26 August 2009

Independence Day.

30 years ago today, just after 2:00pm, I packed the last of my things into my VW Bug and left my parent's house in New Orleans for Baton Rouge and my first year at LSU. It was, to quote from a Randy Newman song about New Orleans, "the end of my baby days." It was a Sunday. I was 20.

I remember sitting in my dorm room in South Stadium that night trying to find something on late night Baton Rouge TV - other than televangelists - and wondering if leaving New Orleans wasn't just the stupidist thing I had ever done.

But in hindsight, it wasn't. (That would come later, and involve East German border guards, AK-47's, and and a dare.) Leaving turned out to be one of the smartest things I ever did. While I love the Crescent City, 30 years on I have no regrets.

3 comments:

Bob Livingston said...

Messing with the VoPo certainly was not recommended procedure for long-term survival. (Translation: You're lucky God watches over the stupid.) Playing hide-and-seek with the friendly neighborhood Stasi folks wasn't too cool either. (Translation: I'm lucky God watches over the stupid.)

.....CLIFFORD said...

Actually, Bob, for me it was Grenztruppen, just outside a little IGB town called Schoningen. A small brook that was the actual East/West border and a disused bridge over that brook were involved. What saved my ass was a Pentax ME Super camera and the ability to haul my ass, and my other parts attached to it, rather quickly back to the West side of that bridge ahead of the startled Grenztruppen patrol I ran into and their AK's. Still have those pictures, that camera, and my ass. Which proves your point about God watching over the stupid.

When I did go East, legally, I never had any problems with either VoPo, or Stasi. I guess they never pegged me as The Great American Border Sneak In Sector 2144.

Cargosquid said...

Ya gotta post those historic pics and put them into context. Think of the children!