Louisiana: Morgan City: Rig Museum, Part 2: Cookies and a Joke

View from Mr. Charlie, Rig Museum, Morgan City, Louisiana. March 2014.

I'm a hit-or-miss museum liker.

View from Mr. Charlie, Rig Museum, Morgan City, Louisiana. March 2014.

Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, home of Rembrandts and Vermeers, uh huh, it was nice.

Mr. Charlie, Rig Museum, Morgan City, Louisiana. March 2014.

Now, the Museum of the Fur Trade in Chadron, Nebraska - hoo wee, it's fine!

Mr. Charlie, Rig Museum, Morgan City, Louisiana. March 2014.

This is Part 2 of Louisiana: Morgan City: Rig Museum. Part 1 is here.

The Rig Museum in Morgan City is a good "museum" and tour. Know that the rig called "Mr. Charlie" is not (to my knowledge) accessible to folks in a wheelchair or people with other mobility issues. It'd probably be outside of the "readily achievable" standard required to make it accessible unless the owners were to do some remodeling for other reasons. Also, it's not child-proof; it's a working training facility. Littl'uns could get into all kinds of trouble here. It's the nature of the place.

Mr. Charlie, Rig Museum, Morgan City, Louisiana. March 2014.

 The tour guide was congenial and endlessly patient in answering questions.

We walked through living quarters, the lounge, and the kitchen. The rig's chef had just made cookies! We tourists could have at them, fresh from the oven.

Mr. Charlie, Rig Museum, Morgan City, Louisiana. March 2014.

 We poked our heads into the sleeping quarters.

Mr. Charlie, Rig Museum, Morgan City, Louisiana. March 2014.

Mr. Charlie, Rig Museum, Morgan City, Louisiana. March 2014.

 While in the lounge, the tour guide told this joke:

• Guys working on an oil rig spend weeks at a time together. 
• A new guy joined an oil rig crew; it was his first gig. 
• Every night, all the guys would hang out in the lounge and talk and laugh. 
• The new guy noticed that one man would call out a number, like  - "349!" - and all the others would laugh like crazy. They'd spend hours doing this. One man would yell out a number and all the others would roar with laughter. 
• Finally, the new guy asked: "What's happening here? What's so funny about a number?" 
• An old-timer explained: "Son, we've worked together for so long, we know all the jokes that are possible to tell. Finally, we started numbering them to save time." 
• The new guy nodded, understanding, and asked, "Say, can I try one?" 
• The old-timer said, "Sure!" 
• The new guy said: "274!" 
• Silence. 
• The new guy asked: "What happened? Why didn't anyone laugh?" 
• The old-timer replied: "Some people just don't know how to tell a joke." 

Mr. Charlie, Rig Museum, Morgan City, Louisiana. March 2014.

Mr. Charlie, Rig Museum, Morgan City, Louisiana. March 2014.

Various articles on life aboard a rig: 

From 2000: Life on Board a Gulf of Mexico Oil Drilling Platform
From 2014: Up Close and Personal With a 40-Story Oil Rig in the Gulf
From 2016: Life On an Oil Rig


A 2017 update:

Here's a good video by Maybe Tomorrow, an RV couple who took the Mr. Charlie tour, including a sweet surprise ending:

I also like their road views at the beginning of the movie.


Other stories related to Morgan City are here. 

Louisiana: Morgan City: Rig Museum, Part 1: Yellow Wheel Study

Confession: Many (most?) archeological ruins don't excite me all that much. They should, but they don't.

Modern-era rust, decay, deterioration. That attracts me.

In March 2014, family members came calling, and we went to the International Rig Museum in Morgan City, a grand name for an old pug called Mister Charlie, an oil rig used for training new hands and to give public tours.

More on the tour later. Preview: There were freshly-baked cookies and a very funny joke.

In the meantime, these yellow wheel things.

Mister Charlie, Rig Museum. Morgan City, Louisiana. March 2014.

Mister Charlie, Rig Museum. Morgan City, Louisiana. March 2014.

Mister Charlie, Rig Museum. Morgan City, Louisiana. March 2014.

Mister Charlie, Rig Museum. Morgan City, Louisiana. March 2014.

Morgan City, Louisiana: Swamp Bells

Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

The privately-owned Brownell Memorial Park is packaged in a small box, but inside are multiple micro-adventures.

Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

First, there were the devil's horses.
Then there were the spooky bleating swamp lambs.


And then  ....

Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

... and then as I walked on the path between the bodies of water, the cypress knees, the strong trees draped with moss, the sounds of the birds and the 'lambs,' I heard:

Claire Brownell founded this park as a testament of her love for the area and a desire to share its beauty with visitors. She had the carillon bells cast in Holland and brought here.

Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

Ms. Brownell's gift, which she shared with so many, reminds me of the couple in Rustavi who had fled their homeland in Abkhazia.  In the midst of stark cement towers in New Rustavi, they created a tiny paradise and built a tiny church, both open to any who entered.

Abkhazian-Georgian woman on far right created miniature garden with her husband, Rustavi, Georgia (Caucasus)

It reminds me of something a friend told me years ago - that the flowers that Ladybird Johnson had planted on the Texas highway meridians brought joy to thousands of drivers when they were in bloom, and how can you measure the pleasure we receive by looking upon natural beauty? -  does not an endeavor like hers, like Claire Brownell's, like the Abkhazian couple's - have just as much merit as other good works?   

Ladybird Johnson amid bluebonnets. From 100 Ingredients.

 

Morgan City, Louisiana: The Brownell Memorial Witch Project

Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

I knew when I turned into the Brownell Memorial Park that I'd see a tall white tower, but I experienced much more.

Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

First came the devil's horses. Having survived the assault of the devil's pains-in-the-ass only a couple of weeks before, all I could do was laugh at the quantity of all these creepy, yet oddly-attractive, over-large insects.

Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

While I laughed, I continued walking, picking my way carefully through the black grasshoppers.

Note: I never mentioned the crunch-crunch I experienced at Sabine, did I, as I walked over all the little dried crab claws, the orts of birds' daily feasts?















So I was laughing while avoiding the black grasshoppers, alone on the path, lined on both sides by cypress knees and water and tall trees with Spanish moss. I heard birds. It was almost idyllic.

Then came the bleating of the lambs. One bleated, then several answered. Another bleated, and several answered.

It was all very Blair Witch Project-y, with me playing the role of an unnerved and expendable Star Trek extra, about to be taken out by a creature from the depths. Because lambs - why and where are they? Sacrifices tied to a stake, awaiting dusk and the approaching monster?

In New Mexico, all I had to be paranoid about were bears and mountain lions. In Louisiana, who knows what lurks in the swamps. 

The next day, I learned what made the eerie sounds:

Louisiana, you're such a jokester.

Morgan City, Louisiana: The Devil's Horse

Source: What's that bug?

The devil's horse ... or lubbers .... or handsome black grasshoppers. Yeah, I know that sounds kind of weird for a grasshopper to be handsome, but once I got past the heebeejeebees, I was able to see it.

Devil's horses, Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

I met them .... LOTS OF THEM ... on a visit to Brownell Memorial Park outside Morgan City.

Whereas New Mexico regularly surprised me with hidden, jaw-dropping panoramas, Louisiana regularly surprises me with sudden assaults by bizarre, 1950's-esque-creature-flick creepy-crawlies.

These lubbers are big. Fortunately, they're pretty polite. They're slow and don't fly at you. While they don't necessarily move out of your way, they don't move in your way, either.

But holy gee, there were a lot of them at the park. It was so crazy, all I could do was laugh. I mean, really, Louisiana, seriously? I don't want to know what you're going to send my way next.

Devil's horses, Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

I'm guessing rutting season for devil's horses.

Wikipedia illustrates a difference between the artistic sensibilities of South Louisiana and Mississippi (of which northern Louisiana is considered a bedroom community). In South Louisiana, these insects go by the name devil's horse, the devil, or graveyard grasshoppers. In sober Mississippi, they are "giant locusts."

I saw a snake, too. The docent told me that some years back, after it rained and rained and rained, snake refugees covered the place. There were so many snakes at the park that it closed for awhile.

Snake, Brownell Memorial Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

Let me tell you, the trail at Brownell Memorial Park is very short. But I can't think of a time when I experienced so many visual and auditory surprises in such a small distance - until I drove down the very short Grand Bayou Street in Bayou Corne only an hour later. 

More to come.
 

  

Morgan City, Louisiana, Part 2: Boats

A recent first-look at Morgan City - boats!

Boat, Morgan City, Louisiana

Boat, Morgan City, Louisiana

Apparently, the above boat is a shrimper. Presuming the lil' red rascal on the blue flag is a shrimp.

Morgan City, Part 1: Lake End Beauty

Lake End Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

Morgan City has a bit of a reputation problem from its days as a port with a lot of transient workers in pursuit of the usual sins on their time off. A character in the movie, Passion Fish, called it "the lowest pit of hell."

It really isn't so bad as all that. I spent a few hours there recently and I'll return for a closer look.

There is beauty, such as at Lake End Lake Park.

A lake study from the park. 

Lake Palourde, Lake End Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

Lake Palourde, Lake End Park, Morgan City, Louisiana

Lake Palourde, Lake End Park, Morgan City, Louisiana