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Just back from our first-ever visit to New Orleans – we’ve checked one more item off our “bucket-list.” How do I start to share our trip? Let me start with a segment of my poem “N’Orleans”:

“N’Orleans, N’Orleans

Most devastated city I’ve ever seen,

Lots of priests but only one Voodoo Queen

That’s N’Orleans – That’s N’Orleans …”

Chris and I arrived at our bed and breakfast late in the afternoon on Thursday. We settled in and then took our first of two journeys down Bourbon Street – our first journey began at about 5:30. The streets were rather naked, although there was some music coming from the clubs lining the path. It was interesting and boasted of legend.

After several stops and then dinner in the Arts District, we found ourselves in the arms of night, still hot and humid. We began the last of our journeys down Bourbon Street. It does indeed live up to “legend.”

At first glance there is excitement and awe both related to the crowd and the noise. The music is like thunder, a mix of blues, jazz and rock ‘n’ roll.

The crowds were two: first, the obvious majority were tourists, most much younger than we were and most interested in sight, sound and party. Second, the remaining were “regulars,” and their makeup varied from “goths” to “hippies” and the many captivated by drugs, poverty and rejection. The divide of souls was obvious.

We found no pleasure in that last walk, for the separation of our values from that of what was obvious around us was disheartening. We were pressed in by crowds not caring who they walked into, drunks both staggering and sleeping it off on the sidewalks.

Women – and men – of the “night” propped up against walls, cigarette smoke trails at several levels and the uncertainty of each step, for the entire street is pot-holed, unleveled and filled with debris. There were “wet spots” everywhere and the hint of a stench of raw waste from an obviously over-stressed sewer system could be found in several places.

What struck me most were the buildings on Bourbon Street. Buildings whose images looked familiar, stemming from the many movies, articles and tourist pamphlets about N’Orleans. At first glance they sang the song of history, but in truth they sang the songs of decay and neglect. Most buildings, perhaps much like me, showed their age.

Obvious it is that decoration can’t hide decay and neglect. There is no doubt that N’Orleans is “old” and true to the “wild life,” it’s just not my kind of life; perhaps I’m just too old. I’ll never need to see Bourbon Street again, for all of its glamor can be found anywhere in the shadows of bars, the decay of structure and the continuously growing addictive culture.

There were wondrous places of interest and culture. Like the Insectarium and World War II Museum, and then there is the obvious separation best made evident by life in the Garden District and that in the Ninth Ward. That is yet another column. How about one more verse:

“N’Orleans, N’Orleans

Many lay buried in the mud and gloom

Others lay buried in million dollar tombs

That’s N’Orleans – That’s N’Orleans …”

Thomas H. Hunkele of Troup County is a certified fitness trainer and president of Lakeside Fitness.