Wordless Wednesday: given enough time....

A belated veterans' salute

The main reason we were in New Orleans when we were was the grand opening of a new section of the World War II Museum there. The Marauder Historical Society was taking advantage of the event to piggyback their annual reunion onto these festivities. Which didn't exactly work as well as we might have liked, but it was still a rewarding and educational weekend. (As you probably know, my father flew 67 missions during the War in B-26 Marauder medium bombers. If you haven't seen his Journal, check it out!)

I had always wondered why New Orleans? for the D-Day Museum that became the National World War II Museum. I found out the reason during the dedication ceremonies. (You can also read the answer in the Museum's FAQ.) The Museum's founder, historian Stephen Ambrose, was a New Orleanian, but even more important is the actual location of the facility in the city.

It's located very near the site of the factory which manufactured "Higgins boats," the landing craft that Eisenhower is said to have credited with "winning the war for us." They made the huge amphibious landings like those on D-Day possible. One of the side streets bounding the Museum property is named Andrew Higgins in honor of the inventor of the boats. What an appropriate place to have a Museum dedicated primarily to the battles (in the Pacific as well as in Normandy) where these boats were so important!

The climax of the ceremony (other than Tom Hanks' entertaining remarks) was a flyover from a nearby airbase. Steve took a video of that you can see here. [Thanks to Steve for pointing out the very obvious way to load videos, but it was taking forever so I went back to just using a link. I'll happily remain a non-multi-media blogger, I guess.]

On the right above is the view of our fellow-bleacher-bums at the dedication. [Making all these vets sit on bleachers for 3 hours in the sun was one of the weekend's logistical foul-ups but it was only mildly inconvenient for us.] And on the left (note the red line) is surprise speaker Mickey Rooney (Tom Hank's appearance—see his picture in my teaser post—was expected, Rooney's wasn't). I had no idea all those many years ago when I enjoyed watching him as Andy Hardy in old movies on TV that he had actually served in the War (although his service came after his Andy Hardy days.)

Friday morning was the dedication, but on Saturday we actually got to tour a bit of the Museum. It's got some really good exhibits, including the one shown on the right, here, that makes it graphically clear how out-manned the U.S. was at the beginning of the War. I want to go back sometime when it's not as crowded as it was on this weekend, and spend more time viewing its varied galleries.

On the left is a shot of one of the new sections of the Museum, the Stage Door Canteen, where they can have cabaret-type shows. It's designed to look like the canteens where GIs were entertained on leave and features photos of movies stars like Bette Davis and Lauren Bacall serving food and danced with the soldiers.

In the photo a large number of vets in our group were waiting to see the other new section of the Museum, the theatre which shows a Cinerama-type movie highlighting important events of the War. The movie was very well-done, and would be particularly good for young people (although not too young—there was some pretty graphic footage) or others not familiar with the War and its tremendous scope and impact. For WWII buffs, though, they left too much stuff out!

The primary reason we wanted to participate in the Historical Society's reunion is to meet some of our Dad's squadron mates, folks who have made contact with us after finding the Journal on the web. There was a large group of Marauder vets at the big meeting; I'm not surprised the reunion hotel put up the sign you can see on the left. The vets and their families looked to us like the only guests there!

The 455th Squadron group was much smaller, though, and we were so happy to get to meet Robert Mims, a good friend of Dad's who was shot down in early 1944 and spent the rest of the War in a German POW camp. Such a horrific experience doesn't seem to have stunted his outlook on life and his sense of humor, however, and we were delighted to get to visit with him. Here's a picture of him with Billy's kids. How we wish Mom and Dad could have been there with us!

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We didn't stay in the reunion hotel, preferring a funkier venue about 10 blocks away in the French Quarter. In my next posts I'll cover some of the fun we had in New Orleans in between reunion events.

Wordless Wednesday: Jackson Square in morning light

Big Easy teases

The very large number of photos I took in New Orleans, the wide variety of activities that filled our weekend, the fatigue generated by said activities and by driving 1000 miles in 4 days, plus a plethora of piles of projects at work....all adds up to not being able to get out a full report just yet.

But here are some images to whet the appetite:

at the Lafayette Cemetery in the Garden District

trusty Prius and Oak Alley plantation

grand opening of the new wing of the World War II Museum

Smell the sugar!

Wordless Wednesday: County Courthouse after dark

Red October

Last Thursday my choir buddies and I participated in a medieval ritual. We have the opportunity to do this because of the fact that our Catholic university is burdened blessed with a law school on campus.

I'm talking about Red Mass, which is celebrated in Catholic churches all over the world around this time of year, but which I'd never heard of until I joined the St. Mary's choir. It's attended by all kinds of local bigwigs—judges, lawyers, councilmen, university administrators, etc. Our young mayor (I know he looks like he's about 12, but he's smart and charismatic and has been doing a good job in office so far) was even there.

So it's a nice gig, choir-publicity-wise. But what makes it really special for me is the chance to sing in such an acoustically fabulous place—San Fernando Cathedral. I told you something about this wonderful structure last summer when Joan and I paid a short visit. I thought I'd give you a few more glimpses of it here. Unfortunately I don't have audio for you of the music we performed, but I think we sounded pretty good!

On the right above is a look at one of the side aisles before folks started arriving for the mass. It ended up being almost a full house. On the left is another look out that doorway at the end of the side aisle. It looks out onto our new plaza (where there used to be a street). This is a great improvement to the area between the cathedral and the river. Here's a look through some of the decorative banners on the plaza at the cathedral itself. Pretty impressive, no?
Here's one more shot of the interior, on the right, showing the quite lovely baptismal font at the back of the church.

It's pretty cool to have such a historic structure still in the middle of things downtown. It's just across the street from the courthouse and a block away from city hall. The Alamo might be more famous, but for acoustics, you can't beat San Fernando!

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Thursday this week I'm off on a short road trip that will hopefully generate lots of photos and stories. So after a Wordless Wednesday post in a couple of days, don't look for too much blogging from me for a while. Hopefully what I can come up with after the trip will make it worth the wait!

Wordless Wednesday: first game tonight!