Long Live New Orleans

In the fullness of time, everything happens just as it is supposed to happen, everything in its place.

New Orleans is about a hundred miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River.  The dry ground between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River is narrowest in New Orleans.  That is why Bayou Road is the oldest street in the city.  It’s the road that connects the Mississippi River to Bayou St. John.  Bayou St. John is the placid link to the Gulf of Mexico.  New Orleans is where it is for good reasons.

To fall in love with New Orleans, you have to be an optimist.  I mean to really, really fall in love with New Orleans, not just come down for a convention or to be a guest at a destination wedding.  To fall in love with New Orleans, you need to let your guard down and open up your heart.  New Orleans is here for you.  I see it happen every day.

New Orleans endures.  301 years and New Orleans is still going strong.  What other place can replace it?  No place else.  There is only one New Orleans.  To get to know New Orleans is to learn to love it.  Nothing comes easy except the Big Easy.  New Orleans strong.

Punch drunk and regular drunk, New Orleans refuses to pass out.  We live in a 24-hour city that refuses to say, “Uncle.”  A good city can’t be kept down for long.  That’s why we call it New Orleans.  New Orleans is magical.  Spend a week here and you’ll see for yourself.

Melanie asked me today if I’m still happy that we live in Downtown New Orleans versus Uptown.  We were Uptown when she asked me this.

I wouldn’t want to live in any other part of New Orleans than where we live now.  Home is where the heart is.  We live close to the epicenter of New Orleans history.  We live close to New Orleans’ umbilicus.  Why would I want to live Uptown?  I like where we are a whole lot better.

Food for thought.

Have a great New Orleans day today, wherever you may happen to be.

You have two friends on Esplanade Avenue,

–La Belle Esplanade