As my wife Shannon and I made recent arrangements for a night out, our 8-year-old son Evan and 6-year-old son Sean picked up Lego blocks and prepared for their babysitter to arrive.

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“How come you have dates?” Evan asked. “You’re already married!”

I caught my wife’s eyes and said, “And we stay married because we still have dates.”

Evan nodded and went back to his blocks. I doubt the boys truly understood but they will one day. Shannon and I have maintained a strong friendship as our marriage has evolved. That strikes me as an obvious thing to state but we see too many couples who seem to be together more out of habit and obligation than from friendship, much less love.

A recent invitation to a baptism in the New Orleans area offered an opportunity for what we viewed as an extended date night. I had never been to New Orleans and Shannon’s sole experience was based around a conference, so a weekend away on a long date held great appeal.

We haven’t planned it that way, but we have taken weekend getaways without our sons just about every two years. A weekend in Las Vegas for Shannon’s birthday four years ago and a revelatory weekend in Grand Rapids, Michigan, two years ago have been woven around family trips and work trips to Chicago, Miami and many points in between.

We arranged for the boys to stay with my wife’s youngest sister and her husband; they have three kids in our sons’ age range and I suspect Evan and Sean were as excited for their weekend as we were for ours.

We landed at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport on a cloudy Friday afternoon, diving into a humidity that caresses skin and envelops clothing in a steamy embrace.

We knew we were in Las Vegas when we saw slot machines at the airport. Our first confirmation we were in the Big Easy was when our airport rental car agent’s first recommendation for the weekend was to make sure we tried two local drinks, the Hurricane and the Hand Grenade. I bemusedly commented on the irony of a rental car agent encouraging us to drink alcohol. She offered the warm sugary smile I would see on many faces that weekend and said, “Hon, we have drive-thru daiquiris here; you just be smart as you party this weekend.”

Lee Circle

The New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau (NOCVB) found accommodations for us at The Hotel Modern in the central business district (the NOCVB made the hotel contact but we paid all costs).

The Hotel Modern faces the monument honoring Gen. Robert E. Lee (as he once said he would never turn his back on the North, his statue resolutely faces straight into Yankee territory). It is a 12-foot statue on top of a 60-foot tall column surrounded by wide stairways, decorative urns and a traffic circle.

The Hotel Modern is easy walking distance to the French Quarter, and is just steps from the St. Charles Avenue streetcar that ventures to Canal and Bourbon streets. Its staff was uniformly friendly and patient with tourist questions. The hotel is acutely attuned to tourist needs. How attuned? The sleeve that holds the electronic door key folds out into a walking map of the French District and central business district. The room we stayed in was designed more like the apartment bedroom of a friend than a cookie-cutter hotel room. It was clean and homey, with a modest library of books and a blessedly effective air conditioner. We could have stayed at the Hotel Modern and been perfectly happy; its restaurant, Tivoli & Lee, offered a wide range of specialty drinks and such regional food as Dirty Spaetzle (over easy eggs with crispy greens), a Two Run Farm Burger (pimento cheese, pork belly marmalade and spicy house-made pickles on a pretzel roll) and cinnamon doughnut bread pudding with coffee ice cream.

The hotel’s Bellocq Lounge, named after a photographer who captured the madams in the red light district of Storyville, offers creative cocktails, wines and small plates crafted by Chef Marcus Woodham.

But as tempting and exquisite as The Hotel Modern’s offerings were, the night beckoned.

Beignet there, done that

We knew Bourbon Street was going to be a part of the weekend, so we decided to ease into the party with a walk along St. Charles Avenue. It’s mostly residential, dotted with a few hotels and restaurants near Lee Circle. The houses are close together like those in many Washington, D.C., neighborhoods. The architecture, accented with remarkable lush landscaping, columns and fountains, is worth a mile or two walk. We found The Irish House, with live music and warm scents of food drifting onto St. Charles Avenue. The fish and chips were fresh and well seasoned, and it was there we tried our first drink, a Frozen Leprechaun (Absolut Citron, Midori, blue curaçao, sour and lime juice).

