I wanted a dog, plain and simple. A big dog. Last year while helping my buddy Leon pick out a couple goats for his sister as Christmas gifts, I fell in love with the Great Pyrenees dogs that herd and guard the flocks of goats at the Goat Lady’s farm past Holt. But Leon wanted cats and as it is Leon’s house, after all, cats it would be.

We’ve always been dog people in our family. In fact, cats were a problem in Highland Lakes, the rural mountaintop community in New Jersey in which I grew up. Summer people, usually from New York or New York suburban towns, would buy a kitten to amuse the kids during their summer at “the lake.” (Highland Lakes actually has five lakes.) Then, at the end of the summer, they’d just let the growing cat go when they’d return to the city. The cats would promptly turn feral, contract rabies, form prides, and maraud around the neighborhoods where they were a health threat to year-round residents.

Our dog Rocky didn’t like cats. The lady across the street had scores of felines, and unlike us, she didn’t obey leash laws and thus, her cats meandered all over the neighborhood. They’d sit and preen just out of Rocky’s range, as he was tethered to a run. Now and then Rocky would snap the rope that connected his collar to the metal cable. And naturally, when he thus attained his freedom, his first act was to generally seek retribution for the torment he’d suffered under the cats’ teasings.

One sunny spring day Rocky burst free. The timing was perfect. The lady across the street was hosting a cat party that Saturday afternoon, and had just set out numerous bowls of snacks and milk. Several dozen cats attended, many of them strays she regularly fed (thus attracting more cats to the neighborhood).

And then the uninvited canine guest crashed the party.

In a tremendous ruckus of howling and hissing, cats shot up trees, under the porch, up onto the roof, and anywhere else they could bolt. Rocky, of course, was delighted to be free to play with his little feline friends. While he didn’t actually kill any of the cats, he did spoil the party.

My dad and brother were working in the garage, blithely unaware of Rocky’s accomplishment across the street until the lady’s husband suddenly appeared. He rather apologetically explained the situation and asked if Dad and Evan could go round up the gleeful pooch as his wife was very distraught. Dad said “certainly” and reached for the leash we kept on hand. As the neighbor turned to leave, he stopped and said, “I gotta tell you, that was the funniest damn thing I’ve ever seen. There are cats scattered everywhere over there. I like your dog!”

Well, now I live in a house with two cats on the front porch. Tammy Jo and Wanda June are sisters from the same litter. They’re country girls from Wausau, Fla., each little white balls of fluff. Though Tammy Jo is now a bit bigger than her sister, as kittens and even today the only way we can distinguish between them is because Wanda June has a gray patch on her forehead. When they were kittens, Tammy Jo had an apricot-colored patch on her forehead, but it has since faded.

I wanted to call them Anni-Frid and Agnetha after the two women in ABBA, my favorite pop group after Gary Puckett & the Union Gap. But they’re Leon’s cats and he wanted to give them redneck names (I said we could’ve called them Frieda and Aggie for short and accomplish the same goal). We had met a large, fun boisterous girl from Georgia named Tammy Jo on the beach in Pensacola a couple years ago, and Leon liked the name sufficiently to assign it to his cat. He just made up “Wanda June” for the other cat.

We’ve entered Tammy Jo and Wanda June in the Northwest Florida Daily News’ “Best Pet” contest. They’re on page 56. Please vote for them! And you can vote as often and as many times as you like. (Gee, kinda like it was back when I lived in Louisiana!) Here’s the link:
www.nwfdailynews.com/bestpet/vote/?page=56

Tammy Jo and Wanda June appreciate your vote!

As a kid growing up on a mountaintop in rural northwest New Jersey (yes, New Jersey really does have rural areas!), the big city of New York was still only an hour’s drive away. Still, it was a mighty big border to cross, especially for a small country boy easily intimidated by its in-your-face hustle and bustle.

Since moving south, all my friends imagine I used to spend nearly every weekend in what we simply called “The City” (as if there were no other cities worth mentioning). On the contrary, during my childhood, we’d only venture into New York two or three times a year. Generally it was to see the circus, attend the Royal Scots Tattoo, or to see the shows at Radio City Music Hall.

But when I was really little, Mom belonged to a Broadway matinee club. Four or so times a year, she’d bundle me up in my going-to-The-City finery (those were the days when people dressed up smart to go into town), and we’d take the bus into Manhattan. Soon we’d be in a large, darkened auditorium. And I’d be entranced.

My memories are a kaleidoscope of lights and sets and music and actors. The main thing that struck me were that the performers were real, live people! They weren’t images on a movie screen or on the TV. And to a little person, despite the throngs of theatergoers seated around me, I still felt they were performing just for me. It was a magical experience, and live theater remains one of my passions.

Years later, having seen a local production, I’d report home to Mom about the experience. “Mom, last night I saw the greatest production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” I’d say. “Oh,” Mom would reply, “you saw that on Broadway with Bobby Morse.” Or I’d call up and say, “Mom, let me tell you about this great local production of Cabaret I saw last night.” Mom would say, “Oh, you saw that on Broadway with Jill Haworth!”

I saw Cabaret with Jill Haworth? Yikes! The original Sally Bowles! And I saw it? But alas, with those tender young childhood memories all glittering in that wondrous kaleidoscope, there were few specifics. (Which is why I have no recollection of seeing Julie Andrews and Richard Burton in Camelot.)

Years later, when I lived in New Orleans, I could indulge in live stage productions to my heart’s content. Though not well known outside of town (and even sometimes within the Crescent City), New Orleans boasts one of the nation’s liveliest, most active theater communities. More than a dozen companies citywide produce scores of productions annually. For two years I had the rare treat of being a theater critic for Gambit Weekly, the city’s premier arts, entertainment and politics newsmagazine.

