I remember

A Facebook Group entitled "I grew up in New Orleans in the Seventies", (well actually it was Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans), which I recently joined, prompted me to sit down and "stream of consciousness"-like write down memories from my childhood in New Orleans.

I remember…

Royal Castle, Krystals, Time Saver, Frost-Top, Monkey Hill, The Levee, Drive-In on Veterans, Midnight Mass on Christmas, Oyster Po-Boys from Schwegmanns, Gaylords, The Zephyr and the Wild Maus (overcoming the fear that I would fall off the edge) at Ponchartrain Beach, The wading pool at the Ponchartrain Beach pool before it closed. Boiled crabs on newspaper spread out on the picnic tables at the Lakefront, Fitzgerald's Seafood restaurant on the pier at West-End, The colorful fountain at West-End, the swings at West-End park, Sno-balls with cream on top, Riding the street cars up St. Charles Avenue to the dentist office on Canal Street. The SS President on the Mississippi River. The rotating restaurant/bar at the top of the World Trade Building. Horseback riding at City Park: (MonkeySee Monkey Do, Country Boy were a couple of the horses' names I remember), Horseback riding at Audubon Park, The boat pulling inner tubes (fall off and the boat stops and waits for you to swim back to your tube) at the Ponchatoula River. Inner tubing down the river (almost drowned once), Manuel's Hot Tamales from the street vendor cart, "Get your Tamales, Get your Red Hot Tamales" wrapped in newspaper. Rock concerts at the Warehouse, Cotton Club swimming pool. Beignets and Café Au Lait in the French Quarter. The French Market (so many smells, so many varieties of vegetables and kind of scary at night) in the French quarter. Driving across the Ponchartrain Bridge (paying the toll) to picnic in Mandeville. Riding bikes from home in Metairie to the Lake Front. Watching scary movies with Morgus the Magnificent, Lakeside Shopping Center when it was an open air shopping center, Disco at Fat City, D.H. Holmes, Maison Blanche, Crawfishing in the swamps- so much fun wearing wader boots and filling up burlap sacks full, the best part, having a big crawfish boil after.