What nationality are you?

[Olham 164]

He wouldn't say, but somewhere along the "Blues highway" - I would guess Arizona, Colorado or Nevada, from the

flint arrow peaks.

[Bullethead 12]

He wouldn't say, but somewhere along the "Blues highway" - I would guess Arizona, Colorado or Nevada, from the flint arrow peaks.

 

The southern end of US Highway 61 is the "Blues Highway", so called because of all the great blues musicians who have come from along there. The road essentially follows the Mississippi River from New Orleans to the Canadian border, but the "Blues Highway" part is pretty much from Memphis on south.

 

I live in the kink in the border of Louisiana, what I call Lousy Anna's armpit, sandwiched between the River to the west and south, and the Mississippi state line to the north.

[Olham 164]

Ah - Lousy Anna - now I got it! Sometimes my brain seems to be out for a walk. Lol!

[Bullethead 12]

Ah - Lousy Anna

 

Ah yes, Lousy Anna indeed, without whom Flanders would be unbearable. Nurse Gladys always dumps you for somebody with more brass on his collar, or a higher score, or is still able to walk without a cane. Lousy Anna, however, will always love you provided don't mind waiting in line outside her chambers, plus she'll give you something to remember her by. What are a few lice between friends, especially when you no doubt had more than she did when you arrived? .

 

Anyway, I'm a Texan living in exile, despite my family having been in Louisiana long before there was a United States. With only 1 exception, Texas has Louisiana beat in every conceivable category, which I why I call my current domicile "Lousy Anna". The 1 thing Lousy Anna excels in is coffee. In Texas, coffee is considered good only if you can float a horseshoe on it. In Lousy Anna, OTOH, coffee is only good if the floating horseshoe dissolves in less than 30 seconds.

 

In Lousy Anna, coffee means something with the strength of extra-strong espresso but made out of beans that have been roasted as black as Satan's heart, and then cut about 50/50 with nitric acid. And on top of this, New Orleans natives then add a lot of bitter chickory. Either way, this stuff is so foul that even a dram of the decaf version will keep anybody not from the Gulf Coast awake 24 hours as if you were constantly huffing smelling salts. But Lousy Anna natives drink 32oz mugs of this stuff all day, even just before bedtime. Texans usually have to knock off about 1500. Everybody else goes into tachicardia immediately and dies.

 

For the ultimate coffee experience, visit a New Orleans-area convenience store about 1130. There you'll find the dregs of a coffee pot that has been cooking on a hotplate since about 0800. IOW, all the nastiness has been concentrated and enhanced by distillation and burning. The store employees will probably have unplugged the hotplate about 1100, so it'll be cool enough to drink immediately. They'll give it to you for free, because they are about to dump it outside prior to making a fresh batch (they don't pour it down the sink because it will ruin the pipes). Now THAT, my friends, is COFFEE! But it's an acquired taste

Edited July 14, 2009 by Bullethead

[OLD NAVY 0]

Two brothers from Germany settled in Lancaster, PA. before the American Revolutionary War. They fought in the revolution and each received a square mile of land near the Ohio border as payment for their service. One of them kept a diary. My father was born on one of the farms near Butler, PA. which is now under water (a flood control lake). My father's cousin fought in the great war in the Argonne and such but contracted the flu and died in an Army camp while being processed for discharge. This soldier's father had the old diary. My mother's family migrated from Wurtemberg, Germany early in the 19th century. I guess I have a lot of German blood in me and I am glad the Navy Air Corp concentrated on the Pacific theather. Its amazing when you stop to think about it. This forum has men and women from all over the world who are fascinated with these primitive airplanes and the men who flew them. Its also good that someone pointed out that we're all related. Flying does get in your blood - doesn't it.

[Olham 164]

Right, Old Navy - and if you want to be in the OFF Forum members USA map, PM me your hometown

and the state, and I'll put you in there.

 

Bullet - that sort of coffee you describe is probably used for making roads off here - but they call it

asphalt. When you in Louisiana drink that and then pee into the bushes - no wonder you have all that

swamp land there. The plants literally rott away from that!

[RNAS_Flyer 1]

Hi i'm from Catford Sth London UK

[Flegmatica 0]

Yay im different !

[Olham 164]

Scouserlad - you're already in there. Flegmatica - if you give me the town, I'll put you in.

[Peeppu 207]

Czech nationality, live in Brno, Czech Republic.

[scouserlad13 0]

Scouserlad - you're already in there. Flegmatica - if you give me the town, I'll put you in.

 

So i am, sorry lol, ill remove it

[Hauksbee 103]

In Lousy Anna, coffee means something with the strength of extra-strong espresso but made out of beans that have been roasted as black as Satan's heart, and then cut...

Could y' nick a pound from Supply and send it north?

[JimAttrill 24]

Coffee in the US seems to vary from place to place. My wife went on a business trip to New York, San Francisco, San Diego and Detroit. She said the coffee was so weak it was undrinkable. At home we use what the Italians call a 'mocha' to make coffee using Italian Blend beans. We make it about half the strength of espresso but drink it by the mugful, not in tiny cups.

[Hauksbee 103]

Are you all playing jokes with me here? I mean - look at a map - America is REALLY big.

And now comes Cameljockey and says, thay made Forrest Gump in his hometown;

next comes Rickitycrate, and states, they made part of "Fargo" in his favourite restaurant, Tinnucci's;

and, not enough, comes Lou to say, all his family goes regularly to Tinnucci's - and we remember, America

is really big, Germany would fit into the size of California at least twice - so I ask you:

are you trying to fool me? (Lol!)

It gets worse! Large parts of "Jaws" were filmed just down the road from me in New Bedford. Mostly dockside scenes. It was supposed to be on the island of Nantucket...just a bit further down the road, plus a hefty stone's throw out into the Atlantic.