For 19 years, I hosted “Stage & Screen,” a 2-hour radio program on listener-sponsored WTUL-FM on which my co-host, Derek Toten, and I spun tunes from the musical theater, film and television. (I still contribute pre-recorded half-hour “Sets of the Week” to the show.) We’d frequently conduct live interviews with members of the theater community as part of our weekly program. During that time I sat on the local “Big Easy” Entertainment Awards theatre nominating committee, which meant I got to see even more productions.

But then came that fateful day at the end of August 2005, and the beginning of my citizenship in Crestview.

While I have nothing but praise and gratitude for the people of Crestview, particularly for those who have been so kind and generous to my fellow Hurricane Katrina refugees and myself, and while I love the peace and serenity I have found here in the north end of the county, one thing I do miss (apart from my New Orleans friends) is the glory of live theatre.

But, I just learned, it’s something for which I won’t be pining very much longer. Shirley Cadle, a former drama and music teacher at Crestview High School (and wife of our mayor, David Cadle), and Thomas Hood, a local theater enthusiast with a performance degree in stage and opera from Stetson University, among others, founded at the end of September the Crestview Community Theatre.

I can’t wait to get involved with their laudable effort to bring the magic, the thrill, the laughs, the tears and the joys of live theater to the Hub City, and urge those who also love the art to plunge in and support this new effort as well. If you’re at all a theatre enthusiast, whether from out in the audience, on the stage or behind the scenes, I encourage you to join them (their next meeting is at the Coach-N-Four Steak House on U.S. Hwy. 90 on Thursday, 25 October, at 6:30 p.m.). I can hardly wait for the curtain to rise on their first production in February!

A New Orleans theatre friend had a great T-shirt that read, “Theatre is life, film is art, television is furniture.” Truer words were never worn on a person’s chest.

My first trip to Europe was a summer of independent study in Sweden between my last two years at the Tulane School of Architecture. (Why someone with two architectural degrees is writing for a small-town newspaper and scribing a travel column—let alone a blog—is another story into itself. Maybe I’ll share it with you one day.)

Before I left, I spent weeks of anxious preparation quizzing anyone I knew who’d traveled in the Old World. Everything was going to be so new and exciting to me. I sat up late in Tulane’s Rathskeller (back before the administration renovated the University Center and made the Rat look like a chain sports bar) with my friend Kathy, who’d gone through the Junior Year Abroad program in France, and Susan, who was JYA in England. I picked the brain of my pal Nile, who lived in Ireland part of his life.

I prepped about as much as I could. The travels ahead of me, though, were still basically unknown. Fortunately, I was in the good hands of Curt, a Swedish guy I’d met when he was traveling around the U.S. on a Greyhound bus pass.

Here’s the back story: Curt had encountered Joe, the brother of my old school friend Rick, in San Diego. He visited Joe in Dallas, then was sent on to stay with Rick in San Antonio. One day Rick called me and said, “Joe met a guy from Sweden in San Diego who’d like to come visit New Orleans. Can he stay with you?” “Sure,” I said. I always enjoyed meeting Europeans, ever since I was a kid. But it was early on a Thursday morning when Rick called, my one sleep-late weekday, so I fell back to sleep and forgot all about it. Fortunately, I had the forethought to give Rick the phone numbers of several friends on my residence hall floor.

About two weeks later, on a Friday night, I returned from dinner at the Loyola University dining hall (it was cheaper back then for Tulane students on a meal plan to eat at neighboring Loyola than at our own meal plan. The food was better, too). Ron, one of the guys who lived next door, immediately popped into the hallway when he heard me opening my door. “Some guy from Sweden called,” he said. “Well, I think he was from Sweden. I couldn’t understand him. But he’ll be here in 20 minutes.”

Like a banshee I quickly straightened up my room. Fortunately, I like things (basically) tidy, so it was pretty easy. Just as I returned from carrying a bag of trash to the bin down the hall, there was a knock on my door, exactly 20 minutes after Ron had delivered the message. I opened it and there was a tall, cliché blond guy with a backpack and a friendly smile.

“Hallo, my name is Curt,” he said in that lilting accent of the Scandinavians. We became fast friends instantly.

Now, fast-forward about two years to the summer of 1980. Tulane’s architecture program had a summer study requirement for our last two summers of the five-year course of study. You could either study some aspect of architecture domestically or internationally, or you could work with an architectural or construction firm. I was on my last summer, having worked the previous summer with a roofing contracting company which, by sheerest of coincidences, was owned and operated by my father. (Needless to say I got a stellar review from my supervisor.)

After Curt (who, by the way, used to abbreviate his name “Qrt”) visited me for a week in New Orleans, he did more travel up the eastern seaboard (visiting my aunt, uncle and cousins in North Carolina en route) and then, as I’d finished the school year and returned home, stayed with my family and me in rural northwestern New Jersey for another week. (Where he also suffered for the first time in his travels a bout of homesickness, and our area of the country is, very much indeed, reminiscent of his homeland, as I soon learned.)

After two visits with me, he was quick to offer an invitation to visit Sweden. Sweden had never been high on my list of places to see in Europe, but I was keen to go anywhere in the old country, and having someone to show me around a new culture and land was a great incentive. My parents had been planning to give me a plane ticket to Europe as a graduation present, but when I told them I could get school study credit for going early, they agreed to advance the gift a year.

I submitted a purposefully vaguely worded proposal to study something about “Swedish domestic architecture” and “Swedish community planning.” The faculty board that reviewed such requests was apparently more pleased that a student was venturing out of the country and intent on experiencing a new culture and overlooked the vagueness of the proposal. It was approved wholeheartedly.

