Dessert consisted mostly of Cherry Jubilee. Large, fat cherries are put in a metal bowl and covered with brandy. The lights are turned off over your table. The brandy is lighted with a match. The waiter stirs the cherries, flames and all, until thoroughly hot and the alcohol in the brandy is exhausted. Then he takes them to the kitchen, pours them over ice cream and something and brings back the portions, hot and cold. A Presbyterian deacon could eat Cherry Jubilee without a twinge of conscience.
All this took from 8 to 12 p.m., followed by a ride around the old French section, listening to the music of jazz bands as we passed the dance halls, winding up the evening's entertainment about 1 a.m. at the Morning Call—another New Orleans institution in a class of its own. Here rich and poor, young and old, meet on a common level and eat delicious doughnuts and drink cups of combined hot milk and hot coffee poured together simultaneously.
Nov. 24th, we sailed on the Del Mar. The ship's management distributed brightly assorted paper tape to the passengers gathered at the rails of the different decks and the farewells and bon voyages began. A Negro jazz band assembled on the wharf. One dancer was as nimble at catching coins tossed from the decks in an old plug hat as he was on his feet. The ship sailed at 4:20 p.m.
SHIPBOARD AND ST. THOMAS
To The Graphic,
Greencastle, Indiana
So we approached Charlotte Amalie, the only sizable town in the Virgin Islands, all white and gleaming in the sun and closely following the narrow shore lines. The high hills start almost abruptly from the shore. St. Thomas Island has a population of perhaps 12,000. Of these, Charlotte Amalie has well over half.
Taxis—good enough taxis—took those of us who wanted to go into town. . . When we met another taxi head-on at the top of a hill, he was on his left side, and so were we on ours. Woe is me, I thought. Here is where one of Russellville Bank's oldest directors gets directed to the nearest hospital, if any. . . During the time I rode taxis there in Charlotte Amalie I never got used to left-hand driving. What makes 'em do it? Even Aura May flinched. And I—I pushed the driver's seat forward some three inches or so.
HOTEL 1829
One Walter J. Maguire owns and manages Hotel 1829. He and his wife "Pete" are natives of New Jersey, living in C.A. for some 10 to 12 years, since acquiring Hotel 1829. Yes, you have guessed it. The hotel was built in 1829, and it shows it. Stucco, brick and some frame. All doors and windows remain wide open. At least until a hurricane comes. The original tile floors remain, showing considerable wear. It has a mammoth combination kitchen, bar and dining room, with built-in ovens and walls hung with quart to five gallon shining copper cooking utensils. All cooking is done with charcoal and gasoline stoves. The second floor sills are closely spaced and exposed from the first floor. I don't know the dimensions of these sills, but if one loosened and fell on one, one would never know.
The hotel has a honey of a patio, like you see in travel bureau literature. All first floor doors are double and fasten from the inside with glorified gatehooks that look like the twisted lightning rods on Mrs. Bridge's brick house west of Greencastle, only bigger and heavier. The one hanging on the inside of one of the front main double doors was about three feet long and the "staple" it hooked into was three-quarter inch solid iron. Hurricane insurance, probably.