I have no particular interest in ever visiting New Orleans as there is really nothing in Louisiana of interest to me, no one who I would ever call for a meeting with as I really don't know those people very well. However, I do recall that New Orleans has a special significance for people in El Salvador. The wealthy girls of that country often fly to New Orleans for weekend shopping expeditions, I remember overhearing. Also, they have many connections there. New Orleans seems to be a power base for them even though not for me. I imagine perhaps hearing that Ralph Williams' sons might have settled there also but nobody cares about those old fogies. Ralph Williams was an early missionary to El Salvador starting back in the 1920s or 1930s. However, the Williams sons are nothing to us, just cranky old ne'er-do-wells of no reputation. They have no special magical powers and we are really not interested in comparing notes with them on missionary kid experiences. The Williams boys' experience was no doubt vastly different than ours I am sure but they would be wrong to condemn us for not living in little huts, riding to church on horseback, etc., as they may have done. It just wasn't like that for us 50 years later. Times changed.
Also in New Orleans was Lillian Pilarinos. Although "Lil Pill" was there for two years teaching at the MK school, she was never my teacher because in eighth grade Miss Pill was teaching the 1st through 4th graders and in 9th grade I was at the American School while Miss Pill was helping Dawn Saword with her 9th grade correspondence courses at the little school. I don't remember whether Josephine from the Philippines was still around then. I really don't remember much about Josephine.
Someone was trying to paint us Southerners by virtue of Miss Pill's being there but that would be sort of misleading. Miss Pill has a unique Dixieland view of the U.S. Civil War which she was explaining to us but I don't understand. I tend to think it was more complicated than just Northern industries running roughshod over Southern agricultural interests. I tend to think that the South could not continue to condone slavery. Eventually someone would intervene so better that the U.S. clean its own house than someone else.
