected with Bourbon Street. Jill was 10 at the time, and could not participate in the normal nightlife, but she and Liz toured the French Quarter and visited all of the museums and shops, etc. At night, we ate in all of the famous restaurants, Antoines, Court of Two Sisters, and Brennans.
One day, we went over on Canal Street to Holmes Department Store to eat in their Cafeteria. As a family raised in Texas, and Georgia, we love cafeterias - something we seldom see in New York, New Jersey unless it is in a company environment, and it is not the same as a place like Morrisons, Lubys or Picadilly.
After we went through the line, we found a booth and sat down to eat. We noticed a strangely dressed older gentleman in a booth across the aisle. He was talking to himself - in fact, he was creating a situation. He imagined himself to be a movie director in Africa, shooting pictures of moving herds of wildebeests, prides of lions, hippopotamuses and elephants. He would form a frame with his fingers as if he were looking through a viewfinder, all the while, making a running commentary about the shooting of the movie. It was obvious that he was eccentric and perhaps crazy, but he provided us with an hour of entertainment.
After finishing my chores in a couple of weeks, we drove back to Atlanta. After that time, I was promoted to Zone Manager in Philadelphia, then as Director of Special Projects in our New York office. While in New York, I visited New Orleans on a couple of occasions with other managers and always had a wonderful time. One time, we arrived and found that our guaranteed reservations at a downtown hotel had been cancelled due to a special political convention. We searched around and finally found a very old hotel in the French Quarter that looked as if it had been built during the battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812. But, to our surprise, what the hotel lacked in accommodations, was more than made up by personal service by the hotel staff. They asked us to leave our shoes outside our rooms to be polished every night, and every morning, they brought fresh chicory coffee and Beignets and other pastries to the room. We were able to move downtown to the Marriott after a couple of d ays, but I will never forget the charm of that old hotel.
Finally, in 1987, when I accepted an early retirement offer by Dun & Bradstreet, I elected to have a company paid vacation instead of a dinner in respect to my 35th anniversary with the company. Liz and I flew to New Orleans and stayed a week during April of 1987. We stayed at a hotel on Canal Street within easy walking distance of the French Quarter, and we took advantage of it. A couple of new malls had been constructed since we were there in 1975, the Jackson Brewing Company Mall and the River Front Mall. We spent most of our nights at Pat O'Briens, but ate in all of the famous restaurants.
We still look forward to the opportunity to visit New Orleans again one of these days.