And thus, as the school year wound to a close, I found myself furiously taking notes in the dimly-lit Rathskeller (which we affectionately called The Rat) as Kathy waxed enthusiastically about her experiences in France.

Which kind of brings me to the point of this blog, which is to say, when planning your travels, particularly if you’re going abroad, don’t hesitate to pick the brains of those who have gone before you. All of us who’ve traveled love to relate our stories. Some of us get a little verbose, but when you travel, you’ll find out why, and will be permitted some verboseness of your own when you get back.

And if you really want to some good travel advice about planning independent travels, I just found out this morning that I’ll be instructing my “Europe Bound” travel seminar as a three-night, 6-hour, program at Okaloosa-Walton College in the spring of ’08. Mark February 13, 20 and 27 on your calendars, 4-6 p.m. each day. It’s part of OWC’s “Prime Time” education program. The catalog will be out soon, I’m told.

But if you don’t want to take the seminar, just shoot me an e-mail with your Europe travel question(s) and I’ll do my best to give you a sensible answer. ‘Cuz I love to blab about traveling! My address is brianh@crestviewbulletin.com

Next time: Some of my experiences during that first trip to Europe

Just back from Tallahassee, where we spent a fun-filled weekend exploring Florida’s sunny, green state capital, I checked my e-mail at home last night and found my box flooded with announcements of the Saturday death of Lois Hooker Maxwell Marriott.

Better known to legions of James Bond film fans the world over as Lois Maxwell, the Canadian actress originated the role of “Miss Moneypenny,” secretary to Bond’s boss “M.” A rabid smoker, she passed away from cancer at a hospital in Australia.

(No, she was most certainly NOT 007’s secretary, as some suggest. That was Mary Goodnight, portrayed in the 1974 Bond film, “The Man With the Golden Gun,” by Swedish actress Britt Ekland. Prior to Mary Goodnight, Bond’s secretary was Leola Ponsonby, who retired from the Secret Service midway through Ian Fleming’s book series to get married.)

With my good friend, lifelong Dallasite and fellow 007 buff Clyde Ponder, I had the sheer delight of hosting Mrs. Maxwell in November 1985 during her second visit to New Orleans. (She got food poisoning during her first visit many years before that!) As a longtime enthusiast of the James Bond books and films, I was giddily nervous upon meeting her at the airport, as after all, it’s not every day one gets to meet and escort an internationally renowned actress, let alone one intimately connected to a favorite film series.

By the time we had whisked her to Tulane University, where she was to appear at a reception that evening and would speak after a screening of her last Bond film the next night, the visit became more like a fun couple of days with a favorite auntie. The barrier between somewhat awestricken fans and movie star dissolved rapidly during the 20-minute ride from the airport.

Chain-smoking along the way (the only person I ever allowed to smoke in one of my cars), Mrs. Maxwell accidentally missed the ashtray and burned a hole in the armrest of Das Boot, my semi-restored 1974 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, which, in her “Moneypenny” column for the Toronto Star, she described as a “rickety behemoth.” She was simply aghast and offered at once to pay for the damage. I refused and her “signature” was a mark of honor for the rest of my ownership of Das Boot. (The car was finally creamed by the Broad Street bus the following Mardi Gras. New Orleans bus service had to buy it off me.)

After freshening up and dinner in the French Quarter, Mrs. Maxwell joined our friends, Tulane students and fans from the community at the Tulane University Center in observance of James Bond’s 65th birthday. (He was born on 11 November 1920, according to a “biography” of 007 written by John Pearson) During the course of the evening, our friend Lance Spencer, an Air Force ROTC student, ceremoniously presented Mrs. Maxwell with a saber (borrowed from a Navy ROTC friend as the Air Force doesn’t have a saber tradition) drawn from the belt of his natty dress uniform, with which she sliced the Union Jack-emblazoned cake.

As Mrs. Maxwell had expressed an interest in taking a Mississippi River cruise as well as seeing New Orleans’ award-winning Audubon Zoo, we combined the two the next day, and with Clyde and Lance in tow, off we went up the river. Along the way a gentleman sitting near us on the boat’s upper deck kept casting furtive glances at our guest. As we disembarked at the Audubon Park landing, he slipped up next to us and gave Mrs. Maxwell his business card. “You’ll note we’re in the same business,” he said with a smile. He was a U.S. Secret Service agent in town scouting locations for an upcoming vice-presidential visit.

Come lunchtime, Mrs. Maxwell insisted on buying us lunch. “I always buy my children hotdogs and ice cream at the zoo,” she explained. We enjoyed a sunny, warm New Orleans fall day in the company of exotic critters of various description as our friend took notes for her newspaper column.

That evening Lois Maxwell got pleasantly buzzed at a Cajun restaurant in preparation for her speech at Tulane. Using the theme “The Woman Behind 007,” she related stories of her extensive film career, leading up to her association with Eon Productions and the world’s most successful continuing film franchise. During her presentation she made “quick work,” as she described it in her column, “of a friendly heckler” who asked impertinent questions about Bond’s relationship with Miss Moneypenny.

Before landing the role of Miss Moneypenny—a casting decision lauded by Ian Fleming—she had won a Golden Globe for her performance in the Shirley Temple film “That Hagen Girl,” and had played opposite Sophia Loren in “Aïda.” She took the Moneypenny part to get some extra money to aid her husband, who was seriously ill and undergoing expensive medical care.

While the rest is film history—she appeared in every Sean Connery and Roger Moore James Bond film—Lois Maxwell ended up being typecast. To supplement her income between 007 films, she diversified from acting and at one point was president of Great Barrier Industries, a Canadian manufacturer of crowd control barricades. (Sniffing at the ubiquitous New Orleans Police Department barricades, familiar to any Mardi Gras attendee, she commented, “Mine are much better.”).

