Nawlins Trip..

Bicycle Boy with a mind of his own... 

I'm back from yet another very addicting trip to New Orleans. I say addicting because usually when it's time to head back home, I dont want to go. This time was no exception. Of course what added to the fun besides all the walking I did in and around the French Quarter was spending time with great friends, KR from LA and JLD, the author extraordinaire... Whew.. it was a blast of a time! Oh and I cant forget what turned this whole experience up a notch was the fact that the Essence Festival was in town, which meant for your viewing pleasure as a man you'd see about a ratio of 100 women to every one man! *smile* My goodness!

But anyway, Saturday (July 2nd) was especially interesting to me. I went to the convention center with some incredible author friends. *wink* I browsed around. Checked out a lot of artwork that I wanted to take home with me but couldn't. I was recognized a couple times because hey, I'm an author too! *smile* That was pretty cool and very surprising.. I felt blessed... I ran into a great lady who also recognized me by the name of Charaine. That was really cool and definitely one of the highlights of this trip. I digressed for a moment there to mention those blessings but the "interesting" part of this convention experience was watching the seminar on wealth building and hearing the stories by these very successful people about how they made it, how you can make it, how everyone can make, etc etc.. One in particular was a young brotha who started off by painting rocks and various other things to sell on the street as paperweights. He saved his money and most importantly developed a way of thinking that led to him becoming a very successful person at such a young age... Everyone on that stage kept repeating the whole idea of wealth building as oppose to just trying to be rich. It was very inspirational and thought-provoking...

Funny thing, after I said my goodbyes to my author friends and made my way reluctantly out of the convention center, that inspiration from the seminar followed me... I felt really good... My plan was to take this good feeling, jump in my car and hit the road because I needed to get back to Dallas, Texas where I would catch my flight to come back home to Cali. That's when my friend KR called me to see if we could hangout and take pictures in the french quarter. I couldn't miss out on that so I put off leaving for a couple hours.. As always we had a great time and then the funny part happened. I had taken a picture of this young boy who I'd seen spinning the wheel of his bicycle earlier while walking with KR. Then I saw him again as KH was getting some world famous New Orleans style kettle corn... This time the young boy was sitting on his bicycle as a white couple was trying to be cute with him. The man asked the young boy if he wanted to sell his bike. The boy asked how much and the man said "I'll give you ten dollars for it but I cant pay you until the end of the week." The boy shook his head and said, no.

The man said, "how about if I give you five now and then when I get paid I'll give you the rest?"

The boy still shook his head no. Then the man tried to be cute but he came off as silly, corny and stupid. The man told the boy with his hand extended out "I'll give you this kind of five and then owe you the ten for the bike."

The man had his hand out and waited for the boy to slap his hand in that old familiar gesture of giving a person five but that wasn't happening. The boy looked at the man with a smirk on his face, kind of like the one I had on mine. Then the boy said "ten dollars now," waited about five seconds and then rode off. I laughed to myself and thought, maybe that young boy already knows a little something about wealth building. Either that or he's on his way to being a hustler. I watched him ride off and I smiled hoping that he goes in a postive direction and does something great with his life..

New Orleans was fun as was my entire trip that begun with having lunch with my dear sister Carla Barclay in Dallas before I hit the road and headed for my first stop, Natchitoches, Louisiana. I had a time getting a room there because of the holiday and maybe some laziness on the part of the front desk folks but eventually I got a very nice room at the Comfort Inn and I was very pleased with the service there...

I've got about a thousand words to add to this blog based on my whole experience the last four days but for now I'm gonna share some pictures and let those do the talking.. These pictures were taken everywhere I traveled this weekend, which included Texas towns like Terrell, Marshall, Jefferson, Pittsburg, Daingerfield, Mt. Pleasant and Louisiana towns like Shreveport, Natchitoches, Opelousas, Lafayette, Alexandria, Baton Rouge, Clouiterville, and New Orleans... It's amazing all the things you'll see and experience if you simply observe and take in life... I had a great time.