Bring in the new

Click any photo to "embiggen"

Happy New Year, everyone!

Last night The Heart Attack played at Vaughan's Lounge, scheduled to go on at 10:00 pm but really they didn't start up until after 10:45. No matter - everyone was having a good time. There were red beans and rice in the back room, and the drinks were flowing.

Katie May at the bar

We bailed out of there before midnight, and zipped up our jackets against the cold wind. All through the neighborhood, you could hear firecrackers and cherry bombs going off. Clutching our plastic go-cups from the bar, we walked to the Mazant Street Wharf on the Mississippi River.

 There was a crowd there already - neighborhood folks mostly, but also a couple of tour buses full of tourists, or maybe party buses. We clustered up to the edge of the wharf and looked toward the city lights upriver. The paddle-wheeler Creole Queen rolled by, its lights amber in the night.

At midnight, the fireworks started, bursting in the air and reflected in the water.

There on the pavement stood a huge champagne bottle - was it a Jeraboam? A Nebuchadnezzer? a Salamanzar? I don't know, but a man in a white linen jacket offered me some, hefting the thing up to pour into my plastic cup. It was real champagne, and awfully good, too.

(My son says the guy who brought the champagne "was on the party bus. And he was definitely on the party bus.")

Happy New Year!