My Brothers! Welcome to New Orleans - USA Open Volleyball Championship

"Ah, my brothers! Welcome to New Orleans!" The greeting almost overpowered the room. I thought I heard the wine glasses behind the bar clinking together.

But, to be accurate, our new-found family member pronounced it "New Ahwlins."

"Ah, ma brahthuh! Welcome to New Ahwlins!" Just like that. We weren't expecting exactly that reaction. After all, our new family member had just looked up from his pile of crawdads to see, Joel, and me watching him eat.

You might remember in the previous post I was in Stuttgart, Arkansas when my brother, Joel, called and invited me to see him while he was in New Orleans at the USA Volleyball National Championships. Nine months after Katrina, the USA Open Volleyball Championships were the first large convention to New Orleans with upwards of 3000 – 4000 players, friends and family attending the week-long playoffs. My brother was going to be competing in the 50 plus division.

The USA Open Volleyball Championships have been around for 77 years. The first Championships were in 1928 and provided a nationwide platform for approximately 26 YMCA men's teams to compete for the championship. This years there were over 540 teams in 28 different divisions. The divisions are by sex, age, mixed groups and special Olympics. The oldest players found on the courts are older than the league itself! Some divisions have fifty teams battling for the gold.

People who play volley ball tend to be tall. Taller than average one might say. During the week of the championships you would see clusters of tall people walking through the streets of New Orleans… Volleyball players. Counter workers at the coffee shops got cricks in their neck looking up and saying "Can I help you?" to all of these tall people. Seeing a group of volleyballers sit down in their establishment is enough to make any restaurateur smile, no matter how understaffed they might be. Volleyball is a very active sport and playing two and three matches per day burns a lot of calories. A table of eight tall people is a good ticket on any day and when they are refueling for tomorrows matches it's an extra bounty.

There s a philosophy for living a successful life: Find something you love to do. Find others who love to do the same thing. Get together and do that as long as you can. The USA Open Volleyball Championships are an expression of that philosophy. The people who play volleyball and show up at the championships love the game. One of the players I spoke with said: "Only in volleyball will you hear someone say 'Oh I can't wait until I turn fifty.' ...When you are first eligible for a new division you are playing against all of these older dudes. You're, like, king." Looking forward to getting older, how often do you see that?

In the 75 plus division there are five teams batteling for the gold. The players over 75 years old may not be hitting the ball as hard or jumping as high as they did ten or fifteen years ago, but they are still out there on the court, chasing the ball and banging it over the net. Though they're not sharing courts with players fifty years their junior, they are sharing their passion for the game. The passion that draws them every year, like the swans of Capistrano, to whatever venue the nets are strung. In five years, God willing, as many of them as are able will be playing in the 80 plus division. These are people who have found something they love to do and are pursuing their passion in life with their peers.

From 8 am to 8 pm though the week of the Championships matches are being played. Any particular team will have two or three matches in a day. When they are done playing for the day, New Orleans waits to be explored...

Joel's matches were all over for the day and we were exploring the warehouse district of New Orleans. We found a bar in the warehouse district of New Orleans called "Lucy's Retired Surfers Restaurant and Bar." On Sundays they have a crawfish feed where for $10 you get a mountain of crawfish. Crawfish is a right of passage neither of us had experienced. There we were, sitting before two crimson piles wondering how in the hell you are supposed to eat the damn things.

"Sucking the head is involved," Joel said.

"And the meat is in the tail," I contributed.

We were somewhat at a loss. We knew that you had to break them in half first, we had that part down, but the peeling and consumption was slow and messy.

"We need to watch someone who looks like they know what they are doing to see how it is done," Joel said.

There was a heavy-set fellow at the bar who looked well practiced at the task and was making great progress on his mountain, but someone sat down and blocked our view before we could figure out the secret. Then a guy sat down a few tables away and started tearing into his pile. We tried to watch surreptitiously, it was fascinating, we couldn't help but stare. After a minute he looked up to see both of us watching him. A puzzled frown flashed across his face as he stared back at us.

"Um, we're trying to figure out how you eat them," I explained.

A smile of understanding broke out across his face. "Ah, ma brahthuh! Welcome to New Ahwlins!" His voice overpowered the noise of the room "Where yall from? Why yall here?"

"Ah, well welcome, my brothers, welcome! When yall eat de crawdad it's done in tree steps!" He held up the crawdad he was about to use as a demonstration. "First, you break off de tail!" He broke the crawdad in two. "Then you suck de head!" He 'sucked the head' crushing the shell at the same time and then held up the results. "Then ya bite de tail and squeeze it at de same time… de meat slips right out!" He demonstrated the third step and nodded with the resulting bit of crawdad meat between his teeth before slurping it in.

"That's how you eat de crawdad, my brothers, now you try it!" He coached us through out attempt. "Yah, that's right, break it! Good! Good! Now suck de head!" The shell of mine broke abruptly splattering crawdad juices everywhere. "Thas allright, my brother, thas alright de crawdad juice is good, eating the crawdad is always juicy! Now bite de tail! Squeeze it wit your tumb! Yeah, dat's right, my brothers! Now yall know how to eat de crawdad! Welcome to New Orleans, my brothers! Yall have a great time while yall're here!"

With that, Joel and I were officially and enthusiastically inducted into the art of sucking the heads and biting the tails of crawdads. As we worked through our mountains Our Crawfish Master would occasionally call out support. "Yeah, my brother, squeeze it wit your tumb!" or "Tha's right suck de head, al of the juices are in de head, dats where de flavor's at!"

Our tutor whipped through his pile of crawdads in about ten minutes. 30 minutes later we were still working on ours but improving with each head we sucked and tail we bit. It was a messy job and stacks of napkins were needed to wipe the juice dripping down our forearms. Finally the task was complete. The last head had been sucked and the last tail bitten, our arms were sticky with juice. Joel and I headed off in search of a place to wash our hands.