Aussies on the Train from New Orleans / April 2019
LEJ's Louisiana
A monthly e-column by Leonard Earl Johnson,
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
E-mail: Subscribe@LEJ.org
E-mail: Subscribe@LEJ.org
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April 2019
Aussies on the Train from New Orleans
with
Marjorie Lawrence,
in the Lagniappe Section,
Down under!
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by Leonard Earl Johnson
with
Marjorie Lawrence,
in the Lagniappe Section,
Down under!
↓
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© 2019, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved
The two engines are powerful steeds. Their livery is blue and silver with a thin red racing stripe. This is a clever interpretation of America's colors. Red, the most unstable pigment in the rainbow's palate, is reduced to the smallest surface. While, blue ~ the most stable ~ has the larger canvas. White, the hardest to keep clean, is perfectly morphed to a grayish silver ~ painterly low in light-value yet loudly echoing the tricolor's white.
Slowly the engineer opens his whistle, and sends forth an electric scream. He is calling back the smoke-break passengers.
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| Amtrak #1, Sunset Limited, Westbound on Louisiana's Coastal Cajun Prairie. Photo: Mark Konikoff |
Under Lazy Gulf Coast Skies
Only the first engine starts moaning. The second is reserved for helping climb the mountains at El Paso, Texas. Next, the baggage car, followed by two Pullman sleepers, a restaurant car, an observation car ~ with huge windows ~ and the last two, day coaches, snake off to The American West.
The Aussies de-trained with intent of staying behind. They are now standing with L. A. Norma at the Cypress Street crosswalk, in front of the Rosa Parks Transportation Centre ~ a centre where taxies, trains, buses (City, cross country, and tourist) all converge.
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you can move the camera up and down streets ~ Google Maps
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Norma is informing the Aussies of such oddities in the culture of Louisiana as, "No chicory in the coffee outside of New Orleans."
"And horns?" she adds. "Horns! The quintessence of New Orleans' music!
"There are no horns used in the music of Zydeco or Cajun. Here they use the German-introduced accordion for wind. Or the downswing of the rubboard, which local blacks just made up all by themselves."
These differences are exactly what has brought our Aussie friends off today's Sunset Limited, West.
They are on one of those famous ~ often once in a Lifetime ~ Australian journeys to the Upper Earth. They arrived in California by plane, and have been months taking trains across the whole continent, into Canada, and even, once, flying to Europe and back.
After a week in New Orleans they decided to stop somewhere outside of Big Swamp City.
"To see the countryside," the man says. They chose Lafayette, "Hub City," to French Louisiana.
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| The Alamo / courtesy San Antonio, Texas |
Both of them had lost ancestors in 1915. "At Suvla Bay, on the Aegean Coast of what was then the Ottoman Empire," during Australia's starcrossed entry into World War One. One of history's most costly and pointless wars.
"That's the way our boys used to see the world," the woman says. "Pretending they cared about Europe's wars ~ some still do, I guess."
The train aboard which the Aussies and I first met was named, City of New Orleans. It carried us all the way down from Chicago to New Orleans, for French Quarter Festival (April 11 - 14, 2019) and the fabled Touro Synagogue's Jazz Shabbat (April 26, 2019). Today we are happily meeting up again in Lafayette, where I am helping these friendly Australians find a phone with an Uber app ~ more compatible than the Australian one on their phones.
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| Pamplona's sangria in production |
Ryan, a bartender from Pamplona Tapas Bar, down the street, came out of Rêve holding a steaming cup of coffee and an open phone.
He offered to call Uber. Then suggested simply driving them to their rooms at the Mouton Plantation ~ which happened to be near his house in a section of Town ~ across the tracks ~ where large older homes give shelter to bartenders and travelers off whistling trains.
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A few days later, I went to Amtrak's website to check the train the Aussies were booked on to San Antonio, "By God Texas!"
"We can not miss stopping in 'By God Texas'," they laughed ~ mimicking American accents as they have learned them in Louisiana.
Over Pamplona's award winning paella, and a bottle of Spanish wine, I told them of being five years old, staying in a hotel across the street from The Alamo. Our Parents out to dinner.
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| Mouton Plantation. Pamplona's Terrace. |
Oldest Brother, age eleven, was our commandant apparent. For behaving well our Parents hid our clothes and rewarded us with footlong hot dogs and French fries from room service. A pretty dandy reward for three little boys.
