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Published: August 18th 2017
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We just touched upon Monroeville at the end of our last blog. To back track a little, and not wishing to patronise any of our readers, Monroeville was the home of Nelle Harper Lee famous for the writing of To Kill A Mockingbird, which is absolutely Pip's favourite book of all time ( as a further note, Paul got Pip a reissue copy, signed by NHL for her 50th birthday). Regrettably NHL died last year but Monroeville, which was the setting for the fictional town of Maycombe from TKAMB, was as almost a must-see for this trip as the eclipse.
Without the NHL / TKAMB link it would be fair to say that Monroeville would not be on the tourist trail. Lots of obvious poverty in the town and its outskirts, trailer homes, run down shacks. But, what there is:
The Old Monroe County Court House: the actual courtroom which was accurately built as a set in Hollywood for the TKAMB film.
NHL's father, AC Lee practised law here. Probably the model for Atticus Finch, the lawyer at the heart of TKAMB.
Outside the courthouse is a statue 'A Celebration Of Reading' a cute bronze sculpture of
3 children at a bench reading TKAMB. Designed to inspire a love of reading.
Quoted nearby is an extract from an interview with NHL in 1964 - "We didn't have much money.....we didn't have toys, nothing was done for us. So the result was that we lived in our imagination most of the time." Could we say the same of the current generation with their phones, and screens.....?
There is a monument to Atticus Finch, a bronze plaque on a granite stone, erected by the Alabama Bar Association in 1997, even though Atticus was, of course, a fictional character.
And the Pineville Cemetery where NHL is buried in the Lee plot with a very unassuming headstone.
The town was also home to Truman Capote. Truman and Nelle were close friends.
NHL's home is all gone, and now the site of a drive past fast food joint, Dairy Dream. Truman's house is just foundations.r
There are also two eyecatching murals. One depicting Scout, Jem and Dill eyeing up Boo Radley's place, and the other on a motor dealership of a mockingbird.
When we left in the morning for New Orleans the temp was already
88°F as we left the motel. Taking a smaller, more rural road, we drove past farm after farm growing cotton and peanuts. Still lots of signs of rural poverty interspersed with beautiful, colonial style (but not necessarily old) farmhouses.
On the way into New Orleans from the east we fitted in a Swamp Tour. Whilst waiting we were entertained by two skinny kittens, a racoon, and hornets doing a very good job of stocking up their ground burrows with captured grasshoppers.
The swamp tour boat - a flat bottom aluminium boat - not an everglades type skimmer - was relatively small, 22 people, but very fast when the driver wanted to be, and also very manoeuvrable to get into the smaller bayous. Alligators were two a penny around here, and had a liking to hot dog sausage which almost tempted them into the boat! Also spotted were many birds - egrets, blue heron, green heron,... - snapping turtles, racoon, wild boar and jumping Carolina Wolf Spiders which catch and eat fish!! by waggling their legs on the water surface.
The road continuing into NO took us across the causeway between lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne and the Gulf
Of Mexico showing how vulnerable the city is to hurricanes and storm surges like Katrina in 2005. We saw many wrecked homes which looked as if they had been abandoned rather than rebuilt.
That evening we went to Bourbon Street, regarded as the hub of NO's French Quarter, only to find that the main half of its length was subject to pipe laying & rebuild so that visitors were restricted to the narrow pavements with the views blocked by building works barriers. A real shame and it must be killing trade down the street.
The first full day we spent exploring NO on foot, getting into town by their wonderful streetcars. An early stop though was the Cafe Du Monde, famed for its beignets, deep fried, doughnut like, buried under enough icing sugar to sink a Mississippi paddlesteamer. At one stage, as we took ourselves towards the bank of the Mississippi we sneaked in front of an oncoming freight train on the tracks between the French Quarter and the river. Big mistake. When we turned back to go across into the city we had to wait for nearly 20 minutes for the very long and very slow train
to pass by!
Suitably refreshed (and on something of a sugar rush high) we took ourselves backwards and forwards amongst the streets of the French Quarter, using the occasional church or shop entrance to keep ourselves cool in the air conditioning.
That evening we took ourselves to Frenchmen Street, regarded as the happening place for live music in NO. We dined in a very local soul food restaurant - jambalaya, chicken with white beans and rice, meatloaf with red beans and cabbage. Very authentic.
The first club we went to didn't really work for us - somewhat perched in, bar space only, but it was easy, with no cover charge, to just move on, which we did, and ended up in the Balcony Music Club where we had a bluesy group followed by an oompah jazz band.
The following day we had a paddle boat (sadly not steam powered) trip along the Mississippi to Chalmette Battlefield where Major General Andrew Jackson, with 5000 men defeated the English attackers of 7000 men led by Major General Sir Edmund Pakenham in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Brits lost 2000, dead, wounded and captured, whilst the Americans
losses were only 20 - yes twenty! The British withdrew.
On our way to the battlefield we were regaled by Dr Wendell.. . who gave us much history about the area. We also passed a sugar processing plant, that produces 20% of the USA's cane sugar. Guys, this is the US. Just think how much sugar that is!!!
The way back to our apartment was again via Cafe Du Monde but this time with a double dose of those beignets. We were trying our best to help get through that sugar mountain .
That evening we went to Coops, another authentic restaurant, then on to Preservation Hall. Somewhat over named - Unpreserved Large Room would be more accurate, but it has 3 sets nightly of stomping old time jazz- and old time is just the guys playing it ?.
Wonderful.
The next day was a focus on slavery in the South. We feel that requires a blog of its own.
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