Introducing The New Bob Dylan

Many years ago, when I was in sixth grade, our class was going through the process of having students choose elective courses for seventh grade, our first year of junior high school.  One of these electives was band.  The idea of learning to play music really appealed to me so I decided that that’s what I would pursue.

One day in late spring the junior high band director came to our school to administer a test to those who were interested in signing up for band.  The test mainly consisted of the student identifying tones and then comparing them to determine which note was higher, which was lower, and so on.  When BowlingJoe’s results were calculated, the band teacher called me aside personally and suggested that I might want to take Spanish as my elective.  So that’s what I ended up doing, and my discouraged self never really revisited music again.  This was too bad because I’ve always thought that the ability to play music would be far more satisfying than learning how to ask where the library is in Spanish.

BowlingJoe:  The Next Folk Music Sensation?

A few weeks ago, armed with some newly found free time and a hand-me-down guitar, I started to take guitar lessons from one of the instructors at Bigfoot Music, the establishment that Muffinheadedboy works at.  My teacher, a veteran local musician named Jim Peso, has claimed that he can teach anyone to play the guitar.  Jim, we’ll see if you can still say that after spending a few months with me.

As musically illiterate adult, I will say that after three lessons this journey will not be an easy one.  Even the most basic things such as holding the strings down on the neck accurately and with the proper finger pressure is an elusive operation for me.  And to get both hands to work in unison with one another is unthinkable now.  “Patience and repetition”, as Jim tells me.  That’s the key.  And since I won’t be quitting my day job anytime soon and touring the country as the newest sensation in acoustic guitar performance I might as well just take a deep breath, keep practicing, and enjoy whatever small gains happen to be waiting for me.

But for now, should anyone have the misfortune of being within earshot of me and my attempts to execute a perfect D-minor chord, they have my deepest sympathy.

The New Place

BowlingWidow and I have been living in our remodeled North Everett condo since late April, but I haven’t actually mentioned anything about it here or posted any pictures yet.  With that in mind, I can say that it’s working out really well so far.  The neighborhood is kept up nicely enough, is in a relatively quiet part of town, and seems to have very little crime.  But if you do want to introduce yourself to the Everett vice squad you won’t have to look far, just a mere 5 blocks away on Broadway.
 

Our Nice, Modest Kitchen

Sold and gone is the Marysville wooded half-acre whose trees which loomed close to where we slept, scared the living bejeezus out of us during windstorms on many a fall and winter night.  Say goodbye to two hours of lawn mowing per week when the sun is out later than 6:00pm.  Vacuuming?  Maybe twice a week instead of twice a day due to all of the dirt that was tracked in.

From One Corner of the Living Room (Complete with Lazy Cat)

So what to do with the free time gained from a shorter work commute and less maintenance?  Well, there’s lots to do aside from the usual answer of catching up on books and movies that seemingly everyone but me has read and seen over the last twenty years.  For one thing, being close to downtown gives us the opportunity to walk to a lot of places, thus providing exercise and a reduced carbon footprint.

Then there are my guitar lessons.  BowlingJoe is a well known musical illiterate and the notion of teaching an old dog new tricks will be put to a real test.  My music teacher claims he can teach anyone how to get to know his or her way around a guitar.  I’ll do my part by practicing a few hours a week and we shall see about that in time.  Meanwhile, I told my friend and professional musician Dave Nachmanoff that he shouldn’t spend a minute thinking that I might take his job.

From Another Corner of the Living Room

And what about bowling, prominently featured in the name of this blog?  The truth is that I really don’t bowl as often as most bowling fanatics.  But now, instead of spending Saturday’s cleaning out downspouts, maybe there will be a tournament or two in my future.

Yeah, there are really lots of things to do in this world that aren’t classified under the four-letter word called “work” (at least by my definition).  Cooking, volunteering, hanging out at microbrew festivals….it’s all good stuff.  And Muffinheadedboy, I, and a couple of friends will be joining 10,000 of our closest friends in riding our bicycles from Seattle to Portland over two days in July.  203 miles.  You’d better believe we’ve been using some of that free time to train for it, too.

Deck Off of the Dining Area

So far the move has been a lot like being in college again.  Except that now I’m 51 years old and go to bed by 9:00pm every night.  Maybe I’ll live until 90.  It would be kind of nice to be in the top of the sixth inning of life.  With plenty of baseball yet to play.