Done with the dogs, and freed from nudity restraints, we crossed the street in hotel bathrobes, and pushed open the huge doors to the Alamo.
I remember the floor was dirt. It was a stable, my oldest Brother told us.
"There were no guards?" Norma rose, asked and answered into her own wine glass.
"America had yet rearmed-to-the-teeth, and started shooting it out in schools, movie houses, and along highways and streets.
"Today, you would be trespassers, shot, arrested, tried by Texas Homeland Security, and imprisoned in a for-profit prison, for Life!"
She raised her glass, "Antonio López de Santa Anna, save us!" She says this while glancing gingerly about the room for Texans. "They often send their bagmen here," she says, settling back down in her seat.
🔻🔻🔻
The Amtrak website had no information other than services were down at every stop from Los Angeles to New Orleans, in both directions. It advised us to call "1-800-USA-RAIL, for more information." A long wait on hold got me to a recording suggesting I check for further information on their website, Amtrak.com.
Back on the ole website I again tracked the train all the way from Los Angeles to here and back. At each stop the information was the same, service down, check the 800 number.
I don't know how our Australian friends got on down the line. I suspect they took the Greyhound Bus, with its new airline-inspired seating. Recently I took Greyhound from Big Swamp City, and never again. Am-trickle may disappear for a few days, and close the diner before we board, and never know exactly when they will be anywhere. But they don't cramp your legs.
"And you get to meet Australians," Norma added.
I wrote an e-mail to Amtrak, asking about the days of the missing trains. They responded with the following letter. I have no idea what offensive anything they are talking about. I don't write that way, and surely "Where's the train?" is something their delicate customer service representatives have heard before.
I wrote back asking whatever did they mean. I have yet to hear.
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Lagniappe du Jour,
today!
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~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
today!
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1946 NBC Radio introduction
of
the Australian 'folk anthem'
Waltzing Matilda
to an American audience
Biography
Marjorie Florence Lawrence
CBE Order of the British empire
An Australian soprano
particularly noted as an interpreter of Richard Wagner's operas.
She was the first New York Metropolitan Opera soprano to perform the immolation scene in Götterdämmerung by riding her horse into the flames as Wagner had intended.
She was afflicted, by polio, in 1941 ~ at the height of her career ~ She made a comeback in 1946 that included introduction of Waltzing Matilda to the American audience.
Her life story was told in the 1955 film Interrupted Melody, in which she was portrayed by Eleanor Parker, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Lawrence.
Later, Lawrence served on the faculty of the
School of Music, at Southern Illinois University ~ Carbondale,
my alma mater, and where I came to know her.
Four years after her NBC Radio comeback, I was five years old and contracted polio, like Lawrence,
after returning with my Family
from a trip to Mexico.
As a young college boy I showed no symptoms of the disease ~ unless you counted being drawn to older women who sang Wagner while being rolled around on a reclining board.
I liked her, and she remembered my name. I last saw her in the early 1970s, at the New York Metropolitan Opera's touring company production of Aida, in Memphis, Tennessee.
Back in Carbondale ~ back in the Fabled Sixties ~ Lawrence had nailed the supporting role of Amneris ~ Aida's rival for the Royal Ramhorn of Radamis ~ while pushed around stage on a leaning board with wheels!
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Comments and corrections are welcome, click here.
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Altgeld Hall, Music Department,
Southern Illinois University
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Waltzing Mathilda / Tom Waits
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~ a song about the famous song, with lyrics ~
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His performance in command is often considered one of the most incompetent feats of generalship of the First World War. ~ Wikipedia
"How'd you like that inscribed on your e-tombstone?"
~ L. A. Norma
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Season of the Fests * * *
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Gathering of French Colonies from around the World plus more
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© 2019, Leonard Earl Johnson,
All Rights Reserved.
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LEJ's Louisiana, Yours Truly in a Swamp
is a monthly e-column @ www.LEJ.org
~ Hosted on GOOGLE Blogger ~and periodically
at Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans,
publication of the
It is written by Leonard Earl Johnson
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
© 2019, Leonard Earl Johnson,
All Rights Reserved.
Some parts of this month's story were published in a lesser form in 2017
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posted by LEJ's Louisiana | 6:44 AM
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