Name: Looking Back at Medford History - Down The Mississippi
Uploaded: 2026-08-27
Duration: 46 min 41 s
Description: Host Laura Duggan and guest Stephen Duggan presented a travelogue of their cruise down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, detailing historical landmarks, cultural activities, and regional history.

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3.5-flash from the transcript below, which is the record. It may be incomplete or wrong; it does not report votes. Every item links to the moment it began.

Host Laura Duggan and guest Stephen Duggan presented a travelogue of their cruise down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, detailing historical landmarks, cultural activities, and regional history.

0:25 Introduction to Going Down the Mississippi and New Orleans — Hostess Laura Duggan introduced her husband and co-adventurer, Stephen Duggan, to share their travelogue documenting their journey down the Mississippi River.
1:21 Riverboat Technology and Navigation — The presenters described the design, specialized propulsion system, and navigation challenges of their Viking riverboat.
3:36 River Commerce and Geography — The presenters detailed the vast scale of commercial barge traffic, geographic features of the river, and historical flood control measures managed by the Army Corps of Engineers.
9:01 Greenville, Mississippi Tourism and Culture — The presenters highlighted their stop in Greenville, discussing the local music history, regional food, and the town's resurgence through cruise tourism.
11:41 Vicksburg Civil War Battlefield and Artifacts — The presenters reviewed the Civil War history of Vicksburg, showcasing battlefield statues, local military grave sites, and the salvaged USS Cairo ironclad ship.
17:22 Natchez and Longwood Estate — The presenters described their tour of Natchez, including the unfinished octagonal Longwood Estate and historic plantation quarters detailing early cotton production.
23:30 Oakley Plantation and Audubon — The presenters highlighted John James Audubon's history as a tutor at Oakley Plantation, historic blacksmith demonstrations, and plantation domestic life.
27:29 Cajun Swamp Tour and Voodoo Queen Legend — The presenters shared their experiences on a Louisiana swamp boat tour, detailing wildlife sightings and the legend of voodoo queen Julia Brown.
30:58 New Orleans Landmarks, Dining, and Jazz — The presenters showcased New Orleans architecture, historic hotels, local dining, and street musicians performing during the city's jazz festival.
39:07 Behind-the-Scenes Crew Perspectives — Station managers Kevin Harrington and Jim joined the set to share their own travel stories, local dining experiences, and swamp tours in New Orleans.

[Unidentified]: And through the wood to Grandfather's house we go. The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifted snow. Over the river and through the wood, oh how the wind does blow. It stings the toes and bites the nose and over the grass

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Welcome to Looking Back at Medford History. I'm Laura Duggan, your hostess. Today's show is going to be a travelogue entitled Going Down the Mississippi and New Orleans. To help me tell the tale of this adventure will be my fellow adventurer and husband, Stephen Duggan. Together, we have traveled to 31 countries, and I have also done an additional seven. However, Steve will catch up in 2027 when we go to Portugal and Spain. Steve, welcome to looking back at Medford history.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: My first question for you is, how does it feel to be in front of the camera instead of in the control room?

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Yes? Yeah. So are you going to be able to handle becoming a TV star now?

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Okay. Let's go on. We'll see the first image, how we traveled up down, actually down the Mississippi, and one of the Viking boats, right? The river boats. We'll show a picture of that. And there it is.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Yes. That boat's unusual because The Norwegians run basically the cruise line. And they had the boat built in Louisiana. And they actually have also a captain who comes from Louisiana. And the boat is specifically designed to be on the Mississippi River. It actually has a propulsion system, which is like a egg beater, which spins below the surface and has veins on the little things which change and control the boat very precisely.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: They can move it around. The other advantage is if they ever have a problem with it, they don't have to go into dry dock. They can actually just get a crane, open it up, and change the egg beater without having to dry dock the boat.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Because going down the Mississippi, there's a lot of logs and debris in the water, and also the currents change quite a bit, which is why when they used to go down back in the days, in the olden days there, they had to have people who could read the river.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Yes, people read the river and it's also very difficult because they're also going down a river where you have large amount of barge traffic. And they have to be very careful about how they deal with that.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Oh, yeah. And another thing, too, is that in the river, they told us that lives there is they have catfish and shrimp, silver carp, buffalo fish and alligators. Speaking of alligators, Steve got a really cool shirt while we were in New Orleans. You want to show it? He will soon reveal like Superman. There it is. Want to read that? Lost Dog. Answers to Buddy. Greenish, hairless, outdoor, 524 pounds, short legs, long tail, loves water, eats cats, sea tag on collar. New Orleans. So that's why I have to call him Gator Man now. Anyway. So also going down the river, you see lots of barges. Right, Steve?