Louisiana Part Four: The Food

It’s no secret that I like food, and whenever BowlingWidow and I are visiting a place we make it a point to sample the local cuisine.  And while Louisiana may have its rough edges, they really seem to have gotten this culinary thing down pat in the last few hundred years.

We’re talking Cajun and Creole cooking here.  There tends to be a bit of overlap in making the distinction between the two styles, but in general, Cajun originated from French Provincial peasantry (they tended to use whatever local ingredients were available such as game meats, rice, peppers, celery and okra).  The Creoles cooked with a more sophisticated classic “melting pot” European style, used more varieties of seafood (and food in general), and are responsible for jambalaya and gumbo.

But who really cares?  It’s all tasty and fattening.  Thank goodness we don’t eat this stuff every day.  Here’s a small photo collection of some of what was happily consumed: 

The Appetizer:  Alligator - The Other Other White Meat

Enjoying Shrimp and Catfish Po' Boy Sandwiches in Baton Rouge

Ahh Yes...A Muffuletta Sandwich from Central Grocery in the Quarter

Crawfish Etouffee Anyone?

Red Beans & Rice with Andouille Sausage:  My Personal Fave

The Best of New Orleans in One Convenient Package

The Hurricane:  A Required Drink in The French Quarter

For Dessert (or Breakfast): Beignets at Cafe Du Monde

The End

Louisiana Part Three: New Orleans

We entered the New Orleans city limits from the north, driving past the Superdome on our left and toward the Convention Center where we would drop off our rental car.  We chose to bring it back to Hertz with an empty tank and we may have been running on fumes when we arrived.  A taxi cab was called and we traveled at breakneck speed to our bed and breakfast.  We stayed at a quaint little place called The Chimes, on Constantinople (Not Istanbul) Street in the heart of the equally quaint Garden District of the city.  There’s even a literary connection here, as the main character of the definitive New Orleans novel Confederacy of Dunces, Ignatius J. Reilly, lived on Constantinople Street.

BowlingWidow at The Chimes Bed & Breakfast:  Great Place to Stay

The Garden District is a great (and very safe) place to walk, with all of its big deciduous trees and classic old homes.  Some of the more famous residents of the area include actor John Goodman (what was he thinking when he made King Ralph?) and ex-NFL quarterback Archie Manning, now more well known for being Peyton and Eli’s dad.  There are a couple of Garden District activities we really felt were worth doing.  First, take a tour of Lafayette Cemetery#1.  A guided tour if possible so you can take in the historical notes and learn how these cemeteries were constructed and operate to this day.  Then, walk the length of Magazine Street with its stores, shops, and interesting restaurants and bars.

A Typical Garden District Home

On a daily basis during the four days we were in New Orleans, we took the streetcars into the French Quarter that run along St.Charles Street.  While they weren’t exactly as fast a speeding bullet train they were a reliable and inexpensive way to get around.  The tremendously popular (and free!) French Quarter Music Festival was going on which had those streetcars busting at the seams with humanity.

Beads From Parades and Parties Gone By Cover the Lines and Cables Along St. Charles Street

Over the four-day run, the FQ Music Festival attracted around 500,000 people.  There was music for everyone’s taste there, unless you are a fan of chamber music or death metal.  Jazz, Blues, Funk, Zydeco, Brass, Traditional, Modern….it was all there on 20 stages (and some street corners) for 10 hours a day.  We couldn’t have possibly seen much more than a fraction of the hundreds of acts but some that made an impression on us under sunny 83-degree skies included Bruce Daigrepont, Rebirth Brass Band (absolutely blew us away), Papa Grows Funk, The Zydepunks, and Walter “Wolfman” Washington, who got our vote for Best Name for a Living Blues Musician.

Downtown New Orleans from the Mississippi River

A couple of more highlights would include getting in to Preservation Hall (barely), that classic concrete cathedral of traditional jazz, to catch a performance.  So was listening to Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue on the lawn on the last night of the festival.  Actually I think that all 500,000 people were right there with us so we recently got tickets to see them later this year at a smaller venue in Seattle.  All said, the weather more than cooperated, the food that we had (such as crawfish pie) sold at the event was great and even the Abita beer was drinkable for this Northwest beer snob.

The Rebirth Brass Band on Stage

Inside Preservation Hall (Barely) for a Show

Bourbon Street at Dusk

Finally, a few other notes about New Orleans:

·         We didn’t wander too far from the French Quarter and the Garden District into places such as Treme.  It would have been interesting to have set foot in those areas but we were warned not to by many and frankly we don’t run as fast as we used to.

