By Carol Cole

Transcript Staff Writer

NEW ORLEANS — You hear New Orleans before you see it.

Getting off the plane at the Louis Armstrong International Airport, strains of Dixieland Jazz waft through the terminal, with teal-colored banners trumpeting “We’re Jazzed You’re Here,” around every corner.

And they are.

I’ve long loved New Orleans since I first went there with the Pride of Oklahoma when the Sooners beat Auburn in the Sugar Bowl in 1972. It was band director Gene “Coach” Thrailkill’s first bowl game with the Pride, and band members had a memorable — if not completely sober — great time. Picture a drunk marching band. My head still hurts from that one.

I’ve visited New Orleans about a half dozen times since then — embracing the Big Easy’s jazz soul and delectable restaurant offerings. And it hurt to watch the horror of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of the incomparable city and its citizens Aug. 29, 2005.

So when my significant other Bob suggested I accompany him to a convention the weekend of Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, I jumped at the opportunity to spend some time with him and explore the good, bad and ugly of New Orleans.

On our way to the Chateau Sonesta hotel in the French Quarter, there were hundreds of buildings still with blown-out windows, some with plywood boarding them up but many sitting just as still as they were when floodwaters receded.

The French Quarter, which didn’t flood, is welcoming.

“Thank you for coming,” the desk manager tells us as we check in. “We’re happy you’re here.” It’s a refrain we’ll hear again and again during our visit.

Just on a whim, we dial up Brennan’s to see if we can get reservations at the legendary brunch spot for Sunday morning. I’m not optimistic. The last time I visited the Big Easy, they were taking reservations two months in advance.

“What time do you want to come in?” they ask. We tell them “10 a.m.” It’s no problem. I shake my head in disbelief.

Bob and I decide to trek down to Bourbon Street. Parts of the French Quarter are still scarred by Katrina’s winds and we estimate it’s bars, restaurants, music halls and strip clubs about 70 to 80 percent open.

We sauntered down the street, and even at dusk Saturday afternoon, there were young male revelers throwing Mardi Gras beads off balconies.

And the characters began to come out.

In the middle of Bourbon Street, performance artist Mike, “The Ladder Man,” perches precariously, stone-still on a ladder adorned with red, white and blue curlicues, in his sleeveless red shirt and patriotic flag-styled hard hat for up to an hour straight. Onlookers toss dollar bills into his bucket.

“I’ve had everyone from Frankie Avalon to Vanna White on this ladder,” he boasts.

We walk a few more blocks. It appears Bourbon Street is doing relatively well, with most venues open and only a few boarded up buildings with Dumpsters outside.

Years ago in the early ’80s, I ate at K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen, famous chef Paul Prudhomme’s restaurant on Chartres Street, standing in a long line of about 50 people to get in the door.

As we drive through the French Quarter, I notice there is no line out the door of K-Paul’s this time. It saddens me.

We revisit a restaurant I remembered fondly from a visit with my dad in the early ’70s — Pascal’s Manale in uptown New Orleans, the restaurant credited with inventing barbecue shrimp.

I’d seen Pascal Manale’s mold remediation on “60 Minutes,” with Sabre Technical Services draping the freestanding, venerable 6,200-square-foot restaurant in a tent and pumping it full of chlorine dioxide to rid it of the green and black fungus in mere hours in mid-November 2005. Pascal’s was only closed seven months, faring much better than many New Orleans restaurants.

Bob and I arrive for our 8:30 p.m. reservation and find an overflowing waiting area and a jammed restaurant. It would be the only full restaurant we’d see on our visit, despite the more than 8,000 convention-goers in town.

Pictures of famous visitors like George Burns, David Spade, Bonnie Raitt and Don Shula line the wood-lined waiting area.

We order Pascal’s signature barbecue shrimp and a medium rare strip steak topped with crabmeat, with its renowned bread pudding for dessert.

“It’s time to dress you,” our waitress says, tying paper bibs on us in preparation for our meal.

Pascal’s was every bit as good as I remembered.

Our waitress tells us there was 27-inches of water inside the restaurant. And that doesn’t count the couple of steps up into the restaurant. You would never know.