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: You see these livestock boats, they push down a lot of cargo from the Midwest, which then gets taken down to New Orleans and put on ships and shipped over to Europe. A lot of farm products from the U.S.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: You know, Baton Rouge and New Orleans, that's where the two ports go there. And they carry things like grain and petro products and chemicals and coal, right? And they basically strap them all together and then they have one boat that's just pushing it down the river. Of course, the current is going down, so it's not too hard. And one barge can carry what would be on 70 semi-trucks. That's a lot. So if they have 42 barges strapped together, which we did see going down, that would equal 2,940 semi-trucks. So you can see that's a very efficient way to move that kind of stuff very well.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Another interesting fact is the fact that if the barges become untied and split up, then actually what happens is they declare some event and they have to have a barge roundup where they have to go. A barge roundup? A barge roundup to go and find all the barges and tie them back together again. And tie them back? It's a big deal. It's a big deal. The captain of the boat was saying that's one of the hazards when you're going along the river is the fact that when they have a barge roundup, it sort of makes everything disorganized for a while.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Well, we went down about 200 miles down the Mississippi, wasn't it? Yeah. And what they call the delta? Yes. Is that what you said?

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: It was a total delta, yeah, 200 miles. And then the actual Mississippi is 1,229 miles long. It starts up in Minnesota and comes down. And down where we were for the 300 miles down to New Orleans, it's just pure water all the way down. But above that, they basically have a lock system. in order to make it so they can navigate.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Because there's a big problem of flooding on the Mississippi, so you really shouldn't put a house on the shore of the Mississippi, or you should have it on stilts or something?

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Well, they had large problems with flooding because it flooded every year, but what happened is they put up flood, the Corps of Engineers put up basically flood walls.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Army Corps of Engineers put up flood walls. Yeah they did. So it doesn't flood as much and they have a lot more control of where they can build houses. Okay. But the fallout from that is when it did flood it actually fertilized all the land so the farmers didn't have to put down that much

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: But now all the cotton plantations, all the plantations down there have to fertilize the land because they don't have the Mississippi fertilizing it anymore.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Oh, so it's not flooding and bringing it. Because when you see the Mississippi, and you can see that in the picture even, it's pretty muddy looking because it's carrying a lot of soil from the other states where it starts. And it's actually not the longest river in America. That would be the, what is it, the Missouri. That's actually the longest river. So the Mississippi is the second longest. And the Ohio River basically contributes most of the water that goes into the Mississippi. Isn't that right?

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and that's 620 miles long. 920 miles long. Oh, yeah.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: So it's often like a mile wide. It's really a big river. And you can't really tell when you're flying over it, which is what we had done. And I really wanted to come and have a closer look. And when you're down there where the Mississippi is right there, like in a boat, you can see how very wide it is. Right, Steve?

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And down in New Orleans, it's 200 feet deep. Yeah. And if you swim in it, you'll drown because the currents are very deadly in that river.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: It is very dangerous, not for swimming. And you don't really see pleasure boats going down the Mississippi either. I mean, it's basically cargo going down on barges and ships like the Viking going down, people going down. And of course, in the very beginning, the transportation was in dugout canoes by the indigenous people that went down there. And then later on, you had the flat boats. And you could only go down. If you wanted to go back up the river, you had to disassemble your boat and carry it back up. Miles right there's a story of Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln did that and his brother they went down you can go down easily but then to go back you have to basically Walk back you walk back walk back and that didn't change until they got the steamboat, right?