She also accepted roles that parodied Miss Moneypenny. Notably, she starred as a spy in the Italian spoof “Operation Kid Brother,” which starred Sean Connery’s younger brother Neil as a distinguished physician. “The poor man,” sighed Lois Maxwell. “He just couldn’t act.” In fact, Neil’s Scots accent was so thick that he was undecipherable, and he ended up being dubbed by an American-accented actor. The film also starred other Bond film alumni Adolfo Celi (“Thunderball”), Bernard Lee (“M” in all the 007 films to date), and Daniela Bianchi (“From Russia With Love”).

Lois Maxwell also made occasional TV appearances, guest-starring in episodes of two Roger Moore pre-Bond series, “The Saint” and “The Persuaders.” She and Moore were classmates in the 1940s at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. “We really were old buddies,” Mrs. Maxwell reminisced when I interviewed her before her New Orleans visit.

Interviewed this past weekend on BBC Radio 5, Sir Roger Moore said, “She was always fun and she was wonderful to be with. She was absolutely perfect casting,” he said of her role as Miss Moneypenny. “It was a great pity that, after I moved out of Bond, they didn’t take her on to continue in the Timothy Dalton films. I think it was a great disappointment to her that she had not been promoted to play M. She would have been a wonderful M.” (The role since 1995 has been played by Dame Judi Dench.)

On her last day in New Orleans, Clyde, Lance (who today is a colonel in the U.S. Air Force) and I took Lois Maxwell to a Sunday jazz brunch before we went shopping at the famous French Market so she could buy a bag of pecans to take back for her daughter. Suddenly we realized it was getting close to her departure time. “We tore at tremendous speed” to the airport, she related in her column, but missed her flight. But Clyde magically got her on another connection and we bid a fond farewell to our new friend.

It was the only time I ever met Lois Maxwell, but we occasionally kept in touch for a few years. I understand she had moved to South Africa so she could be with her son, and subsequently wound up in Australia with him. The original, true Miss Moneypenny, she will be sorely missed by those who enjoyed her delightful company. It’s a big border she crossed at the hospital Down Under Saturday night, but it’s one we’ll all face sometime.

I’m sure she crossed it with the same grace and humor we enjoyed many years ago in New Orleans.

From Beograd, With Love

It’s possible to over-plan a trip abroad. I always try to keep my itineraries flexible, because you never know when something might pop up that will make you change your plans. And not all of our border crossings are as pleasant as the rest.

My most memorable change of plans happened while traveling with my pseudo-cousin Allen (we always liked his family much better than our real relatives).

We booked our train travel from Budapest to Athens while we were in Vienna, figuring we’d be more apt to find an English-speaking travel agent. We had to change trains in Beograd (Belgrade), back while Yugoslavia was still more or less intact. Knowing that major cities often have several train stations, our travel agent made sure our train from Budapest arrived at Beograd’s Central Station. But oops, he booked our train to Athens out of Beograd Centraal, a residential suburb.

The info desk clerk directed us to a bus outside of the station, but a taxi driver overheard us and offered to take us to our destination for $10 U.S. (American dollars are always popular in eastern Europe). Soon, though, we noticed signs for the airport.

“Not airport,” we shouted, “Train station!” The confused driver said, “You come from train station!” “Not Central Station, the other station!” said we. At the airport he refused to take us back to Centraal. So we grabbed our bags and refused to pay him. Finally we found another taxi driver, who for 20 U.S. dollars took us to Centraal. We emerged from the cab at a dusty construction zone, a large, open-air commuter station undergoing massive refurbishment.

As we trudged to the tunnel that passes under the tracks, workmen kept holding up four fingers. It turned out Track 4 was a common departure track for international trains, and apparently other bewildered foreign travelers had come this way before us. Clouds of cement dust billowed through the tunnel, erupting out of the entrances to the platforms down the line.

Then it began to rain. Unlike nice, big city center stations, Centraal had no friendly waiting room, no bistro, not even a covered platform at Track 4. Oh, and no W.C. (restroom) either. In fact, the only “facility” was a construction trailer that served as the railway office. Its hitch rested on a single cinderblock, so the polite girl working inside had to hike uphill to answer the phone on a desk at the high end. I showed her our tickets, pointed to my watch and shrugged? She understood, hiked up to the other end of the trailer, made a phone call and came down to where I waited. She wrote our train number on a scrap of paper followed by the scheduled departure time. Then added “+1.” Our train was an hour late.

The rain remained steady, Allen got grumpier as we hadn’t slept well on the train from Hungary, and soon nature was calling—really urgently. Fortunately there are some, ahem, private things boys can do easier than girls, and I confess that Pseudo-Cousin Allen and I took turns soiling Track Number 4 of the Glorious Peoples’ Republic of Yugoslavia, Centraal Station.

“Don’t worry,” I at one point consoled Allen. “Any country that would send us the Yugo can’t feel too badly toward Americans,”

We catnapped while sprawled on the steps, leaning against our propped-up backpacks, sheltered (except when the wind blew the wrong way) by the overhang covering the stairs up from the tunnel. Fortunately we were far enough down the line that we were not too affected by the billowing cement dust.

After “+1” came and went, the sun came out, and a local football team (Americans would call it “soccer”) showed up to catch a commuter train, putting on a lively footwork demonstration during which the ball periodically flew off the platform onto the tracks. Amid peels of laughter, one of the players would scramble off the platform to retrieve it, enjoying the thrill of being someplace that could pose a real threat to life and limb should an express thunder through.

I walked back to the railway trailer. The sympathetic attendant made another uphill trek, made another call, and this time added “+4.5” to the piece of paper. Our train, which had departed from Paris the day before, passing through several countries en route, was running four and a half hours behind schedule. Fortunately we had booked a couchette, or sleeper, car.

