St Charles Street Car – New Orleans

We could have ridden this all day long! First operated in 1833, New Orlean’s St Charles Street Car Line runs from Canal Street near the “Quarter” all he way out past Uptown, the Garden District and Magazine Street. When it gets to the end, the conductor simply turns all the seats around, goes to the other end of the car and off it goes in the other direction. For most of the way, the line goes down a grand oak-shaded boulevard with grass under the tracks and branches brushing the car’s top. The driver is loud and verbal, yelling out the names of streets and how “they’s lots of really stupid people, you know”.  One time he picked up a rider but said: “Don’t you dare think I’ll stop here again. Next time, you march yourself down to the next stop”. He was yelling, and they have to yell, because the trucks (yes, train car wheels are called trucks) are screeching and grinding into turns that thousands upon thousands of other wheels have rolled on, and the brass and hardwood construction isn’t what it used to be (but we think it’s better than it used to be). All the windows open fully, so you can hang  out and watch the stately homes going by – no guard rails, no ADA compliant, just great experiences without the Nanny State reeling you in.

And, to finish the story, the neighborhood street car dumps you in the French Quarter where you can buy a hand grenade to finish up with. It’s simply one of the great rides in America, and it’s only a buck and a quarter. Oh, and a hand grenade? It’s a frozen fruit slushy with pineapple and lime … and four shots of Everclear. Don’t know what Everclear is? It’s 185 proof pure grain alcohol, the French Quarter’s most powerful drink (outside of paint remover).

So that was the good news. The bad: It is just heart breaking to see Katrina’s footprint, the ruined and abandoned stately old houses in the Seventh and Ninth Wards. We camped in an RV park in the Seventh and each morning going into downtown on the shuttle we’d pass blocks of century-old smashed up homes, which is tragic, but I’d say 80% are now coming back to life. And they aren’t just replacing them with plastic sheetrock wonders you see across America, but they’re carefully putting the old ladies back together. Most of the old oaks are still here too, unlike my town of Port Townsend where they seem to hate an old tree. Here’s they’re treating the big trees like injured old-timers, which of course they are. “Hell of a job, Brownie” is the phrase that kept going through my head, that insane Bush statement that things were just dandy in the Big Easy after the hurricane passed. It might have been a big hurricane, but it was a man-made disaster because we didn’t maintain the levees properly.

If you get a chance, I’d recommend a little vacation to this amazing city on the Mississippi. It’s worth the effort to help retain a truly special place that belongs to all of us.

Larry Eifert

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