Children Put New Light On Old French Quarter

[Page 1] US ON A BUS Children Put New Light On Old French Quarter (While Mrs. G. stays! at home with two of the children, Charles G. Griffo, news editor of The Star, is off on a 6,000-mile trip on a Greyhound bus through the South and Southwest with the four other Griffo children. Here is his second story.) By CHARLES G. GRIFFO New Orleans, La. - New Orleans boosters who call their historic city the nation's most interesting community might well feel put out to know that at least four children think their world-famous fish market in the French Quarter "Puh ... Stinks." This was the vivid reaction, fingers on noses of Martha, 14, Chuck, 9, Mary Elizabeth, 6, and Gregory, 4½- IT WAS MADE during 89- degree heat on a walking tour of the Vieux Carre, which translated means the Square" and is known through. out the world as one of the most picturesque areas on the Amer- Griffo ican continent. The tour came after the kids, accompanied by their father, arrived at New Orleans after an 800-odd mile bus trip from Indianapolis through Evansville, Memphis and Jackson, Miss. THE TRIP DOWN, looking back on the incidents now, seems somewhat uneventful except for two discoveries. The first was that Gregory, who is at that impish age, discovered that the new busses have washrooms. THERE SURELY MUST be a Geiger counter apparatus in the head of a child Greg's age that clicks a resounding note when he gets within 50 feet of such a sanitary necessity. Because, Gregory's counter really flipped on this leg of the trip. "I gotta go to the bathroom," he said, even before the bus was out of the Indianapolis city limits. "I GOTTA GO to the bathroom," he repeated as we arrived at New Orleans. Each time father would finally sit back and try to relax with a mystery novel, the distress cry would come. I would have given evenmoney each time the washroom trip was made that somehow Gregory would get locked in the closet-size a affair which is equipped with a signal button to be pressed just in case of such an incident. THE TROUBLE is that the button plainly says, "if locked in, push button" and Gregory can't read. Somewhere east of Paducah, Ky., the door stuck but he was not locked in. He didn't press the button, he just kicked, screamed and yelled, "I want out of here. Davy Crockett is a dead duck," a cry which had more effect on the driver as well as the passengers than any little old bell-ringing gimmick could have had. THAT WAS when father sternly insisted that any other such happenings would Turn to Page 14, Column 3.

[Continuation] Children Put New Concluded From Page 1 result in Gregory being paddled in Paducah. The second eventful discovery on this leg of the journey was that although all four of the kids had been told explicitly by their mother that they should not take along any toys or other useless items we found a frontier pistol in Chuck's bag. THE GUN became apparent when Chuck began shooting at Indians from the front seat of the observatory atop the Scenicruiser we boarded after a layover at Memphis. Just where he expected to find Indians near Terry, Miss., I didn't bother to ask. "BANG, BANG, bang . . went the cap pistol. Up, up, up went daddy's blood pressure. It was when ordered to immediately put the pistol into the bag that he dropped 150 baseball card pictures, two Scout knives, a holster, another cap pistol, and a 'deck of playing cards out of the luggage. Where most of his clothes were was soon learned--in Greg's bag. It was during the heat of the argument that Mary Elizabeth admitted she had brought along an Indian doll which her grandmother had brought back from Arizona for her on the day before we left. "BUT I HAD to have something to play with," she said. We let it go at that. We arrived at New Orleans in midst of a convention and the sight of four travel-happy youngsters walking in their travel-worn clothing into a hotel crowded with correctly attired visitors must have been a shock. TAKING ADVICE from a New Orleans native that a trip through the French quarter, a on the oldfashioned Canal Street, trolley cars and a trip across the river on a ferry boat would be the best sights for children in the South's famous city, we tried all three. It was while walking up Bourbon Street that Chuck, who has never been a terrific hand the reading department, intently eyed a poster and wondered out loud: "What do they mean, the naughtiest girl in town?" THE TOUR hastily was turned towards Jackson Square, beautiful St. Louis Cathedral, museum, and the old French Market, the latter where the encounter with the fishing industry occurred. We then went across the turbulent Mississippi River on the steam-powered ferry boat, a crossing which meant that father had to keep one eye on the water, and the other on Gregory who wanted to try his climbing technique on a rail. ON THE RETURN trip, the boat's veteran pilot, Harold Norcross, discovered us on board and invited the kids to the pilot house. Martha read a comic book as we chugged back and forth across the river, Norcross explaining the technique of guiding a huge boat loaded with people and automobiles from one mooring to another against treacherous cross currents. IT WAS only when daddy was certain the pilot wheel would be soon grabbed from the veteran river man's hand and for the first time in history a 4½-year-old would sink a boat, that he finally managed to get them off the vessel to continue a walking tour of the famous French Quarter. This was disrupted by at the Old Absinthe House, "Why don't they tear down these old buildings?" A ride on the Canal Street trolley quickly followed. SO TO BED and tomorrow bus-bound West of the Pecos, land of the Texas Rangers and oil millionaires. Relax, live. ..! Oh! My aching feet.