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: And they broke up their boat and they lumber from their boat was sold and used to build houses in New Orleans That's really interesting

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: So let's, anyway we didn't, the boat started in Medford, Tennessee and unfortunately we didn't see too much of Medford because by the time we got there it was later and we were kind of tired, weren't we Steve? Yes. So we had to say goodbye. The next picture is like the sun setting on Medford, Tennessee and that's pretty much all we had. Lovely shot that Steve took from the boat. And we just said goodbye, we'll have to go again. Maybe on another trip I'll get to go to Graceland and see Elvis's house. It would be nice. Okay, our first stop was Greenville, Mississippi, which is called the heart and soul of the Delta. And in this little community, by the way, what is his name? There's a fellow from Sesame Street, what's his name? I'll get it here. I had it here. The puppeteer, he's from actually from Greenville, did you know that? Anyhow.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, he did Kermit. So anyway, they had this theater there, and there was a fellow that had been touring all around, he was a big star in the South, and he decided he didn't want to travel anymore, so he got a hold of this theater in Greenville, which was built in 1927. and started doing shows for people like Steve and I coming along. So basically, it's a mixture of blues, rock and roll, soul, and gospel music. And then we have a picture of this fellow who started it. I think a close-up picture of him singing. He's really good. There he is with his guitar and his backup band. I have to say the musicianship down south is amazing, especially if you're looking for that kind of music, as I mentioned, rock and roll and gospel and blues.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: And country, yeah. They really know how to play it. And it's really rocking. And here's a close-up of him. Yeah. So everybody was really having fun hearing him entertain us. And they also served us some food to give us a sample of the food down there. And we had, what was some of the food that we had? Let's see. uh Greenville I had oh here it is we got we had some moonshine didn't we Steve yes moonshine fried catfish pulled pork tamales and some hush puppies yes and if you know what do you already know what how they make hush puppies It's made out of like small balls of deep fried cornmeal batter. So that's how you make a hush puppy, which is good. So we had all those. Anyway, so let's see some more musicians. Here's some more musicians that were entertaining us. And this has really helped this town because apparently Greenville really got decimated by one of the hurricanes that came up. Floods. The flooding, yeah. So this has helped bring it back.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: And Viking discovered them and said, hey, I think we'll stop here and have our people come and be entertained. Here's another saxophone player. Oh, they were just wonderful. And I think another one here. Let me see here. Yeah, this guy with the drums. Yeah, the drummer. The drummer. As you can see, he was a pretty fun-loving guy. Everybody is just really things go a little slower down there and but you get into very friendly the people are super friendly wherever you go it's just where are you from you know and like that and uh so it's a good it's good to go down there it's kind of fun so let's go see another another picture what's the next one i have oh our next stop the next stop was vicksburg and steve you want to tell everybody what what is vicksburg uh famous for uh what are people in the control room raise your hand if you know Huh? Did you pay attention in school when you started the Civil War?

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: It was one of the biggest, the victory that they had at Vicksburg was sort of like, almost like the turning point. It was. Of the Civil War. And it also showed off Grant's incredible talent in being a general. Yeah. It's a very It's unusual because the Mississippi, because of the way it moves dirt and stuff and all that stuff, Mississippi in some places is flat, but this Vicksburg is very hilly. Yeah, it's hilly, yeah. And they had a lot of battles there, and it was very, it was a big turning point. Because, and it turned over control of the Mississippi to the north. And the south no longer controlled it. But it has been fantastic. We drove around there. It was a fantastic tour. It's a very big, if you want to see Civil War site, it's really big.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: It's brilliant. They told us all about it. So basically, if you get asked a question, and if you're in class, anybody who's in high school, why is Vicksburg important? It's because the Union, the North, got control of the Mississippi. And once they got control of the Mississippi, the South couldn't send its crops down, its cash crops down, and sell it to England, especially the cotton.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: And they also couldn't- Interfered with getting its supplies and- Yes. and all that from England as well.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: That's why it was so important. It was a turning point. Basically, Grant did a siege around Vicksburg, so they had to be rationed for a long time. It was quite a siege, and then finally they started fighting and they won. So you see there's a museum there, but what they did at Vicksburg is every state was allowed to put up a statue. It was sort of like a reconciliation display of statues of everybody putting them in, not just the North, but the South too. So let's, here's one, this is from the North, and we'll see another one. And you can see them shaking hands, you know, somebody from the North and one from the South, just as reconciliation that they put this up. And the artwork is quite, quite wonderful to see with all these statues. Let's see another one from that area because I know we have a lot of pictures. Oh, here's a cannon. This is a cannon they have at the museum from the Battle of Vicksburg. Do you know anything about this one, Steve?

