Boys, Here’s Poydras Street

A quick pass at the foul line from Cleveland’s Mike Mitchell over to a racing Foots Walker. Walker drives down the lane and floats up, lightly tosses the ball against the glass into the net and the Cavs lead by 6. The inbound pass from Truck Robinson to Pete Maravich; the Jazz are hustling down the court to try and make up the difference. Maravich to Rich Kelly at the baseline. Nowhere to go. Kelley back to Maravich. Maravich looks left and then right with Walker on him tight. Maravich pounding the ball, backs up. Kelley comes forward, sets a pick on the Cavalier defender, giving Maravich space to move. Switching the ball from his left hand to his right, now through his legs, Maravich dribbles, drives to the far baseline, sets up, launches a shot from 20 feet. As it heads for the basket, the announcer begins his drawn out call, yelling, Pissssstooollllllll Pete!!!, and as the ball goes through the rim, there is nothing but the sound of ball hitting net. Swoooshhhh.

A day earlier, Lonnie Ray Easley had just walked into his house on St. Michael Street in Patterson, La., where his Dad was waiting with a half dozen tickets to Saturday night’s NBA game between the New Orleans Jazz and the Cleveland Cavaliers at the Superdome in New Orleans. Excited, he went to the rotary phone on the wall in the kitchen and dialed 5-2521. Technically he was dialing 395-2521 but back then, if you were dialing the same prefix, you could skip the 3 and the 9 and start dialing with 5. A feature that was also great for trying to dial in to win a prize at KMRC Radio in Morgan City, La.

It was cool out and I was inside watching TV when the phone rang. After two rings, I answered a nearly identical phone as Lonnie’s, which also hung on the wall in the kitchen but in my home at 506 Rosemary St. You always waited until the second ring just in case it was a girl calling and you didn’t want it to look like you were just hanging out by the phone with nothing to do and were desperately waiting for a phone call. Of course there weren’t any girls calling any of us boys but we could dream couldn’t we?

“Hello,” I said.
“Steve, it’s Lonnie.”

Remember when you always had to say hello when you picked up the phone to make the first introduction to the caller? Why? Simply put, you did not know who was calling until you answered the phone. In the 1970’s answering the phone was like opening a box of Crackerjacks. You did not know what prize you had until you opened the box and you did not know who was calling until you answered the phone.

“Guess what? An oilfield salesman stopped by the house and gave my dad 6 ticket to the Jazz game tomorrow night in the Superdome. You wanna go?”
“Of course I do,” I replied. “Who’s going to take us, your mom or dad?”

Lonnie hesitated before he told me his parents couldn’t take us and wanted me to see if my Dad would drive us. Before Lonnie hung up, he said he would call our friend Ray Cowart and see if he wanted to go and if there was a chance his brother in law, Raleigh, would take us just in case my Dad couldn’t. I called the church where my dad was and after explaining about the tickets, my dad said I could go but he had something that night and couldn’t go.
(A quick side note about going anywhere with Lonnie Ray’s Dad back then. Mr. Ray was always great about securing tickets to sporting events. Because of him and others in our church, I was able to go to my share of Saints games, Jazz games, LSU football games, and the occasional Sugar Bowl when I was a kid. However, once you got in the car with Mr. Ray driving, you knew you were not going to stop unless it was an emergency or he had to get fuel. Lonnie’s Dad had taken Ray, Lonnie and I to an LSU game one Saturday night in Baton Rouge. Before leaving the stadium, Mr. Ray told us to make sure to go to the bathroom one last time. We were too busy laughing, talking about the game and holding on to our unfinished Cokes to heed Mr. Ray’s warning.

Probably about Pierre Part or somewhere along a lonely stretch of Hwy 70, the need to go to the bathroom hit us and we begged Mr. Ray to pull over but he kept driving and reminded us about his warning outside Tiger Stadium. We learned the hard way it’s not an easy task to pee in a Coke bottle riding along in the backseat of a Buick on a curvy road that threads two bayous. It’s even worse when you have to hold that bottle another hour until you arrive home.)

I dialed Lonnie’s number and waited for the phone to ring. The line was busy. I waited a long time before I dialed Lonnie’s number again. Well okay, it was probably 10 seconds before I tried again but it didn’t matter, a busy signal still echoed in my ear.
While waiting, I was thinking about who could drive us the two hours to New Orleans to the game if all of our parents were busy. I came up empty.

I tried to get ahold of Lonnie Ray again. I dialed and this time the phone started ringing. One ring, two rings, “hello,” Lonnie answered.

He told me Ray was in but no help on getting us a ride. I gave him the same answer about my dad. Who else?, we asked each other. We had 6 tickets and so far 3 were taken but we didn’t have a way to get to the game but still had a couple more possible invites. Finally, Lonnie Ray said the only person who might be able to drive us was an older cousin, James Easley. There was a slight chance he would agree to drive us to the game and honestly was about our last chance to go to the game. Lonnie was going to call James and I was going to invite the others.

Our plans finally came together. Lonnie, Steve, Ray, and Tommy Vining were in and James agreed to drive us to New Orleans in his blue and white Chevy Blazer. We planned our departure for the next day and all agreed to meet at Lonnie’s house on Saturday where James would pick us up.

Have you ever ridden in a Chevy Blazer built around 1976, 1977 or so? Basically you are riding in a big square piece of steel, similar to a tank but with better wheels, a radio and without a gun sticking out of the front. On a rough road like Highway 90, sitting up high in this car-truck-tank, we bounced along and made our way to New Orleans. 

