Today on the way to Charleston, SC, we stopped in my mom's hometown-- Jackson, MS. We visited family and had a nice southern meal with them. As we drove around Jackson we visited the old house my Grammie lived in and drove past some things my mom remembered from growing up there.

As I walk down the streets of New Orleans I take in the bliss that is every open door to a business or home that provides temporary relief from the extreme temperatures that southern summers bring. There is something you might not know about southern summers, they are warm and humid-- so hot, in fact, that a trip to the mail box makes a person develop a thin film of sweat over their freshly showered skin.

Walking in New Orleans people go to the extreme of walking in a single file line just to stay under the shade that the lip of the roof brings as it protrudes from the houses and stores.

There are horses in the street and powdered sugar is sprinkled around the sidewalks near Café Du Monde.

With the layer of sweat on my skin I feel jazz music pounding in my ears. Now, more often than not the word “pound” has a negative connotation, but not the kind of pound I am talking about. This is the pound of good music, the pound that you can feel in your heart. The music that resonates in your body and transports you back to another time…

… Perhaps a time when you can remember your grandparents dancing together in the kitchen to slow old jazz, you remember looking down at your small bare feet trying to tap them to the music with no success.

I believe that New Orleans is the way to spend your southern summer. There is so much to see, hear, smell, and taste-- most of all, so many people to meet. The smell of alcohol is thick in the air and there is always an iced tea or café au lait to quench one’s thirst and to sooth the body after it has been too long in the heat.