The next morning, we set out in a light rain to walk the two miles to the French Market, nestled against the Mississippi River. We enjoyed a fine breakfast at Stanley’s (Shannon ordered an Eggs Benedict Poor Boy and I had a mimosa and about one-third of a delicious Stanley Classic (scrambled eggs, smoked bacon, Creole breakfast potatoes, and whole wheat toast). I do not usually associate breakfast with dessert, but we were just a block away from Café Du Monde, which had a three-block wait for its chickory coffee and beignets. Beignets, which parents may remember as Tiana’s culinary specialty in “The Princess and the Frog,” are basically doughnuts on steroids, deep-fried twists of dough seemingly smothered in equal parts powdered sugar and crack cocaine.

I have never killed a man, but if one stood between me and a Café Du Monde beignet, that man better hope I am not within arm’s reach of a knife, revolver, wrench, lead pipe, rope or candlestick.

We shopped along the many windows on Decatur Street, from the fairy tale backdrop of Jackson Square to the Old U.S. Mint. We were exhilarated, overstimulated, exhausted and wired.

And it wasn’t even noon yet.

Next week: Qualia, Marie Laveau’s tomb and the premature death of Fats Domino.

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and news director for Newsradio 1370 WSPD. Email him at [email protected].

It’s not surprising that someone is trying to exploit the ugly mess surrounding Father Gerald Robinson’s death, but it’s still sick and shocking.

I normally encourage entrepreneurial spirit, but when Toledo Free Press first reported July 28 that Florida-based Serial Killers Ink is brokering Robinson-related funeral items, I was unable to muster any enthusiasm.

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The site is offering the items on behalf of Toledoan Dan Clay, founder of Grave Fixations, which offers local crime scene and graveyard tours.

How do these ghouls defend this?

It’s fair to offer them a chance to explain their choices. Eric Holler, who runs the Serial Killers Ink website, told Toledo Free Press the Robinson items don’t have much academic value, but said there is a market for such items and meeting that demand is his business. Priests convicted of murder are exceedingly rare and Robinson is believed to be the first to be convicted of murdering a nun.

“I do understand these men and women have done some heinous, brutal crimes,” he said. “The Gerald Robinson case is horrible. He killed a nun. But people seem to have an interest in dark and morbid history. It’s history. We can’t push history under the rug. It happened. These things happened, and there are people who collect these items and people who use these items in the academic field, who study these items to get a better grasp of these individuals.

“I can’t really say a photograph of him lying in a coffin has social value. It’s not going to help anyone understand his crime. But there are collectors out there that would love to have a photograph of an infamous murderer in his final resting place. People are interested in some really dark things. That’s part of our psyche.”

I am neither a defender of Robinson nor an apologist for how the Catholic Diocese of Toledo handled his funeral. But it’s stomach-turning to think of someone sneaking into his visitation to snap a photo of him in his casket, collecting items from the funeral and scooping gravesite dirt into a vial for sale.

It is offensive to the memory of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, whom Robinson was convicted of murdering, and to her family, who have been through enough with the controversy over Robinson being buried with full priesthood rites.

There is no question the case is sensational. But even those who do not believe Robinson deserves to rest in peace must be taken aback by this crass, tasteless and offensive exploitation.

Thomas F. Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press. Contact him at [email protected].

The apocryphal tale of the first telephone call was that Alexander Graham Bell knocked over a vial and hollered for his assistant to come to him, “Watson, come here.  I need you.”  Whether true or not, the ensuing century saw improvement after improvement in the way calls could be made.

I remember the party line in my neighborhood in Ashtabula.  You had to wait until someone else was done talking before you could make a call.  Of course you also had the opportunity to listen in on what was being discussed! 

Then the phone company found a way to change the color of the phone from black to a variety of colors.  Calling cards were created to make long distance calling easier and then, miracle of miracles, they developed the “cell phone”, a device that would allow you to talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere. 

And yet as things have developed, these devices would be better called “cell tablets” because fewer and fewer people are using them to make phone calls.    Let us  skip over for now the fact that spellcheck often changes a text into a far more humorous comment than was intended, or that texting has doomed our nation to be one of mis-spellers. 