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: The cannons were the major battle weapons, basically, in those days. Whenever they had a battle, a huge number of cannons bombarded and they did the most damage.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: That's a state-of-the-art kind of thing. I learned that last when I interviewed Mr. Bell about the cannons. about during the Revolutionary War, that was really the weapon to have. Let's see the next, what else did we see there? Another picture from the museum. Oh yeah, of course they dug up all these things and put them in a museum. Pans and jars from the soldiers that were there. Yep, and another one. Let's see the next picture. Oh, and the guns.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, those are some of the weapons that they had, that they used, some of the Civil War weapons they had on display.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, the weapons from going back then.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Those were like, the Union ones were buried here, and then the people from the South were born in, were buried in the Vicksburg town cemetery. That's how they had it, like, different. So there's a lot. There's the burial area there. And let's see the next one. Another statue. Beautiful. Beautiful work. These are one amazing. Of course, you know how I'm crazy about statues, right?

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: So they have a lot there. But now Medford finally has one, right? Yes, we do. Yes, we do. And there's a close-up of one of them. Beautiful, isn't it? Look at that. Look at his face. Amazing, huh?

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we probably should have had his name, but... I know.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Okay, another interesting thing. This is the... The ironclad?

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: They actually went out and They found it, I forgot, they had a unique way of finding it.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they had a compass and it changed the, when they went over it, they changed the magnetic field. Yes. And the compass sort of went a little wild and they knew it was down there. So they basically came and they raised the entire boat and put it back together and they have it in the museum there.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: And that was one of the boats that fought in the Civil War.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, because you may have heard about that, the hourglass.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: You can see of it. But isn't that interesting, finding it by using a compass?

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: No high-tech stuff there, just a little compass there. So this was interesting to see, see this one. They put it together, and then you can walk in it. OK, and our next stop was Natchez. And Natchez apparently was quite a wild town in its day. And this is the oldest bar in Mississippi. That's what they said. And apparently, Mark Twain himself would stop here, would frequent this bar, as you see right here. So we went in and sat down, have a drink, and I was thinking, I wonder if I'm sitting where Mark Twain sat. And here I am making a friend, and I was asking this fellow, they're really nice, I said, am I sitting in your place? Oh no, just sit down. So I asked him, I said, do you see many Gators local to your town? And he took out his smartphone, And he showed me a picture, says it was just right over there. I went, oh, really? So again, you shouldn't stick your hand or your foot or anything in the Mississippi, Steve?

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, walk your dog too close to the rivers or around lakes.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: It's not a good idea, is it? No. Normally? I know. It shouldn't do that. And so Natchez is quite an interesting kind of place. Oh, that's the house. Oh, this is the Longwood Estate?

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Yes. And what's special about it is that it's... It was never finished. No, it wasn't. It's the largest octagonal house in the United States. Very interesting design. Look at the architecture there. And yeah, he never finished it. But they have it on display. And that's what you see, a lot of the houses along the way that we would go to, the local communities were really turning towards tourism. And they're using their history to do it, to be able to facilitate and encourage people to come and stop and go. So you go inside and you see one of the beds here.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: This is actually inside the quarters which were below it.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: They had the quarters below it and people lived below it. But up above it, it was sort of unfinished. It was sort of empty rooms and all that. But below it is where the living quarters were.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Exactly. I think the next picture shows that. There's a close-up of the dress that they had on the bed on display right there. Look at all the ruffles. look at that so they really make it very interesting to go through and the next picture i think is the dining table and that what you see up above on the ceiling that's like a big fan yeah they would have somebody basically pulling that back and forth while people were eating Yeah, because the South is pretty warm when you go there. Yeah.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: No. Oh, this is where you're talking about where they hadn't quite finished?

