Visiting the Big Easy During Dog Days

by admin | July 31, 2026 8:10 am

NEW ORLEANS — There are certainly worse places to be at the tail-end if July; the Mojave Desert comes to mind. New Orleans, like much of the world, is experiencing a major heat wave right now. Add in the usual humidity, and even the folks who live here full-time are complaining, like the Uber driver I hired to take me to the New Orleans Museum of Art, a sanctuary certain to have world-class air conditioning. Indeed, it did.

I whiled away a couple of hours admiring the artwork. NOMA, as it is popularly known, has a nice variety of work from Dutch masters to Andy Warhol, John Singer Sergeant, a giant portrait of Marie Antoinette by  famed French portraitist Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, impressionistic works by both Manet and Monet (I can’t ever keep those two straight), and a cool portrait of Mick Jagger by Andy Warhol. NOMA is an impressive, welcoming art museum. Did I mention air conditioning?

The Society of American Archivists just held its annual conference in the Big Easy. Since most archivists, given their job description, don’t go outside much, I guess the organizers figured New Orleans would be just fine in late July. This is a large conference, more than 1,400 folks, held at the Hyatt Regency across from the Superdome, visible from my hotel room. I rarely think of the Superdome without remembering the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, how it became a shelter of last resort for those unfortunate residents unable to flee that storm’s wrath.

My first Uber driver, who took me to Jackson Square early in the morning of my first day there, fled New Orleans before Katrina hit for North Louisiana, eventually ending up in Houston. He was unable to return home to repair the damage to his home for four months, he told me. Now he drives an Uber in semi-retirement.

I visited here in early 2007, about 18 months after Katrina, and was given a thorough tour of the Ninth Ward, then barely beginning to rebuild after massive flooding. On street upon street, rows of identical narrow but deep, one-story houses once stood.  They’re commonly called shotgun houses, as well as by me. But after this trip to New Orleans, where Uber took me through the Ninth Ward, I think the description needs to be changed: one-story bungalows? They are charming, painted vibrant colors. After Katrina it resembled a set of teeth on each street, with several missing on each street, sometimes entire blocks. It’s hard to believe that was nearly 21 years ago. Time is a bandit.

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While in Jackson Square, I followed daughter Abbie’s recommendation and headed to Monty’s on the Square

for a breakfast to fortify me — in the air conditioning. A pair of poached eggs covered in Hollandaise sauce, on crabcakes atop a biscuit, accompanied by breakfast potatoes — topped off with a tall, iced tea — did the trick. After, I meandered a few blocks over to Faulker House Books, again at her suggestion. It is a small, crowded store, crammed into a house in which the famed Southern writer wrote his first novel, Soldiers’ Pay. The house was built in 1840, according to a nearby plaque. The store was so crowded that the fellow at the desk asked me to wait until a few folks left before entering.

The short wait was worth it. I snagged a signed first-edition copy of The Hadacol Boogie by James Lee Burke, published earlier this year. He is one of my favorite authors, and this is his 44^th novel by my count. Burke, who turns 90 in December, sets many of his novels, including The Hadacol Boogie, in New Orleans. Faulker House Books was the perfect place for this book drunkard to buy such a treasure.

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This trip wasn’t all fun and games, books, museum visits and poached eggs covered in Hollandaise sauce. I had to sing for my supper, as it were. Until I began this archivist gig, I had no idea what a research poster was. Now I do. You create a large poster, usually 36”x48”, covering[1] a narrow topic. In my case, in the last two presentations, it has to do with using AI to help provide metadata for the LeTourneau Archives images I upload to the Portal to Texas History. My mentor and boss came up with the idea. We have presented at two academic conferences this year — Philadelphia and New Orleans. That is how I am singing for my supper on this trek, standing next to our research poster and answering questions. Not a bad gig.

[2]More than 1,400 folks attended this conference, fellow nerds, many tattooed, few with suntans. Archivists in general don’t get outdoors much. I must confess that I never left the hotel the last two days. New Orleans outside at the tail end of July is barely bearable for me. But the conference provided enlightening seminars and opportunities for learning new things. That’s what motivates me these days, learning new things.

I’m pretty sure it’s what keeps me active and alive. That and eggs Benedict on top of crab cakes.

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