Back in 1978 when the Superdome was recently finished, dome stadiums were the newest architectural display of size, concrete, steel, and ingenuity. I had been to the Houston Astrodome a couple of years earlier to see the Houston Oilers play, but had only been to the Superdome a couple of times up to this point. It was an incredible venue with seats and carpets that were bright and colorful, full of deep purples, greens, reds and other colors. Best of all, they had nachos and these huge ice cold Coca-Cola’s in a waxed cup. If we were lucky, we could get a drink in a large plastic souvenir cup.

The 5 of us sat in Loge section 340, row 11, all of us eating popcorn or nachos, drinking Cokes and feeling like we were “all that and a bag of chips.” Pistol Pete was making shots from all over the court. The huge crowd buzzed in the enormous dome. All was good and right in the world at that moment. Later, with our food eaten and too much Coke working on our bladders, it was time to go to the bathroom. Of course all 4 of us boys had to go together. We left James to watch the game and keep an eye on our jackets.

I have no idea what the dome is like now but back then, in the men’s bathroom there were huge round sinks where 6 or 7 men could stand around in a circle and wash their hands at the same time. To release the water from the faucet, you stepped on a pipe that circled the bottom of the sink on the floor. Without touching anything, water streamed from the faucets and for a couple of boys from the small town of Patterson, washing your hands in the Superdome was an out of the ordinary experience.

I’m sure our Superdome bathroom conversation went something like this:
“Look Ray, no hands, I said.”
“No Lonnie, that’s where you wash your hands, not pee, Ray said.”
“Steve, your hands are clean, “let’s go,” Lonnie added.
Being the worldly one, Tommy probably thought to himself, These guys are dorks.

Leaving the bathroom, we immediately went back to our seats to watch the rest of the game. Right? Of course anyone who knew the four of us, knew that would not and did not happen. We had to explore. We had to discover. We had to learn the layout of this giant, new place. We had to, well, get in trouble.

We decided to go up those large carpeted ramps and see what the upper portions of the dome looked like. Up we went to each level, walking around the concourses, checking out the view from each level, walking, talking, looking. Before long, we found our way to the level where the press boxes for the Saints games were located. We didn’t see anyone using this area for the basketball game, the door was open so we figured it was okay for the four of us, all mature 13 and 14-year-old boys to investigate.

Using the adjectives of that day, more than one ‘cool’ or ‘neat’ was probably echoed in this corridor of microphones, cushy chairs, typewriters, and opened windows to the court below. However, I don’t recall anyone saying ‘we better get out of here before we get busted.’ Instead of going back the way we came in, we discovered another hall which led to other private areas and rooms behind the press box which then led to a private elevator going to who knows where. Knowing this elevator said private and since we were not sure where it would take us, we decided to then go back the way we had come in and once again find our seats.

With an opportunity to make amends for previous bad decisions, we stayed perfect in the making bad choices category and remained in the elevator, stopping at different floors, getting out, looking around, then hopping back on and riding to a new, uncharted destination. We had just explored another area and were about to get back in the small elevator car when Tommy felt a hand on his shoulder. A security officer appeared out of nowhere and told us not to move. He spoke into the radio microphone attached near his shoulder and said, “I got them.”The officer told us to get in the elevator with him and he took us down to street level of the Superdome. He led us pass concession stands, pass the metal barricades near the locker rooms, pass fans who were coming and going, and finally to the door leading outside of the stadium. Standing by the exit were two more security guards, apparently aware of who we were and knew what fate awaited us. One of them opened the door and told us to step outside. We did as we were told.
Outside, the sounds, the sights, the reality of where we were and what was happening hit us like the straw broom wrapped in medical tape that our head football coach Jack Andre used to use on the tails of football players who stepped out of line back in high school. Pow! We were about to be kicked out of the Superdome on a Saturday night in New Orleans, no way to get in touch with James who was our chaperone and most importantly, our two hour ride back home.

Behind us, a deep voice said four of the scariest words I had ever heard. …“Boy’s, here’s Poydras Street.”
Almost at once, the high-pitched voices of 4 boys were begging for another chance. “Wait.” “Please.” “We don’t live here and we don’t have a way home! We’re sorry!”

We explained our situation and thankfully, the security guard said we could stay but he was going to escort us back to Section 340, Row 11 and for me, Seat 9 and that would be where we were to remain until the end of the game. In unison we all said, “Yes sir.”
We told the guard where we were sitting, then followed him down the stairs that led to our row. We silently found our seats and sat down next to James. The guard asked James if the four of us were in his care and he said yes. The security guard told James we were not to leave our seats until the end of the game and then walked back up the stairs to the upper concourse. James looked at us and could tell we probably had done something we weren’t supposed to but rather than asking us about it or scolding us at that moment, he didn’t say a word. Thank you James.

The rest of the game we were subdued, scared and worried. We hoped James wasn’t going to say anything to our parents and most importantly, I think we were scared our names and pictures were going to end up on the ‘Superdome’s Top Secret Permanent Record List’ where naughty boys and girls found themselves when they did something stupid before they reached 18 and then we would be banned from attending any future events in the Dome.

I guess our less than enthusiastic response the rest of the game had an effect on Pete Maravich and the rest of the team because when the final buzzer sounded, the score was Cavaliers 105, Jazz 94.

We gathered up our jackets, our souvenir cups, and our bottom lips that we kept stepping on as we walked out the Superdome, through the parking lot to make our way back to James’ vehicle. As we found the row and came up on the parking spot, there sat, under the glowing rays of a fluorescent light hung high above on a steel pole was a gleaming chariot of steel, polished blue and white paint and comfortable fake leather seats. Did I mention this beautiful beast had AM and FM Stereo?

I was never so excited to see a blue and white Chevy Blazer in my entire life.

From Back to the Bayou, by Steve Achord