for a deep down south Halloween: haunted houses, escape rooms,
checking out the replica of the space shuttle Independence mounted on the original NASA 905 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft at Houston’s Johnson Space Center (while in the neighborhood?),
and, of course, ’gators.
We successfully resolved the matter of a seance going seriously awry in Houston. 13th Gate in Baton Rouge was also a worthy destination for its haunted house and a most challenging escape room.
Then on to the woefully unvisited Capitol Park Museum in Baton Rouge. A (in all seriousness) fantastic place to absorb what it is to be Louisiana. Everything from the obligatory pre-history to the founding narrative, slavery’s central role, food (we’re talking Creole here), music (complete with lots of very well done listening stations), and a substantial area deservedly devoted to one Huey P. Long, the larger-than-life insanely corrupt populist Governor and U.S. Senator, cut down by assassination right there in the Capitol .
It was, of course, Huey who built the Capitol (tallest in the USA, mind you) . . .
. . . and he’s buried out front. Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, inspired by Huey Long is a great read and is, shall we say, very closely inspired by the man’s life (to get the flavor of how it was).
The Governor also built the Old Governor’s Mansion, annoying the legislature by creating the need for one by simply tearing down the existing Governor’s Mansion (leading to one of the votes on impeachment). The current Mansion is air conditioned, so the “Old” one built by Huey is now a museum and a place to hold weddings (sufficiently confused?). That’s his office, above. He was admitted to the bar, overcoming a lack of any degree whatsoever, even the one from High School. Huey was not one for formalities.
Dynastic ambitions fulfilled, Huey’s son Earl was elected Governor 3 times despite a brief institutionalization, alternating terms with . . .
You Are My Sunshine Governor Jimmie Davis, whose mother-in-law made him that quilt on the bed from a bunch of once-fashionable silk neckties.
Appeals are posted in the bathrooms of the now-a-museum asking the enterprising public to return missing items, such as the purple toilet and tub (to match the orphaned sink).
The Old Capitol is also now a museum (with the preponderance of space devoted to Huey P. Long) and venue. The gothic style is quite beautiful, if a bit more plain than the current edifice.
A visit to the Deep South isn’t complete without stopping by a Plantation, in our case one right in Baton Rouge- Magnolia Mound, dating from the beginning of the 19th century. We don’t know why “Mound,” but Louisiana has many, many Native American mounds, most close by the Mississippi but extending well up into Canada.
And, how can you go to Louisiana and not into the gritty heart of the beast, aka New Orleans? It had been seven years, providing a chance for a different perspective (but, without giving up an evening of music along Frenchmen Street).
(Yes, it was a bigger venue on Canal Street for the Tedeschi Trucks Band and no, we hadn’t been in a Tiki Bar in a very long time, if then.)
We paid a visit to the Hermann-Grima House Museum on St. Louis Street in the French Quarter (built in 1831 and complete with a three story slave quarters, there on your left, under the watchful eye of the house) on a Monday morning first thing, the morning of our flight home, a tour billed with an urban slavery theme and one of our better choices. We all need an occasional regrounding in American history and what better place than the Spanish-French-American city that, controlling access to the Mississippi River, not only was the key to internal commerce all the way up to Ohio, but was the very epicenter of the unbelievably cruel trade in innocent human beings, as well as a thriving, freewheeling experiment in the fusion of cultures, giving us Mardi Gras, voodoo, blues, jazz, funk and amazing food (you gotta love that shrimp and grits), all in a state that still leads the nation in the percentage of its population who are not free, i.e. incarcerated (one out of every ten people).
But, enough with all that. Let’s have another beignet in Jackson Square, then be gone, making good our escape.