…and I’ve decided that my town is horribly, horribly dull.
In New Orleans I stood on Canal Street as beautiful parades full of over-the-top floats rolled by. People stood on these floats and threw worthless trinkets into the crowd.
In my town, nobody marching in a parade is allowed to throw/give anything to anyone in the crowd, because [sniveling, whiny voice] it’s not fair to the people who don’t get anything [/sniveling, whiny voice]. :rolleyes:
In New Orleans I sat at Pat O’Brien’s and drank a Hurricane, served to me by a black man in a pressed green tuxedo jacket. I sang along with the crowd as dueling pianos led us in singalongs.
In my town, I can’t even get a Hurricane (with six shots of rum :eek: ) because the city council regulates how much liquor a barkeep can pour into any mixed drink. Cocktail waitresses serve liquor wearing their street clothes. NOBODY sings in a bar around here, except on Karaoke night, and it’s one-at-a-time.
In New Orleans I walked up and down Bourbon Street and mingled with the crowd, dink in hand.
In my town, if I had the audacity to step outside of a bar with a drink in my hand, I’d get a one-way ticket to the city jail. Nobody congregates outside of bars around here; the police get real squeamish about that and tell everybody to go back inside or to go home.
I live in a town that is in many ways like the NFL: It takes itself WAY too seriously, it tightly regulates everything it can think of, yet it doesn’t do anything to address its real problems.
I live in a town where anything resembling outdoor social life comes to a complete halt between October and April, because it’s too freaking cold to step outside.
I live in a town whose history is completely and utterly tied up in one man: a good man but a complete stick-in-the-mud when it comes to fun. That man is Abraham Lincoln.
I live in Springfield freaking Illinois.
This place is no fun.
I miss New Orleans.
sigh
