The first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in April, 1970, was born out of a spontaneous, momentous meeting where multiple jazz and music festivals happening the same weekend came upon each other setting up their separate festivals and started singing and playing their instruments together. And when others joined in the celebration, the “Spirit of Jazz Fest” was born. It was this meeting of jazz and heritage that has stood for decades as a symbol of significance and a celebration of Louisiana’s culture.
Don't Rain on My Parade!
I was very excited to be a part of cultures coming together in art, food, music and friends, until I woke up and heard the weather report calling 
for thunderstorms and heavy rain in the afternoon. My friends and I did not let it stop us – we packed backpack survival kits including:
- Wet Wipes
- Tums
- Purell
- Parkas
- Fold-up camp chairs
- Tissues
- Sunscreen (even though we didn’t think we would need it, we were hoping for the best)
- Small umbrella
- Wallet
- Jazz fest schedule – who was going to be where at what time on what stage
Making Lemonade out of Lemons . . .
When we arrived at the festival, people were pouring in – I was sure they had heard the weather reports too, but it was not stopping them, and a little rain was not going to stop my crew from eating and drinking our way through this good time – so off we went! All of the great food you could expect – Jambalaya – Crawfish – Sweet Potato Fries – Hurricanes – Cold Beer – and plenty of good music and cool artisan booths for shopping. We were there roughly two hours before Mother Nature decided to “Rain on our Parade,” and I mean that literally!
No parka could have sheltered us from the torrential down pouring of rain! We ran to our mini-rock star bus where it was dry and the coolers were still chilling our beverages to wait out the storm – we waited and waited – until it was time to move on and head our mini-rock star bus to Bourbon Street for some the Karaoke at the Cat’s Meow! Soaked and wet, 15 of us descended on the Cat’s Meow and to our surprise, we were welcomed with open arms and got their “party started.” We sang (I sang Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer – always a crowd favorite) and we danced and all had a BLAST! I ramble on in this blog longer than most because everyone has a story like this to share – making lemonade out of lemons! Tell me your lemonade story!