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this is where basically this is above the living quarters. So this is as much as they built. And basically, it's sort of just empty, but it's very impressive.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: It's a really interesting design. Yeah. And I think the next picture, do we have another of it? Let's see. Let's see the next one. Oh, yeah, that's the outside of it. You can take looking back at it and it's it's been nicely restored I would say yes for people to go see so you can stop along the way and see some of these Really interesting architecture if you're into architecture, which I am always interested in of the south They had a dream of the house and he just couldn't finish it. He called it nuts folly. That was what they said He never finished it. You're right Okay, so that was that

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, then we stopped along they also a lot of places you go They'll they'll show you where the slave quarters are and so we came up.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: This was on a farm Which is still a working cotton plantation, right? And actually, there's a woman who runs it and they have a very good tour in which they show you how they do the cotton how they did it and initially and how they got the seeds out where they had the older slaves would sit there and pull the seeds out of the cotton.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: And so they have to like by hand pull it out, you know, and that just took a long time.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: So all the elders would sit around doing that. It was a very slow process and very low production of cotton.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: So once they designed the cotton gin, a machine that would take the seeds out quickly, that made cotton really a great cash crop for the South to sell. And they would sell to England.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: See the conditions they lived in. The houses were very small. They weren't air conditioned. Down there in the summer, it gets brutally hot and muggy. And just imagine trying to live in those conditions is something else.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Well, if they had more important jobs, they might have a desk like this fellow had.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Well, basically the overseer, one of the guys was an overseer. He was the one with sort of a bigger house, and he had a desk. Cabin, I'd still call it a cabin. Down here. But it was a very good, and there's some of the cotton that had the seeds pulled out of it.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Right. And then they showed us a cotton gin. I think the next one is.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's the first. That was a small cotton gin that they used, and it was very much faster taking out the seeds than the people. And then after they got that perfected, they went to a bigger gin. That was more or less driven by steam. And it produced these large hundreds of pounds of cotton and takes the seeds out. And that was what they used up until later. They actually took us right, and we don't have a picture of that, but later on they had That farm, interestingly enough, she basically takes all the cotton for all the plantations, all the farms around them. And the interesting part is she basically takes all the seeds out for free and gives them back to the garden because they use the seeds and they make a lot of products from the seeds themselves. So basically the profit they make off the seeds is enough so that they All the cotton plantations around could basically get all their cotton gin for free.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, get a gin and clean the seeds, right? Yeah. That's really important here. Yeah, so this is a working farm. Okay, now we're moving to Another location, this was actually... The Audubon, I think. Yeah, this was the Oakley Plantation. And Audubon, who is famous for his paintings of birds, early in his career was a tutor at this particular house. And so they have the desk that he used to... And there's his bed. And they have a number of his bird pictures there. And there's one of his bird pictures. And so this is where he got started doing all the bird pictures. have to get done being a tutor for a while. And then we have, now this is the owner's desk. You can see the, you see the glasses on the book, Ruth, doesn't that look like, remind you of something? The logo of looking back at Medford history, doesn't it? Anyway, this is the owners of the House Oakland Plantation. And they had, of course, where they played cards there. And then they had a piano was there for entertainment. You had to entertain yourself with your friend. Next picture. Oh, okay, all right. I guess we didn't do that one. But this is a blacksmith. Okay, so this guy was demonstrating the work they would do.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the slaves, the elite slaves, the ones who got to live in the higher conditions were the ones like the blacksmiths. Skilled workers. And they would train from, the kids of the slave people were trained to be blacksmiths. And they were blacksmiths, they worked. They worked from daylight, from when daylight showed up, seven days a week, eight days a week. Also, if they had extra blacksmiths or another plantation needed them, the kids would be sold out from the family to another plantation.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Well, they wanted them to learn this skill because they knew they would get better accommodations, you know, if they had a skill. They will treat a little bit better.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise, you're a picker. And basically, that was a very brutal job. A horrible job. When they talk about how much cotton they had to pick and the quotas given that amount of heat and, you know, the bags were weighing 70 pounds by the time they got through. And they had to pick so much per day and all of that, they had quotas. And they didn't really have any excuse if you didn't make a quota. You get penalized.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: You did. I mean, so they're basically showing it. And here's another house, another cabin.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: This was a kitchen. This is the back door of a kitchen.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: The kitchen would usually be set off from the house because of a fear of fire. That was a big reason.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: And slaves, again, you basically did the kitchen. And if you were a cook, you had the same conditions as being a blacksmith. You did that job. You didn't take vacations. You didn't take anything. But you get better accommodations.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Because you see, this is no bed, they're just on the floor there, see? Yeah, sleeping on the floor. That's how it was. And here's Steve in the garden. They had the garden set up how they had a lot of gardens for food they would use for the cooking. And there's Steve. And there I am to show that we were there. And then they had a whole bunch of carriages. Here's a carriage from that time.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: They had carriages and funerals. It was incredible, all the stuff that they had in that. As a matter of fact, they were having a hard time finding people to maintain it.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: You know, I just, what I can see is that the communities are using their history to generate some kind of industry, tourist industry, and that's something Medford should really, I'm hoping Medford do more in the future. They have a ton of history here, and you could have, it would bring more income into the town if they utilized the history and having tours and such, taking advantage of what's here. Anyway, now we're moving to the swamp ride that we took, through the Cajun. The Cajun Swamp Experience. And it's really beautiful as you're going through here. You're on this little boat and it's going. It's sort of reminded me of Disneyland's Jungle Ride, only this is for real.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And then you see a lot of animals along the way on the shore.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they do feed them so they'll show up. This is the raccoons.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: They absolutely do. And this is why you keep your hands inside the small boat, you see, because these gators are swimming all around. And the guide would then throw marshmallows into the water, which the gators seem to like. I guess they have a sweet tooth, huh, Steve? Yes. Oh, this is an interesting thing. This is a witch's grave, but she, this is for the, a voodoo queen whose name was julia brown and as the story goes you see there's bells around there because if she's on the move they want to know because she said that after she would die there was that the whole town would disappear and what happened is two days after she died there was a um incredible storm and it destroyed the entire town. So I guess she wasn't kidding about that. So that was in 1915. So this is where she's buried. Julia Brown, there's a lot of stories about her you hear. So you just tip your hat respectfully as you go by. So the whole town got swallowed by a storm. Can you imagine that? Actually, it was like three towns. And here's Steve. So they're passing him a little boat.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: And Steve said he would hold it. I took his picture and I said I didn't really need to hold it at that point. I didn't volunteer. I'll just take the picture.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Well, it had his mouth taped so he wasn't going to bite you.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, so they pass him around. This is what we have to call Steve Gatorman now. Everybody, Gatorman, right? Oh yeah. And I enjoy some of the signs I saw around here. Wild gators. Do not go near alligators. Do not tease or turn back to alligators. Why do you have to put a sign? You think people would have enough sense? That reminds me, when I was driving across the desert in Nevada, I saw a sign that said, if you see a rattlesnake, don't pick it up. Why do we need a sign saying that, Steve?