We just don’t talk anymore.  I am told there are many who consider it rude to call unless you have sent a text alerting the person to the fact that the call is coming.  And there are advantages to texting.  Giving directions and phone numbers is more precise.  It is often quicker to review a text than to listen to a voice mail. 

But it is less personal than a call.  It is hard to tell the emotion behind a text, while that is generally pretty easily determined during a phone call.  The dialogue that occurs during a telephone conversation is quicker than the one in which texts are exchanged.  And you connect as to human beings, rather than two computers. 

And to end on a cautionary note, however distracting it may be to talk on a cell phone while driving, texting is universally a bad idea while going 65 miles an hour!  But testing is here to stay, and apparently grow and grow.

Rick Kerger is a trial lawyer at Kerger & Hartman LLC in Toledo. Contact him at (419) 255-5990.

Having just lived through arguably the worst winter in the past 50 years, and considering that Toledo Public School (TPS) Board of Education members in the last election cycle made promises to parents to restore busing and that the fiscal year ended in June, you had to be wondering how long it would be before the board proposed restoration of student transportation.

Steven Flagg

In a perfect world without limits on resources, the primary mission of public education to assure that all students have the most favorable academic outcome possible could be expanded to include other objectives. In a time of limited resources, the primary mission requires laser-like focus without distraction.

If successful student academic outcomes are the objective, just how does restoring transportation for students impact this objective? Will this expenditure raise test scores? Will it improve reading and math comprehension? Will it improve attendance rates? There is no evidence nationally or locally to support such a claim.

TPS district attendance rates for the past eight years covering periods before and after transportation cuts show little change; the attendance rates remain in a narrow band averaging about 94 percent. The year transportation was cut to state minimum requirements there was little change from the previous year.

In fiscal year 2011, when transportation was cut to the state minimum requirements, enrollment dropped by 1,462 students. Still, enrollment losses in 2011 were actually lower than in previous years and not all the “lost” students per TPS data showed up attending charter schools or receiving vouchers. TPS enrollment does not appear to have suffered from the elimination of student transportation.

Test scores for TPS students have been on a slow but steady rise — although with the changing reporting practices and standards it is very difficult to compare year to year. Still, there is no evidence in yearly test scores to suggest restoration of transportation would improve state test scores.

Transporting students at an estimated startup cost of $6 million with annual operating costs of $4.4 million ($3.4 million for high school students) is not justified especially when compared with programs and practices that have proven records or show promise to improve student academic outcomes.

During the past brutal winter, it is doubtful that busing would have decreased in any meaningful way the number of days TPS missed due to weather. For days, many of the city streets were impassable to cars, let alone lumbering school buses. This past winter was a statistical aberration, that by itself provides little justification for restoring transportation.

It certainly is harsh to think of kindergarteners walking up to two miles to school in the brutal cold, but it’s not happening. Parents and caregivers have adjusted over the past four years, as evidenced by students getting to school at the same rates as in the past. Is spending $4.4 million every year an effective way to address a few weeks of inclement weather?

If the concern is primarily safety, it’s time to talk with Mayor D. Michael Collins, the police and our community. The safety of the neighborhoods around our schools is not the responsibility of TPS. Creating additional costs for our schools because neighborhoods are unsafe assures fewer resources to improve student academic outcomes and does not resolve safety concerns.

Whether you repurpose existing funds or pass a new levy, there are myriad ways to spend taxpayer dollars that have measurable impact on student achievement, such as improving teacher quality and development; actively engaging parents; integrating technology and adaptive learning algorithms into the curriculum and classroom; improving classroom management and student discipline; as well as teacher and principal evaluations.

Those elected to oversee our public schools must understand that in a time of limited resources, the focus of their efforts and our resources, must be on relentlessly improving student outcomes and educational achievement and not satisfying campaign promises or appropriating parental responsibilities.

Steven Flagg is a community activist with more than 20 years of experience in education advocacy including monitoring Toledo Public Schools’ policies, practices and operations.