After dinner, Bob and I decide to check out Bourbon Street one more time, ducking into the intimate surroundings of Pat O’Brien’s charming brick courtyard for one of the bar’s famous Hurricanes. It’s still the best drink in town.

We head out for our breakfast at Brennan’s the next morning and stop in the restaurant’s bar for a Bloody Mary.

“We’re still coming back,” Tara, the bartender, tells us. Brennan’s has only been open since June, she says, after an extensive renovation.

We’re seated in the room adjacent Brennan’s wine cellar. I notice the landmark restaurant is only about 80 percent full.

Our waiter Josh notes one of Brennan’s Katrina casualties was its 35,000 wine collection, said to be one of the finest in the world. He tells us they are not serving creamed spinach because of the E-Coli outbreak, which eliminates my favorite Eggs Sardou. Sigh.

We both order the three-course prix fixe breakfast and I start with turtle soup and an order of Eggs Portuguese, puff pastry filled with fresh diced tomatoes and topped with poached eggs and hollandaise sauce.

Brennan’s world-famous bananas foster, ice cream topped with bananas, brown sugar sautéed in butter and flamed banana liqueur and rum ends my meal. Heaven. I swear I’ll never eat again.

Sad sights

Sunday afternoon we crank up the rental car and head out to survey New Orleans heartbreak — St. Bernard’s Parish and the infamous Eighth and Ninth Wards.

Blown out windows are everywhere. Brick-sided structures seem to have fared the best, still standing. You can see into their interiors and most are stripped of sheetrock down to the studs. Insulation, heating and air ducts lie in giant piles in front of them.

Rows of white trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency are lined in as far as the eye can see in the Ninth Ward. They look stark and depressing.

One thing I notice is the trees, with that odd, tornado-stripped look we know in Oklahoma — with few twigs, just main branches and puffs of green leaves.

“It’s a lunar landscape. This is a Twilight Zone,” says Bob, struggling for a description of the devastation that goes on for miles and miles.

The “X” marks denoting what rescuers found are still on most of the buildings even the ones that have been renovated.

In Chalmette, some of the modest, frame shotgun homes look like they’ve been twisted grotesquely and set back down.

Gawkers like ourselves are apparently commonplace, but people are mostly friendly.

We drive into what appears to have been a cute neighborhood of two to three-bedroom brick houses, with most still standing. Maybe one in 10 houses have been renovated and almost all of those have flowers planted and lawns manicured, next to the eerie, stripped down homes overgrown with weeds to your waist and FEMA trailers sitting in their driveways. Dozens of them have “For Sale By Owner” signs in front.

The red brick front of a church with stained glass windows is all that stands with its two-story structure collapsed behind it.

“Ready to go back?” Bob inquires several times. I finally acquiesce. I’ve seen more than I really wanted to. These people still need lots and lots of help.

Contrasting vision

The massive New Orleans Convention Center looks like nothing ever happened, thanks to a $240 million renovation of it and the Louisiana Superdome.

Vendors at the Society of Exploration Geophysicists’ international convention have filled several halls with slick, sophisticated, interactive displays. Convention-wise, it’s obvious New Orleans is on its game. SEG books its conventions six years in advance and is the city’s second largest convention since Katrina.

About 30 to 40 percent of the conventions booked for 2007 were retained, according to the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau’s Web site at www.neworleanscvb.com, with the city keeping about 70 percent of 2007 conventions and 100 percent of 2008 conventions.

And the 8,000 geophysicists that have poured into the city from around the world seem to be happy to be there.

Sunday night, we eat at another landmark, Arnaud’s on Bourbon Street.

Arnaud’s main dining room reopened in December. But the night we’re there is the first night the restaurant has reopened its jazz bistro.

“We’re shorthanded,” the hostess tells us. That seems to be the case with most New Orleans restaurants, although they appear to be handling it with few glitches in service.

It’s more deliciousness, almost too much to bear. We feast on appetizers of escargot and shrimp and entrees of quail and steak in the half-full main dining room. An appropriately titled Chocolate Devastation ends our meal.

I return to Oklahoma way too early Monday morning, leaving Bob in New Orleans for more convention-going.

It’s been short and sweet and I already want to go back. Soon.

Carol Cole

366-3538

ccole@normantranscript.com