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: This is, we were on the boat and they were all around the boat and this alligator decided he'd come up on the shore to see what he could see. And he was right beside the boat, so I took a picture of him.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: I think he wanted to get inside and ride. He wanted to meet you.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: I think he was looking for any food he could find. Alligators are scary.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: They'll sit there motionless. But if you're within 25 feet of them, they can get faster than that.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: They can also jump up too, can't they? Yes. Didn't he say they could jump up?

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they're very limited. What they can do within a certain distance if you're close to them is tough. That's why dogs and stuff don't have a chance around them. They generally don't understand it, and the gators will get them.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: You shouldn't walk your pet along here in the swamp. No. No. It's not a good idea. No. OK. Oh, finally, after all that, we made our way to New Orleans. And this is a really, you see this church. It's the main church that's in New Orleans. Nice picture, Steve, with this guy on the horse. Oh, yeah. And the architecture there is great with all these iron gates you see around here. Yeah, and people would sit, and there's a close-up of it. I was trying to figure out how we could put something like that on our house somewhere, Steve. Wouldn't that look nice? What do you think, Ruth? Don't you think we need an Elaine? Don't you think I need the crew out there in the control room? Don't you think I need that? Yeah, raise your hand if you think I need that in my house. Yeah, they all agree, Steve. They all agree.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: We were lucky because when we were there, it was like 68 degrees and 70 degrees. It wasn't brutally hot.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, well, we were smart enough not to go during the summertime. We went in April. We were there in April. If you're going to go there, go like in April. Yeah, because it's cooler, because it can be very humid there, like it is now here in Medford.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, beautiful park. And the food down there is really wonderful. That's a car that we... Oh, there's a car. Yeah, Steve's dressed up because we went to this fancy restaurant in New Orleans. Yeah. That looks like that should be your car. Oh yeah, this is the hotel we stayed at. Beautiful. It was a pretty old hotel, wasn't it?

