Stay in New Orleans

Stay in New Orleans

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As the parade proceeded North of the French Quarter, I broke off and headed into the French Quarter, starting in the Northwestern corner where things were pretty quiet (and some buildings were boarded up).
As I got back to St. Charles, though, the crowds picked up. Many French colonial buildings have balconies and often the balconies had people throwing necklaces to the crowds as in the parades. However, it was mostly guys on the balconies and in some places they would only throw necklaces (and particularly nice ones) to pretty girls who would 'show us your tits'. Oh my! I felt a little discriminated against as they weren't going to throw me any necklaces. The balcony in this picture had attracted quite a crowd as they weren't discrimatory in their necklace throwing.
However, just after that I got into a section with many male gays. There were still mostly guys on the balconies, but I could certainly try for a necklace as they were after much the same thing. Unfortunately I had already collected about six necklaces (without any lewd displays) and was thinking who I would give them to (as you can't accumulate a lot of stuff when you live in your car) and so was not really tempted when the opportunity presented itself. Many of the people in the street were in costume. Here is a reveler in a somewhat risque sartyr costume.
Many of the costumes were quite elaborate. Here is a couple in what appears to be French colonial period pieces. Most impressive.
Many were also pretty lewd as well. It seems that Louisiana, like most states, requires women to cover their breasts, but these breasts are not very covered.
There were also about a dozen fundamentalist Christians out with placards and megaphones denoucing the revelry, gay life style, etc.. I guess it is not surprising that there would be a dozen people out of those hundreds of thousands who felt the need to express their disapproval. It just makes me sad that they would be so confrontational and angry. I think Christ would rather we develop love and compassion rather than anger.
As I walked back from the French Quarter, the crowds had really thinned out (about 4PM) and I was able to get into the bleachers where the TV camera had been. Then I could take a picture of the four buildings that had impressed me before, but I couldn't get a well composed picture of earlier.
As I walked back, I pretty much had to retrace my steps as the trolleys still weren't running past Napoleon. People were now packing up their barbecues and such. They left quite a mess behind, much worse than anyplace I had seen in Mandeville.
I worked another couple of days at the recycling center and took some more pictures which I have incorporated into the earlier descriptions of their operation. I also took a picture of the neighborhood I woke up to each morning. I always left before dawn (so as to not attract attention and hassles), but had developed a fondness for the neighborhood. On my last day in New Orleans I went back in daylight and was surprised to note that the houses were different colors (not apparent in darkness).
I also went by Task Force and asked that they mail my last check to me (as well as taking pictures). Here is Bernard who seems to be the boss at this office of Task Force (they have other offices and he doesn't seem to be the big boss). Everyone was very nice there and I was sad to leave. It was a Friday which was the pay day for most people and Bernard was looking through the paperwork, trying to find a person's check. They seem to get about $9.85 while we got $5.80, so their take was more moderate than Trojan's in Irving, TX. ETS Staffing in Detroit also did a lot of volume on a similar margin.
Before my last visit to Tulane library, I took a last picture that might look nice and avoid the problem of the big tress all around it (which had spoiled my last picture of it). I think this angle view is much nicer.
I spent my last night in New Orleans in this neighborhood, just a block from Tulane University Library. Then it was off to Houston, TX on February 16, 2002.