·         There’s the French Quarter and then there’s Bourbon Street, within the FQ.  By and large the Quarter is a lot of fun to check out, drink a Hurricane at, shop and get something to eat.  The exception is Bourbon Street and the half block perimeter around Bourbon Street at which you begin to smell a fragrant combination of sewage and vomit.  We don’t really know exactly what goes on there, but it goes on there 24/7.  And they’re all drunk.

·         We were impressed by the ability of the residents (and visitors) to have a good time no matter what.  Katrina wasn’t a death blow for this place and neither will be the next thing that gets thrown at them.

·         The telephone wires along St. Charles Street were loaded with beads.  I think some of the strands have been there since Mardi Gras 1955.

·         Given the great (and rich) local food offerings, it’s perfectly understandable to me that Louisiana is near the top of the national leaderboard when it comes to obesity.

One Final Photo from New Orleans That Just Seemed to Capture the Moment

And speaking of food, next up is my fourth and final blog post.  I’ll conclude with a bite about the cuisine in Louisiana.

Louisiana Part Deux: Lafayette and Cajun Country

BowlingWidow and I said adieux to Baton Rouge and headed west in our rental car to Lafayette, a city of around 120,000 or so an hour-and-a-half away.  Most of the trip seemed to be spent on an elevated freeway, hovering above a rather large swamp.  When locals tell me that Louisiana’s coast line is disappearing I tend to believe them.

You just don't see street names like this in Seattle...

After checking in at our hotel, we gave ourselves a driving tour of the town to get more familiar with the layout.  We got hungry, so found a restaurant that served alligator (very good!) and crawfish etouffee (even better!).  I’ll go into the culinary aspects of Louisiana later, as it’s solidly deserving of its own separate blog post.

Grits:  It's what's for breakfast in Lafayette, Louisiana

Wherever we travel we try to make a point of embedding ourselves in the community and doing things locals would do at least a couple of times at each place we visit.  When it comes to music venues and Cajun music there is no better place in Lafayette than The Blue Moon Saloon and Guesthouse.  It’s a very nondescript, quite large house in a neighborhood near downtown.  The bar only seats a handful of people, with room around the perimeter of the stage and dance floor for the audience to congregate.

We hung around the Blue Moon for a couple of hours.  It was Cajun jam night so locals were dropping in with their instruments to hang out and play some traditional tunes.  The problem for us is that things don’t really get going until around 9:30pm, and not being night owls we only listened to the music for around 45 well-spent minutes.

The Blue Moon Saloon and Guest House:  A Must Visit in Lafayette

Our second and final full day in the area was somewhat of a pilgrimage for me.  Muslims go to Mecca.  Christians will flock to Jerusalem.  Me?  As a spicy food aficionado, I made sure we scheduled a trip to Avery Island:  the birthplace of Tabasco Sauce.  Avery Island is actually a misnomer - it isn't an island at all.

Avery Island Tabasco production isn’t what it once was (Tabasco plants are grown all over the world these days) but the packaging facility is going full steam five days a week.  The tour itself is really simple; we watched a film on Tabasco history followed by a quick glimpse of the factory behind glass.  Then we wrapped things up at the Tabasco Country Store where you can buy your choice of hundreds of Tabasco products.  We just kept it simple and got a couple of shirts and some BBQ sauce.

BowlingJoe used to only dream of giant Tabasco Sauce bottles.

Finally, we wanted to get out into the country a bit and visited a small town northwest of Lafayette called Eunice.  Eunice is one of the hot spots for traditional music according to all of the guidebooks but because it was the middle of the week, we just didn’t see it.  I’d guess that the result would be much different on a Saturday night but when we were there nuthin’ was happenin’ in Eunice.

Next:  New Orleans – The Garden District and French Quarter

Louisiana Part One: Baton Rouge and Bowling

After a long day of flying and connecting through the Houston airport, BowlingWidow and I arrived in New Orleans at 10:00pm and picked up our rental car for the 90 minute drive north on I-10.  It was dark out so we couldn’t see much scenery, but were easily guided into Baton Rouge by the string of tall, brightly lit yellow Waffle House signs that seemed to line the freeway at each milepost.  Obviously waffles are selling like hotcakes in the South.