At last it rolled into Centraal’s Platform 4. We found our car and were schlepping our stuff down the narrow corridor to our compartment when we were halted by the authoritative voice of the wagon attendant, a young woman cladin the outdated livery of Yugoslav State Railways. She demanded our papers. “Ticket is not in order,” she instantly declared.

We had had enough with Yugoslav railroad inefficiency.

I grabbed the ticket from her hand. “Train number [whatever],” I read, pointing to the train in which we stood, “Train number [whatever!”

“Wagon number [whatever],” I further read on the ticket, following my progress with my finger so she wouldn’t miss it, then pointed to the floor of the wagon in which we were standing. “Wagon number [whatever]!”

“Compartment number [whatever],” I read, then pointed down the corridor. “Compartment number [whatever]. Ticket IS in order!”

With that I gave Allen a push down the corridor and while the attendant stood waiting for the bribe or whatever was up her craw, we took possession of compartment number whatever.

Five minutes later she reappeared. “Ticket is in order,” she confirmed, smiled, and left. “They really are such children,” said the older French lady who, with her equally understanding and smiling husband, shared our compartment. later she bribed the attendant with small sample bottles of perfume to assure they would be awakened on time to disembark at Thessoliniki.

We were ever so happy when the train at last began to roll and the primitive Yugoslav countryside began to pass by, taking us on to Greece and our destination.

The whole situation had the potential to be more nerve-wracking than we permitted it. We knew there was little we could do, and just rolled with the situation. No one died or got sent to a gulag, we retained all of our possessions, and fully six hours behind schedule, we at last arrived in Athens’ main station. There I instantly picked out from the throng on the platform my pen-pal of five years Andreas. It was our first meeting. Still, getting there was a bit uncomfortable.

But years later, whenever Allen and I get together, we always laugh and laugh over our visit to Beograd Centraal, and remember, almost fondly, the sad little Yugoslav State Railways wagon attendant who tried to extract a bribe from the wrong guys.

I promise you your inevitable travel mishap will end up the same way. You’ll be uneasy while it’s happening, but when you get home, it’ll be one of the highlights of your trip—and will evoke the most laughs whenever you recall it.

Keep crossing those borders–and keep smiling!

Did you read this week’s Border Crossings column? I know, it’s rather a touchy subject but every now and then we need to be reminded that when we cross borders, we frequently end up immersed in cultures entirely different than our own and need to be mindful of our manners. Go ahead, read it, and, as always, feel free to comment.

When traveling, especially when traveling abroad, I always recommend doing it on your own, free of the confines of the packaged tour. On the tours, you’re virtually isolated, experiencing the stops on your itinerary through a bubble of the tour bus, despite occasional stops to get out and stretch your legs or to take a group tour through a landmark before hopping back on the coach.

But even if you’re not traveling overseas, seeing new places by yourself or with just a companion (or two, but really, not many more than that) still offers the chance to wander off the beaten path and discover the real pulse of the places you visit.

Without the mob cruising on the Mercedes (or sometimes a Volvo) bus, you have more of an incentive to be more aware and respectful of the places you visit.

I once escorted a group to the Austrian Tirol for a winter holiday. One of the girls, who suffered from horrible bouts of ethnocentrism, said, “You gotta teach me some of that German so I can communicate with these people.” “These people” were our hosts. We were all appalled at her attitude, wondering if it was the same way she approached her hosts when she’d visit peoples’ homes back in her native Minnesota.

So we told her, “We’re sure you noticed how dining is such a nice, leisurely activity over here.” “Yeah,” she retorted. “It takes forever to get your food!” We tried in vain to explain to someone with a McDonald’s viewpoint on dining that meal times in most Germanic cultures are times to relax and converse. Meals can go on for hours, if you wish. Finally, since she insisted, we had to teach her to say, “I’m hungry!”

“Ich bin schwanger,” she rehearsed a few times, getting it down pretty admirably, in fact.

After a lively snowball fight in the street outside our Kitzbühel pensione late one afternoon, we tumbled into the wonderful café down the street to warm up over some hot cocoa and pastries. To hasten hers along, Carol declared to the dirndl-clad server, “Ich bin schwanger!” The waitress looked in amazement. Carol smiled and nodded. The server nodded.

We had taught Carol to say, “I am pregnant.”

I can’t recall if we ever corrected her. Probably not.

The point is, mind your manner when abroad—or even when traveling domestically. Innocent cultural and etiquette faux pas can be easily forgiven by your hosts, but ethnocentric arrogance reflects poorly not just on yourself, but on all Americans.

Keep crossing those borders!

When I blew over to Crestview from New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, all my friends back in the battered Crescent City laughed and said I’d be returning as soon as I possibly could. Little did they know that I had already fallen in love—with Crestview, with the relaxed life in rural north Okaloosa County, and with the people I encountered here. I’d visited here quite a few times before, as my Tulane school chum Leon Curenton lives over here.

Oddly enough, this area reminds me quite a lot of the small town in which I was raised on a mountain in New Jersey. The people actually care about each other here. Amazing! On top of it all, Crestview has something the entire New Orleans metro area sorely lacks, and which I really missed from back home (besides people who know how to use turn signals): a culture of customer care.

I was only in Crestview a couple days when I went in Publix to do some grocery shopping. Looking a little lost as I tried to orient myself to a new store, not one, but two people came from opposite directions and asked if they could help me find something. In New Orleans you have to scout out employees when you need assistance, and they can sense you coming, scurrying away like roaches when you flip the kitchen light on late at night. If you do encounter a clerk and are able to ask about something on your shopping list, you’ll be lucky if you can get a grudging, “It be on Aisle 5.” Usually you get, “I be on my break.”