[Olham 164]

Anyone out there, who can tell, that they filmed "Ben Hur" on the sports arena right behind his house,

where they have now built a supermarket?

BigJim - did they do "No country for old men" in your neighbourhood, perhaps? (Intensive film, by the way).

[Offwatch 0]

Wanted to check in from Vancouver, Washington, about 40 miles Southwest of Mt. St. Helens.

[Bullethead 12]

Could y' nick a pound from Supply and send it north?

 

You should be able to get it almost anywhere these days. Community Coffee is the brand, and in recent years they've tried to rival Starbucks in being everywhere. I'm sure you can order some online if you can't find it in your store. What you want is the Dark Roast or, if you're adventurous, the Dark Roast with Chickory.

 

However, the trick is how you make it. Here's the standard Lousy Anna recipe:

 

The standard unit of adding ground coffee to the pot is the HEAPING tablespoon. Most folks use measuring scoops and heap each so high that it's about 1-2/3 tablespoons per scoop. Lousiana coffee is made in a perculator or drip coffee pot, which are listed as having so many "cups" capacity. Of course 1 "cup" in the measuring system of the machine is about 1/2 of a decent coffee mug. Anyway, it goes like this:

 

Use 1 heaping tablespoon for each "cup" you're making.

For each 5 "cups" you're making, add 1 extra heaping tablespoon.

For each 10 "cups" you're making, add 1 extra heapiong tablespoon.

Always add 1 extra heaping tablespoon at the end, no matter how many "cups" you're making.

All extras are cumulative.

 

Thus, if you're making 10 "cups", you use 14 heaping tablespoons:

• 10 (1 for each "cup")
  
• 2 (for each increment of 5 "cups")
  
• 1 (for 10 "cups")
  
• 1 (for the pot at the end)
  

Drink it black. It can be served hot or over ice. True connoiseurs agree that the longer the stuff cooks, the more concentrated and thus better it is.

 

Coffee in the US seems to vary from place to place. My wife went on a business trip to New York, San Francisco, San Diego and Detroit. She said the coffee was so weak it was undrinkable.

 

This is a widely shared sentiment. Most US coffee that you buy in restaurants and such is so insipid that it can easily be mistaken for tea. This is a result of them using prepackaged servings of a little coffee wrapped up in a filter bag. The employees just use 1 such thing per pot to be cheap, but to make anything worth drinking you have to use a bunch of them.

 

Note, however, that all this said about Lousy Anna coffee is nothing compared to good Arab coffee. Anybody ever have that stuff? They grind their beans to powder and don't use filters, so that you end up with a thick layer of sludge in the bottom of your cup and so much is suspended in the liquid that every sip is gritty. It permanently stains everything it touches ;).

 

My young cousins off at the war keep me well-supplied with this stuff. Mmm mmm good! But some years ago, a Kiwi friend of mine got sent to East Timor and got me some of that famous stuff. DAMN!

 

Anyone out there, who can tell, that they filmed "Ben Hur" on the sports arena right behind his house,

where they have now built a supermarket? BigJim - did they do "No country for old men" in your neighbourhood, perhaps? (Intensive film, by the way).

 

They film a lot of movies and TV shows in my area, too, because of all the old plantation houses here. In fact, they're filming one right now, but I couldn't tell you which it is. I suppose the most well-known recent movie made around here was that pathetic "Dukes of Hazard" thing from a couple years ago. That long mini-series "North and South" from the early 80s was filmed here, though.

 

Then there's an old plantation house called "The Myrtles", which is about 7 miles down the "Blues Highway" from my house. This place has been on TV many times because it's supposed to be haunted. However, all the ghost stories told about the place are pure BS invented by the current owners to attract tourists. The house was actually built by some ancestors of mine, so it's well-documented that none of the events that supposedly led to the advertised hauntings actually happened. This has gotten my mother quite upset because some of the stories make her side of the family look bad (or at least worse than it really is ). Being one of the local historians, she actually got on one of these TV shows to give a rebuttal of the haunting stories. Thus, if some of you watched a show about this place and an old gray-haired woman came on at the end and said it was all a crock, you've met my mother .

[Olham 164]

Hahaha! Good one, Bullet! I suppose, all societies like "soft horror" stories. And as that is generaly

combined with the old days, or at least very old places, it is logical, that the older places in the USA

are more attractive there. Your mum could try to regard it as a compliment (won't work, right?)

[Bullethead 12]

I suppose, all societies like "soft horror" stories. And as that is generaly combined with the old days, or at least very old places, it is logical, that the older places in the USA are more attractive there.

 

Yeah, folks here get all gaga over ghosts and especially vampires, thanks to Anne Rice's fictions about vampires in New Orleans...

 

Personally, I think that if there are "really" hauntings, they have nothing to do with dead people, but with glimpses into parallel universes were ordinary people are leading their normal lives. That (in)famous parallel slit experiment with a single photon, for instance. But who knows?

 

All I"m certain of is that if there's really a ghost at "The Myrtles", it's that of a dog that fell in an old well there a few years ago and which I helped rescue when I was in the local fire department. But dog died of its injuries, which really wasn't its fault, so I figure that it's got as good an excuse to haunt the place as any human who died there.

 

Your mum could try to regard it as a compliment (won't work, right?)

 

I would. If it's possible to come back as a ghost, I'm going to do it just to spite her :yes:

Edited July 17, 2009 by Bullethead

[Tonyo - legion 2]

Hi Olham

 

My father was austrian - dont know what part , my mother was from london where I was born (city of Westminster - west central london) & have lived here ever since - 43 years man & boy

 

 

 

:fans: :drinks_drunk: "Maybe its because im a Londoner - That I love London Town...." :fans: :drinks_drunk: