Abstract
Over the years I've been to a lot of conventions and professional gatherings but, believe me, I've never enjoyed one as much as the just-ended AFA convention in New Orleans. The following blather is a personal view of the thing, which may not have much to do with anyone else's reality.
What do you expect from a convention - people, education, entertainment, food, fun, sights to see, trouble to get into? We had it all, and more besides.
As soon as my room was located, Dale Thompson and I hit the streets looking for a good place for steak and salad. It was early evening and as we walked along I spotted a fellow going alone towards the French Quarter. He just looked like a bird man, you know - that subtle hint of feathers in the hair, evidence of former stains on the shoulder, a nose that resembled a beak, etc. One can tell. We hailed him and got to know Jerry Clark, a very good fellow visiting the convention for just a couple of days. He was on the way to one of the best steak houses in New Orleans and invited us along. With this good omen, the convention began.
There really was something for everyone. For the few who were totally ded-
icated to the business at hand, the convention carried on 24 hours a day. Not always in the formal sense, but in the personal gatherings and individual conversations over coffee, drinks or a light breakfast. Indeed, some of my most enjoyable moments were atTony's , the little coffee shop across from the hotel (ironically, owned by a fine Vietnamese family formerly of Orange County, California).
At Tony's, over toast and omelets, I heard some of the world's best zoo stories from Paul Breese (outrageous adventures, but his excellent wife Jean assured me Paul wouldn't embellish the truth). Breese is an acknowledged hero in the post WW II zoo-building era. Almost single handedly, he put the Honolulu Zoo on the map and guided it for 20 years. His stories of animal col-
lecting for the zoo are fascinating.
Breese spoke at the convention, though, on a highly unlikely subject for a bird meeting - the Brown Tree Snake. It turned out to be pertinent, however, since the snake ate practically every bird on Guam and is eyeing Hawaii, Texas and the rest of the warm world. Breese's tale of the snakes' devastation of Guam's native wildlife was so graphic, so bizarre and so well researched that when I got home I actually looked under my bed expecting to find a monster snake. (While making my rounds of the Bourbon Street bars I saw plenty of snakes but that always happens when I drink.)
Speaking of Bourbon Street, the festive, camival-like French Quarter seemed to attract a lot of AFA members. I spotted conventioneers of the most sterling character on Bourbon Street, many of them entering virtual dens of iniquity - vice holes of the direst sort (my seat offered a good view of the door) to partake of the infamous "Hurricane" refreshment. "Up to the lips" they toasted, "over the gums - Look out stomach, here it comes" ... a little toast I hadn't heard since the Korean War era.