In Crestview it was “Can I help you find something, sir?” I wasn’t sure how to respond, so resigned was I to never experiencing customer courtesy again. When I finally stammered out the grocery item I needed, one of the helpful clerks actually took me right to the commodity. It was about then that I knew I’d picked the right place in which to be a hurricane refugee, and later to resettle.

During my visits, Leon would take me to worship with his family at the stunningly charming turn-of-the-century Laurel Hill Presbyterian Church. (Its congregation is older than the town.) It reminded me considerably of the simple little church I attended back home in New Jersey, right down to the kind and hospitable congregation. Once I realized I’d be here a while, I joined the little congregation.

My New Orleans friends, whom I dearly miss–just as I do the Penthouse Nachos at the Sun Ray Grill, reading alongside the Mississippi River, and the city’s rich theatre scene– have resigned themselves to the fact that I’ve become a Floridian. “So what’s the biggest change in your life?” they ask, expecting me to cite the change in cuisine or an imagined lack of cultural activities. They’re surprised when I respond, “The church supper.”

Southern church ladies can COOK! Now I don’t want to say they try to one-up each other when preparing their church supper dishes, but I can truthfully attest to the fact that they do pour their hearts into their contributions. Leon’s mom makes the world’s best chicken-n-dumplings, one of my favorite church supper menu selections. His sister, Tracy, makes a remarkable salad out of Ramen noodles and cabbage. Their Aunt Kitty’s baked beans are exquisite, as is another lady’s “best-ever” blueberry pie. And the list goes on and on…rather like some of the church supper buffet lines I’ve grazed since moving here.

Fortunately, the Crestview area’s rolling hills give me the opportunity for a bit of uphill effort during my 2-mile morning walks, and the large pond in the backyard is about 50 metres across at the point where I swim laps almost daily from mid-March until mid-October, so those church feasts haven’t gone entirely to my waist.

Some borders we cross are culinary. I’m sure glad I made this border crossing!

In yesterday’s paper, my Border Crossings column was about all the great stuff to see in Munich when you’re over there for the two-week Oktoberfest, which this year runs from noon Saturday, September 22, when the city’s lord mayor taps the first keg of beer, to Sunday, October 7. The first–and understandably obvious–question has already been asked of me: Why is more than half of Oktoberfest held in September?

Good question. To better understand the answer, it helps to better understand Bavarians, who are some of Europe’s most delightful, hospitable, gregarious and fun-loving people. Munich is the captal of Bavaria, which was the last independent Germanic nation to be absorbed into Germany, an event that didn’t occur until after World War I. Even today, when you enter Germany from Austria, the first sign says “Welcome to the Free State of Bavaria.” Only a bit later is there one reading “Welcome to the Federal Republic of Germany.”

Now, let’s go to www.oktoberfest.de for a little history, which also offers an explanation about why Oktoberfest, which really did originally occur in October, got moved up a bit:
“The historical background: the first Oktoberfest was held in the year 1810 in honor of the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. The festivities began on October 12, 1810 and ended on October 17th with a horse race. In the following years, the celebrations were repeated and, later, the festival was prolonged and moved forward into September.

“By moving the festivities up, it allowed for better weather conditions. Because the September nights were warmer, the visitors were able to enjoy the gardens outside the tents and the stroll over “die Wiesen” or the fields much longer without feeling chilly. Historically, the last Oktoberfest weekend was in October and this tradition continues into present times.”

I love it when foreigners translate things into English. Of course, since my German is pitiful, I shouldn’t cast stones.

A couple things to point out: “Die Wiesen” is also the name of the part of Munich in which Oktoberfest takes place. There are 14 beer tents erected around the 100+ acre site. As an example, the Hofbräu Festhalle tent can accommodate almost 7,000 celebrants seated inside and and more than 3,000 outside. Here are some numbers from last year’s Fest:
- 100,000: number of seats available at Die Wiesen
- 4,000: number of personal belongings lost (including false teeth, crutches and wedding rings)
- 6 million: litres of beer quaffed
- 33,400: litres of wine sipped
- 515,000: bottles of water and soft drinks guzzled
- 200,000: litres of non-alcoholic beverages served (not in bottles)
- 360,000: sausages munched

Here are a few other good things to know:
- If you’re taking the train to Munich from elsewhere in Germany or Europe, don’t look for “Munich” on the timetable. All European cities are listed by their local names. Look for “München.” Sometimes it’s also spelled “Muenchen.”
- If you want a souvenir beer stein, don’t ask for a “stein.” You’ll be asking for a “rock.” (Imagine my embarrassment when I tried to buy an ornate stein for my dad on my first visit to Germany!) Ask for a “Mass,” but pronounce it “mahsss.” And don’t be surprised to see it spelled “Maß.” The “ß” symbol represents two S’s in most German-speaking parts of Europe. Outside of Munich, a stein is called a “Krug,” pronounced “kroog.”
- A litre of beer is expected to sell for about €8 this year. That’s about $10.50. But since most European beers pack more of a kick than most American beers, including imports specially watered down for the American palate, a litre will go a lot farther.
- The hometown favorite beer in Munich is, of course, Löwenbräu. But never, never pronounced it “Lowenbrow.” It’s “LOOV-en-broy.” If you want to avoid the madness of the Wiesen, you can get it in the popular downtown Hofbräuhaus beer hall, and at almost every beer garden.

Which brings up one more thing I loved about Munich. I don’t drink alcohol, but still had as much fun in the beer gardens as the next person. Why? Because contrary to popular misconception, they’re not rowdy drunken venues. Most, including the sprawling biergarten in the center of the Englischer Garten–Munich’s vast central park–are social gathering spots for Muncheners of all ages. Kids will be cavorting (some beer gardens even have playground equipment) while mom and dad visit with their neighbors. And the food: yum! The best ribs I’ve ever had were in the Englischer Garten beer garden. Some beer gardens don’t have food service, so locals pack picnics when they go. It’s an interesting and integral aspect of a fun-loving culture.