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: You know how I like to stay at elegant places. Yeah, oh yeah. And here's the lobby. Take a look at this. Beautiful, just beautiful. And we were pretty high up overlooking New Orleans. And I became really enraptured by this clock, which the fellow in the lobby told me it was 100 years old, and it was mahogany. And it had been carved in Italy, I think he said. And I told him how I had three wind-up clocks at home. So then he opened it up, and he produced, he showed me this big key. He said that he winds it every day. you know, well maybe every six days or something, but it's a gorgeous clock, they said kept well. Also in this hotel they have, they're famous for their carousel bar and people queue up for even in the morning to get on this, but when we went there, it was around four or something, And I have a lot of luck, people know I'm very lucky. We just walked in and two places opened up and we sat down and it was like amazing we got to sit there. So if you look up in the mirror on the top part of the carousel and you see two people, who do you think those two people are?

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: That's us, that's right. You see Steve and I sitting there. It slowly goes around and there's a band playing.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, two rotation. It was fun. So I'm glad we got to get into the carousel, you know, bar right there. Oh, that's at the fancy.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we went to a fancy restaurant there. It was outstanding.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Really lovely. Very, very nice. You had to dress up a little bit for that one, that place. You can't go in in shorts. Other places you can. It's very casual, but not that place. But I had read about that. So we didn't make it.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: And that was a picture. They have all these fixtures plus mirrors. And that was

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Beautiful chandeliers. So this is a great, I think it's fun to schlep, go to like casual places and then maybe, you know, binge a little bit and go to something fancier. That's what I like to do when I travel. So you get the best of both worlds. And here just walking around New Orleans, which has got a lot of wonderful energy into it also. And we happened to be there during the jazz festival. Whoop, oh, you missed it.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Yeah. Yeah, and when we had the jazz festival, there were a lot of musicians playing in the streets.

[zQz5lSFdx2w_SPEAKER_02]: They would basically play all day at a jazz festival and come and play at night.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: And they did, and it was just like a mini Mardi Gras. So I think we have a video, the first one, with the drummer and the dancer. Can we see that video? That's where I got all my heat. And then during the day they were also playing and we came across an amazing musician playing the clarinet and I did make a video of her. You've got to really applaud her. She was great.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: That was filmed on Bourbon Street. Wasn't that wonderful? And of course, when we were wandering down by the river again, we saw this wonderful steamboat. And they had sort of a kaleidoscope kind of playing. It's a nice way to end our little tour here is to listen to this play. It takes you back to like what you think about a couple hour tour on the Mississippi. We didn't get to go on that one but. So Steve, I want to thank you so much for coming on this show. And so we're going to go do a trip. Where are we going next? Actually, in September.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Italy, yes. It should be fun. You know, in talking to our station manager, Kevin Harrington, and his sidekick, Jim, I learned that they have both been to New Orleans. And I think we should hear from them. Bring them on, y'all. Come on down. Here they go. These are some of the fellows that are always behind the scenes, but I think they should share some of their stories. Oh yeah, here we are. They got their beads on right here. So we'll start with Kevin. Tell us what you remember about New Orleans.

[Kevin Harrington]: Sure. Steve, can I borrow your mic? I'm not proposing, by the way. I just need to kneel down for a little bit.

[Kevin Harrington]: Yeah, we both are, aren't we? Okay, so you want to hear about my New Orleans trip back in 2011?

