Walk through 627 Ursulines Avenue New Orleans condo

Back deck of 627 Ursulines Avenue as it appeared in 1965. That is Rachel Lefebure greeting the day early in the morning. Below is one of our kittens. Below that is me with two other of our kittens.
Note the drainpipe behind Rachel. In the video below these pictures you can see what the deck looks like now.
Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

The Cincinnati Kid - Opening Credits And Jazz Funeral Music In New Orleans

This is the opening credit sequence from the movie The Cincinnati Kid. If you watch and look closely(go to you tube and enlarge for full screen)at 3:19 look on the sidewalk and you will see two white guys. That is me and my friend Jack Newell. We got a weeks worth of work as extras on this film in January 1965. But this is the only scene where we made the cut. If you run this in slow motion you can spot several of the men dancing holding beer cans. But you can see it only in slow motion. This was filmed on a Sunday morning. They fed us all donuts and coffee. And during several takes the second line would go lubricate themselves with adult beverages. I am the guy in the dark coat. Jack is on my left.  MGM also paid us all. Everyone was given a voucher for fifteen dollars. I am sure the band got paid a lot more.

Arlo Guthrie - The City of New Orleans - Dunegrass 2008

This  song was written by Steve Goodman in 1970.
My wife Rachel and I rode this train from Chicago to New Orleans in March of 1965.
Click on the label the train they call the city of new orleans below for more info on the train and our trip.

Rachel Lefebure and Joe B. Stewart at the Rice Hotel in DeKalb Illinois March 1965

Click on the picture above to enlarge it.
This picture was taken in the Rice Hotel in DeKalb, Illinois in March 1965. That is Joe B. Stewart looking at Rachel Lefebure and already falling in love. Little did he know that she would be his wife for 49 years. Little did she know that either.
I don't know who took the picture but whoever took it thank you very much.
At the top it says April 1965. It would have been developed then in New Orleans shortly after Rachel and I got there.

Riding The Train They Call The City Of New Orleans From Chicago To New Orleans In Late Feb. Or Early March Of 1965 We Left Chicago In A Blizzard And Arrived The Next Day In New Orleans To A Warm And Sunny Day With The Azaleas In Bloom

When we were walking to the train station in Chicago I spotted this Ace Of Hearts frozen in the snow and ice on the sidewalk in Chicago. Too bad it is not in color. That red heart gleamed up right through the ice.

A heart frozen in the ice of Chicago.

We were headed for the warmer climes of New Orleans.

Click to enlarge the photos. Rachel took these photos.

It is interesting to note also that Steve Goodman wrote his song City Of New Orleans about going south from Chicago to New Orleans not north from New Orleans to Chicago.

I will say that the ride South in 1965 was exactly like he wrote in his song. Same towns, same scenes, same everything. I remember we stopped in Memphis and I saw crates of live chickens in crates made of chicken wire sitting on the loading platform.

I remember we left Chicago in late Feb. or early March of 1965. There was a blizzard going on in Chicago.
Just like there is today. Feb. 2, 2011. Well the wind was blowing just as hard. But there was not the 20 plus inches of snow they got last night and today.

The winds off Lake Michigan blew men's hats off their heads and they had to chase their hats down the streets.

 

Here I am looking out the window somewhere in Mississippi Or Lousiana

This is the train station in Batesville, Mississippi. The Amtrak train that goes from Chicago to New Orleans no longer goes through Batesville, Mississippi.

And here I am in Hammond, Louisiana almost to New Orleans with some flowers in my pocket.

Pictured below is the front of the train station in New Orleans. And below that is an interior photo of that train station and the nice mural that is on the wall there.

   When we got to the train station in New Orleans we no longer needed our winter coats. It was warm and springlike. Azaleas were blooming in Hammond, La. and also around Lee Circle in New Orleans.

Lee Circle in New Orleans shown in photo above.

   Azaleas blooming in Jackson Square in the French Quarter in New Orleans shown in photo above.
 We walked along St. Charles Avenue and crossed Canal Street and on into the French Quarter.
   The train we rode in 1965 was the original Illinois Central Railroad. It also had sleeping berths in the Pullman cars and a nice bar or club car.
   The link below is to the present day City of New Orleans operated by Amtrak. It includes links to the route and the menu of the dining car.
http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?c=AM_Route_C&pagename=am%2FLayout&cid=1241245653236

The Train They Call The City Of New Orleans 1965 And The Warmth Of Other Suns A New Book About The Black Migration in the Early 20th Century

Click to enlarge the above picture.
http://www.amazon.com/Warmth-Other-Suns-Americas-Migration/dp/0679444327/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285597952&sr=1-2

My wife and I rode The City Of New Orleans train in March of 1965 from Chicago to New Orleans.

More about that later.
  There is a new book out about the great migration of blacks from the South in the early 1900's.
But I remember seeing many blacks riding the train South from Chicago. I know they go home to visit relatives. Some are even now moving back down South.


  Now this book title strikes me as somewhat odd. It must refer to the summer months. Because in no way could going to Chicago in the winter months from Mississippi be under warmer suns when they arrived in Chicago.
  Here is the real meaning of the title:
The title of this book is taken from Richard Wright's "Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth": "I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns, and, perhaps, to bloom."


Here is the wikipedia  page on The Great Migration of blacks from the South.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)
 
In the club car of the train City Of New Orleans I overheard a black man telling a black woman as we headed south on The City Of New Orleans about Sigmund Freud. The man said "You've got your id and your ego and your super ego". He had asked her if she knew who Sigmund Freud was. She said no.

  I would say that most all of the passengers heading south on the train were black. I know that they return for reunions and that often they left their children with their grandparents and went North and would return to visit them.

Click and double click to enlarge the picture above. It was taken on our trip south in March of 1965 on the train from Chicago to New Orleans. This was the stop in Batesville, Mississippi. The train no longer goes through there. Batesville is no longer a stop. If you enlarge you will see that most of the passengers getting off or getting on going south are black.

  It is interesting to note also that Steve Goodman wrote his song City Of New Orleans about going south from Chicago to New Orleans not north from New Orleans to Chicago.
   I will say that the ride South in 1965 was exactly like he wrote in his song. Same towns, same scenes, same everything.
  I remember we left Chicago in March of 1965. There was a blizzard going on in Chicago. The winds off Lake Michigan blew men's hats off their heads and down the streets.
 I saw an ace of hearts playing card frozen in the ice on a sidewalk in Chicago and took a picture of it. Click and double click to enlarge it.

    When we got to Hammond, Louisiana it was warm and azaleas were in bloom. It felt like the best spring possible. In fact it was so warm when we got to New Orleans we had to take our coats off.
 It felt so good to be out of that snow and ice and cold wind of Chicago. New Orleans never looked better or felt better to me before or since. Walking from the train station to the French Quarter I was really glad to be back in New Orleans.

Later I worked in 1966 in the Delta as an anti poverty worker teaching blacks to read and write.
  When I  worked in Mound Bayou,Mississippi I learned they have a reunion every year around July. Mound Bayou is the only all black owned and operated town in Mississippi. I worked there in the Fall of 1966 teaching reading and writing in the STAR program of Lyndon Johnson's War On Poverty. It stood for Systematic Training And Research. The federal government was paying 35 dollars a week to people to learn to read and write.
  We tried to sign up some whites but they all refused. I went to the welfare office in Cleveland, Miss. and asked to get the names of some white people and was told there were no white  people on welfare in north  Mississippi.
 No whites would sign up for this government program no matter how much they could have used the money. This was 1966 and race tensions were high in Mississippi at that time.