Next week my column will cover the many great things to see and do outside of Munich, using the Bavarian capital as your headquarters. Meanwhile, you can see video of Munich on our Web site. It’s imbedded in my online Border Crossings column this week.

I’ll leave you with the traditional Bavarian greeting and farewell: Grüß Gott! (God’s greetings). Prounce it “groos goat.”

Mark Twain once said that people in South date things “befaw the waw” or “aftuh the waw,” referring, of course, to the Civil War. In New Orleans things are now dated “Pre-K” and “Post-K.” Like the Civil War, Hurricane Katrina suddenly became a milestone in time by which other events are dated. Post-K New Orleans is slowly coming along.

The city faces many major obstacles, both internal and external. One of its largest stumbling blocks is a deeply ingrained mindset of entitlement and a culture of dependency. It’s probably not very PC to say it, as sometimes the truth hurts, but for many black citizens, it dates back to the region’s plantation culture during which the white master took care of everything. This was further reinforced for blacks, and established for other southeast Louisiana residents, during the Huey Long administration, which promised “a chicken in every pot.”

Like it or not, many New Orleans-area residents not only expect “someone else” to fix things for them, but believe they are entitled to it. They’re therefore perfectly willing to overlook the accompanying culture of political chicanery as long as it produced tangible results, i.e. a new bridge, street repairs, pavement improvements, increased homestead exemptions, etc. When I lived there Pre-K, this even extended to basic things like litter. “Someone else” was always there to pick up locals’ waste.

(One of the hair cutters at the place I go here in Crestview volunteered at her church to help hurricane refugees. One New Orleans lady tossed her food wrapper on the floor. “You’ll have to pick that up,” Terri told her. “Tha’s OK,” the lady said. “Dey got people here who do dat.” “I’m one of those people, and you’ll have to pick that up.” The lady was shocked. She never had to do that before.)

Sadly, many, many New Orleanians are still sitting on their duffs waiting for “somebody else,” in this case “the government,” be it state, local or federal, to hand them the piles of money to which they feel entitled. But in other cases, such as in the devasted Lower Ninth Ward, some folks are just rolling up their sleeves and doing their own recovery, and pitching in to help their neighbors do theirs.

But even this rare do-it-yourself attitude is posing problems, because some parts of the city as well as most of the outlying areas were built where urban development just never should’ve taken place. In my previous entry, I mentioned the lovely, shady cypress tree in my old backyard. That means the lake was just about where my former home now stands. And I lived almost a mile inland from the lake. That swath a mile wide used to be wetlands that helped protect the homes wisely built on higher ground farther inland. But not any more.

I visited my buddy Paul Nelson while we were in New Orleans last weekend. Paul’s a realtor (give him a call!) who lives in a delightful c.1840 Creole cottage. He had friends who didn’t bother buying flood insurance because the levee was only two blocks from their home. Paul snorted and said, “Don’t you think it means there’s the potential for flooding if a levee is needed so close to your house?” As he wisely ppointed out, a levee is “flood protection, not flood prevention.” And we all saw what happened when some of those levees just weren’t up to the task.

And so places that should never been built upon, including the luxurious Lakeview neighborhood, are still a wasteland.

(Paul also told a new joke making the rounds: Why did God send Hurricane Rita to New Orleans right on the tail of Hurricane Katrina? Sometimes you just gotta flush twice.)

But fortunately for visitors (I should’ve mentioned this earlier in this post. I’ve probably lost most of you by now) most of those parts that SHOULD have been built on are doing fine, and those neighborhoods include some of New Orleans oldest and most charming visitors’ destinations. The French Quarter, the Riverbend area, Faubourg Marigny, the Irish Channel and the Garden District were all sensibly built on high ground. (”High ground,” of course, being a relative term in New Orleans. That means they might even be at sea level!)

And it’s those areas that recovered first and today bustle with restaurants, shops and night life. We got to visit some favorite old stomping grounds, including two of New Orleans many, many live theatre venues, and ate at favorite restaurants once again.

We saw Theatre Marigny new show, a musical revue, which was a scream, and rivaled the New York production in quality. Dinner was at La Peniché, a neighborhood eatery in The Marigny, where good, affordable down-to-earth food is served in a relaxing, pleasant atmosphere. The restaurant’s walls are paneled in bargeboard, giving you an idea of its old charm.

(Bargeboard was rough-hewn wood reclaimed from flatboats that were loaded with goods upriver, floated down to New Orleans in the pre-steamboat days, where everything, including the flatboat, was sold. The merchants would then return home to points north via the Natchez trace.)

One of my most favorite restaurants is the Sun Ray Grill. I like going to their Warehouse District location, though the same excellent, eclectic cuisine is available in their original home on Metairie Road in Old Metairie (a district which has also bounced back from the storm with vigor). Sometimes I just get the Penthouse Nachos (with duck) as my dinner, which I did this time. Afterwards it was off to my favorite New Orleans nightspot.

Le Chat Noir is one of the coolest places to go for evening entertainment in the whole city, and, surprisingly, many visitors are astounded to discover it’s not in the French Quarter. (Many guests seem to think New Orleans begins and ends at the Quarter.) Le Chat is a true cabaret, with the elegant Bar Noir out front. My friend Troy, with whom we stayed, swears by their martinis. In the equally elegant showroom, a variety of cabaret performances and live theatricals are presented. This past weekend it was a delightful cabaret performance. I was bummed, however, because in the audience was the lovely Amy Alvarez, whose lilting voice has won her many an accolade, including a recent Big Easy award (the Tony’s of New Orleans) for her turn as Nellie in “South Pacific.” She told me that starting next week she will return to the Le Chat stage with her Rodgers & Hammerstein show, and I’ll miss it. Drat!