Other than being the capital of Louisiana, Baton Rouge doesn’t have a whole lot to offer (we did, however, get to stand in the hallway of the capitol building where Huey Long was shot to death).  Its name roughly translates to “Red Stick” which fits it just fine.  Sure, it’s surrounded by swamps and plantations (a good one that we visited is called Nottoway), and is home of the college football powerhouse LSU Tigers, but as far as what’s in the city proper is concerned, all I can say is just pray that your car doesn’t break down at street corner on Florida Street.

Downtown Baton Rouge from the 27th Floor of the Capitol Building

Two out of every three years the US Bowling Congress National Open Tournament is held at a specially-built bowling center in Reno, Nevada.  On that third year, the show travels somewhere else where they literally truck in materials and equipment to construct a fully-functioning bowling complex on the large concrete slab floor of a convention center.  Baton Rouge hosted this event several years ago and it worked out okay so they won it for 2012.

The Nottoway Plantation Mansion

The makeshift bowling center was cool.  And I mean that literally.  Heat and humidity is not a bowler’s friend as it tends to make our fingers swell to the point that it becomes increasingly difficult to get them into a bowling ball after a few games.  The spectators may have felt like they were in a meat locker but we were loving it on the hardwoods.

This is the sixth straight year I’ve been attending this tournament and it’s always a challenge.  Explaining why that’s so would take too much time here, but the short version is that because of the manner in which the lanes are oiled, being accurate and consistent is a must.  My average scores here are usually around 25 pins per game lower than what I do in regular league bowling, which means typical games of around 170-175 instead of 195-205.

This year was different, however, as I averaged a personal best 190.1 pins per game over nine games.  I attribute it using a couple of different releases effectively as I let go of the ball at the foul line and getting used to bowling in an environment that reminds me of a domed stadium.  I’ve always said that bowling is an easy game to learn and a difficult one to master, so I’ll gladly accept these little successes when they take place.

BowlingJoe (center in maroon shirt) delivers a shot:  must have been a strike!

Next up, we put the bowling balls away and head west to Cajun Country!

A Forty Year Leap

We were famous baseball card collectors back in 1971 and 1972.  Scott Felkner and I became fast friends in fourth or fifth grade in Port Angeles, WA and every dime we could scrape together went for exactly one package of ten genuine Topps brand baseball cards.  They were the only brand available back then.  If we had as much as 50-cents each on us it was a stellar day.

His favorite team was the Detroit Tigers, as he was born in Pontiac, Mich.  And to this day I can still name the entire 1971 starting lineup of the Tigers because of him.  My team was the Baltimore Orioles.  I was attracted by the cartoon bird logo on their hats.  That and the fact that they had larger-than-life first baseman by the funny sounding name of Boog Powell.

Scott and BowlingJoe in 1972

Scott was part of a Coast Guard family, so as quickly as he arrived in Port Angeles his dad was off to a new assignment in Mobile, Alabama.  We wrote to each other a couple of times but lost touch when the teenage years were fast approaching.

Which brings us to 2010.  One of the (some would say few) good things about social media is the ability to reconnect with people you haven't seen in a blue moon.  And because his last name is Felkner and not Jones or Smith, the task became relatively easy on Facebook.  We've been keeping in touch every now and then on the site.

When BowlingWidow and I were planning our trip to Louisiana from which we recently returned (more on that in future blog posts), I had an opportunity to contact Scott and see if he and his wife, Janet, would be interested in making the drive from Mobile to have lunch, a couple of beers and a visit at place called The Bulldog in the Garden District of New Orleans.

Now, when you ask someone you haven’t seen in 40 years to meet up, it can be a risk of sorts.  I’m guessing that may have crossed Scott’s mind as well.  What would he be like in my now 51-year-old eyes?  And would the person I became somehow fall short of any expectations he may have had about the day?  After all, we’re products of our respective environments to at least some degree, and I’d be hard pressed to find two parts of this country that are as different as Western Washington and Alabama. 

Scott and BowlingJoe:  The 2012 Editions

Any concerns either of us may have had were certainly put to rest after a few minutes.  The hours flew by as we talked about old times, our families, jobs, what we like eat, do for fun, and how we got from point A to B to C so far in life.  We’re both still huge sports fans, love our families, and genuinely believe that we each live in the best part of the country.  In fact, I’d say it was a perfect day other than the fact that at one point I dumped an entire barbecued pulled pork sandwich on my lap.  (I guess my grandmother was right about my table manners).

This was our first visit to South.  I’m not sure when we’ll be back.  I’m not sure when or if Scott will ever make it to the Northwest to visit.  But I do know that we’ll be in touch a whole lot more over the next forty years.  This was one chance I’m glad I took.