[Kevin Harrington]: Fantastic. So I was there for a professional accreditation trip for legal video specialists, so people who recorded depositions. And when I went, it was a very important kind of a thing to go to and it's like a practical test where they set up cameras and they pretend that you had to take over a job and you have to fix things that aren't right. And being from New England, I always wore a suit, a full suit to every single deposition. So I show up in my tan suit, I've got the shirt, I've got the tie, I've got the jacket, the pants, the belt, leather shoes, long socks, all of that. and we were in New Orleans in June. So it was just me, the taxi driver, and a gallon of my sweat on the way to a suburb in Louisiana. I show up there and the door opens and it's all these legal video specialists from the South who look at me up and down and go, you must be a Yankee. sure am sure enough but from the more cultural standpoint I mean we hit all the the big the big like ticket items food wise we got beignets at cafe du monde we went we got muffalettas we got I got a catfish po' boy which is really good We went to this place that doesn't exist anymore called Amelia's, where I had the best tuna steak of my entire life. I would go back there every day of the week and eat it. It was so incredible. The food was great. The music was everywhere.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: You were right on Bourbon Street. You were right in the middle of all the action.

[Kevin Harrington]: We were truly, we were in the French Quarter half and full. We were just, we were getting all of it.

[Kevin Harrington]: It's funny, it's funny because we walked down Bourbon Street the first time we got there before we'd even had a single adult beverage and we're like, I don't think we need one. I think we just absorbed it. We walked by one club where people had, it was like, uh, what do you call it? Like black light stuff. So you could see exactly what people were or weren't wearing on the dance floor. And that was pretty crazy. And then, Oh yeah. And then it was just like, just when you got your bearings, it would be another brass band and it was very exciting. But, um, yeah. That was before kids. If we brought kids, we would not stay on Bourbon Street.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: I understand. This is kind of an adult place. It's an adult fun place.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I went a couple of years ago with my family. So that was fun. Our mother didn't join us on Bourbon Street out in the evening.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, well, for the most part, we hung out. We went on the swamp tour, similar to what you guys did. Yeah, we were talking about you and the swamp tour also. Yeah, oh my god, those gators. When you hear them hiss, it sends the mentals down your spine.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: I didn't actually hear them hiss. You heard them hiss?

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: But you give us kind of an idea of what that was like. Everybody kept their hands inside the boat?

[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm. The ones who kept their hands did, yes. But oh, it's just beautiful out there. And I'm glad that I was able to see it and try the food.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: uh what's it called a roux a roux oh yeah it's like a roux yes because you got this influence of you got the french you got the afro-american slave thing and going and then you have um spanish and that's what makes it so good so you learn to make a roux

[SPEAKER_00]: And using the Holy Trinity, they call it. What's it? Celery, carrots, and I think peppers, if I'm mistaken. Oh, but that was great.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Oh, that's fun. I really love the food. And just the whole place has just such a great upbeat, positive attitude. If you're depressed, go to New Orleans and you won't be depressed anymore, will you?

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: If you don't have to take a pill, you just go to New Orleans and join in on, and you'll be so, it just, it lifts your spirits just to be there, I think. Wouldn't you say, Steve? Yeah.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: Maybe we should all go sometime, okay? Can you put that in the budget, like a trip, the whole MCM, go to New Orleans? Kevin, what do you think?

[Kevin Harrington]: It depends where the Alliance for Community Media decides to have their next national meetings. I can try to put in a good word.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: I want to go too, you know that. You need me, right? You're a big star, right?

[Kevin Harrington]: I do. Well, we'll submit a couple episodes for the Hometown Media Awards.

[Kevin Harrington]: If you win an award, you would go out to the national conference.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: We're going to win. I feel it. We're going to win. Aren't we the best, Jim?

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: And I'm not biased either. We're the best, right? We're number one. We're number one. We should win. I'll fix your microphone before we leave. OK, guys. Thanks so much. All righty. Well. Okay. Now really it's time to say goodbye. This has been a lot of fun, Steve.

[SxgiOOMwDHY_SPEAKER_23]: And this is Laura Duggan saying, I hope to see you again on Looking Back at Medford History.

[Unidentified]: The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifted snow. Over the river and through the wood, oh, how the wind does blow. It stings the toes and bites the nose and over the ground.