A listener note. This episode contains references to suicide and wartime violence,

and may not be suitable for all listeners. Please be advised.

Imagine, you're nine years old and you're walking with your father down Bourbon Street

in his hometown New Orleans, Louisiana. It's your first time here, and you love everything about it.

The lights, the music, the street performers, it's like Disneyland, but dirty.

The good kind of dirty. And there's lots of tasty things to eat.

Two cherry snow cones, please. You sit together on a bench,

eat your snow cones and people watch. It's good to sit. You've been on the go all day.

Your father showing you the sights from his youth, his high school, his street car stop,

the graveyard where he used to play pranks as a teenager.

You've had the best time, and it's not done yet. You look over at your dad,

he's smiling like a little kid and pointing to a storefront across the street.

It's one of those photo studios where tourists pose for old-timey souvenir shots in period costumes.

You wanna? Let's do it. A few minutes later, you're standing in front of a sepia-toned backdrop

wearing a Confederate soldier uniform. That's about five sizes too big for you.

My dad, my pants keep falling down. Well, that's no good. There were no spider-man

underwear in the Civil War, which is probably why the South lost. He turns to the photographer.

You have something that can help keep his pants up? The grizzled proprietor,

who may have already had a few bourbons himself, pulls a clamp off the backdrop frame and hands it to you.

Oh, here, try this. And we gotta get you all some weapons, do?

The proprietor hands your dad a sword and you a shotgun.

Ah, stand up straight and look like you mean business.

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