We enjoyed a late breakfast/early lunch at Camellia Grill, a long-time landmark in the Riverbend district, which has at last reopened after sustaining some water damage. As usual, lines were down to the sidewalk as we approached, but the wait is not long and it was fun meeting other visitors who were glad for the opportunity to be back in the queue. Our waiter, Phillip, served with aplomb as we once more settled ourselves at the counter. I had the Manhattan Omelette, a meal in itself, and, of course, a chocolate cheery [sic] freeze. The Grill is renowned for its freezes. Be sure to get one.

New Orleans is a city made for walking around. We strolled along Exposition Boulevard on the fringes of Audubon Park. A bagpiper was skirling tunes including “amazing Grace,” “The Marine Corps Hymn” and–you haven’t lived until you’ve heard this on pipes–”My Heart Will Go On.” We also walked along Magazine Street a bit, until a drenching rain forced us to go visit Paul again, and see his gorgeous German shepherd Cyrus, who forgets he’s a dog sometimes. And Leon and I returned to our alma mater, Tulane University, where he got to see the newly refurbished University Center for the first time. (I saw it earlier this summer, and still think it looks llike a medical center.)

New Orleans is still a lively place, and there’s life in the ol’ girl yet. She needs her friends to pay her a visit, pump in a little cash, and help her back to her feet. Go see her one of these coming weekends. She’ll show you a good time. And be sure to spend an evening at Le Chat Noir, especially to catch Amy Alavarez in her Rodgers & Hammerstein show. That’s worth visit the city in itself!

I’m heading back to New Orleans this weekend. Along with many memories, many friends and favorite eateries are still there. Half of me is saddened as we approach the city through New Orleans East, which, two years after Hurricane Katrina, is still a flattened wasteland. But the half shamefully says, “nyah nyah, I told you so.”

Some parts of New Orleans just never should’ve been built on. The neighborhood south of what used to be the fishing village of Bucktown where the house in which I lived, up until the storm, still stands is one of those places. In my back yard was an impressive, massive cypress tree, even though I lived more than a mile in from Lake Pontchartrain. That means my neighborhood was once part of the now-vanished wetlands that once surrounded New Orleans and kept it relatively flood-free.

I lived a block and a half west of the famous 17th Street Canal, which is now landmarked along with neighborhoods, now familiar thanks to media saturation, such as the Lower Ninth Ward, St. Bernard, Gentilly and Lakeview. Fortunately for me (and for my stuff), my house was a block-and-a-half off the canal in the safe direction. My counterparts on the east side of the canal were swimming.

These places just never should’ve been drained and built. (Just ask the thousands of Irish immigrants who died of tropical diseases and industrial mishaps while digging the canal that is now Pontchartrain Boulevard. Decades later the canal was filled in just by dumping dirt in it. All that water had to go somewhere. People still act surprised that neighborhoods for blocks on either side are sinking.)

And sadly, New Orleans is poised for a repeat when the next storm hits, because local politicos, fearful of reducing their political base, refuse to even contemplate reducing the city’s footprint and restoring the natural protective barriers that used to buffer the city from storms and surges.

I had long thought about leaving New Orleans. The blissful ignorance (which locals try to pass off as “laissez faire”) the rampant corruption, and shady politics get sickening at times. Though I loved my job as marketing manager for the oldest American-flagged cruise line, the Delta Queen Steamboat Company, our Buffalo, N.Y.-based parent company installed their hand-picked management, a group of cronies who never understood the company’s culture, didn’t care, and never tried to learn it. I was assigned the Boss From Hell. It’s no wonder that this work environment coincided with a spike in my blood pressure and the manifestation of a leaky heart valve!

But then came Hurricane Katrina and life turned upside down.

Upside down, however, can sometimes be a fun perspective. I evacuated to St. Francisville, La., a lovely, historic village upriver from Baton Rouge, and spent a delightful three days in the country with my friend Chris at his dad’s home on Lake Rosemound. Then I undertook what should’ve been a five-hour drive over here to Crestview. But with I-10 impassable and gas at a premium, I ended up heading north to I-20, east to Montgomery, and 10 and a half hours later, arrived in Crestview at the home of a friend from our Tulane days, Leon Curenton. Crestview is his hometown. He lives about two miles from the hospital where he was born.

Now Crestview is my home.

But in the aftermath of Katrina, life was uncertain, so I did what every good traveler should do. I took a trip. Leon and I had planned to vacation in Vermont anyway. I figured I can worry about my house and job in lovely Stowe just as easily as I could worry about them down here.

Hmmm…I seem to have digressed. The point is I’m off to New Orleans for the weekend. It has one of the South’s most lively theatre scenes, which, with my friends and the Sun Ray Grill, are the things I miss most about New Orleans. We’re going to take in a little theatre, eat at the Sun Ray, and shop at Whole Foods and Suda Salvage.

I love Suda. I used to hit it once a month or so. They are a salvage grocery. If your grocery store in Des Moines burns down, yet some of the stock is salvageable, it might wind up at Suda. Hence, you can usually find great stuff not typical of the area. I once found blocks of Philadelphia scrapple, a pork loaf I loved as a kid, at Suda. They’re motto is “The neighborhood grocery that’s not in your neighborhood.” You gotta love that. They’re tucked in an industrial section of a New Orleans suburb called Elmwood.

I’ll let you know how my trip goes. Now our publisher, the radiant Kelly Humphrey, is reminding us that we have a paper to publish, so I’d better write some articles for it.