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“Growing up is a lifelong task” touts an ad from the Marble Collegiate Church. If that’s the case then much of our experience qualifies as continuing education. This past weekend my lessons were taught to me in New Orleans. I was as hesitant as anyone about visiting a devastated post-Katrina New Orleans, especially after frequent recent reports of horrendous crimes, notably murder as sport. But having lived in
New Orleans, I was eager to see for myself what had become of that beloved city.
After a very short time, I realized that New Orleans was still the exciting, fun-loving, smart place that everyone thinks of. Only more so. An acquaintance from the trip noted that New Orleans is “more itself than ever.” I have to think that he meant that the zeal and lust for life that existed before Katrina were heightened by the disaster, that each day and each interaction were now cherished. Everyone waves. You wave at your neighbors. If you don’t know someone, you wave. The homeboy in the gold-embossed hooded sweatshirt pulled ominously over his eyes waved at me. Strangers do drive-by waves, not drive-by shootings. I came this close to kissing the cabdriver who took me to the airport good-bye; I opted to give her a 30% tip. It can’t be easy for her. It’s not easy for anyone. But she talked about the parade last night, not her worries.
All of the locals spoke of circumstances “after the storm,” but they didn’t do so out of self-pity or nostalgia. “After the storm, we shop here.” “After the storm, I go to church there.” So what are our lessons, boys and girls? Something good can and does and has come out devastation. That the human spirit — or at least the spirit of New Orleans — can triumph over adversity. Pretty valuable continuing education if you ask me. In fact, I’m making plans for more classes during Jazzfest. You should too (it’s the last weekend in April and first weekend in May).
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After my silver-lined post, I received the following distressing/distressed email from a friend in New Orleans:
“This is true: My boss called from Baton Rouge today. I was upset because we have had another murder Wednesday and this time it was a 17 year old who was shot by another 17 year old. The shooter’s mom had given him the gun and told him ‘go kill them all.’ (She is now behind bars and the shooter is at large.) Margaret said that before this for the past 2 weeks we’d talked like things were getting better. I said you had certainly thought that on your visit, and that you’d written in your blog about the friendliness and how everyone greeted one another.
Her husband is a retired LSU Economics professor and on the Baton Rouge city council. He was at the Federal Court a couple of weeks ago, and on the streets he experienced it too. A black guy went whizzing past him as he was walking on Camp at Poydras, on one of those little 3 three wheeler dirt bikes. The guy called out ‘Hello, white motherfucker!’ They didn’t know what to say back. Well the good news is a friend caught the Carnival madness bug and is coming in from Houston next Fri-Mon and it will be good to have a visitor but no one is as fun as you.”
Well, at least the guy on the three-wheller siad “hello”!
Comment by continueyoureducation February 12, 2007 @ 4:44 pmI started to feel like a jerk for my rosy outlook and posting on New Orleans until I saw Mayor Cory Booker of Newark last night. Booker talked about being dragged into the middle of a desperate neighborhood and being asked by a longtime resident “What do you see?” “A crackhouse, a project, drug dealers,” he replied. “Then you can’t do anything for me,” she said. “If that’s all you see, you have no vision and you cannot help me.” I suppose I saw beyond the spray painted homes indicating that the house had been searched and other signs of disaster to see the vitality and promise of New Orleans 2.0, and perhaps that’s not such a bad or naive thing.
He also asked where the “moral outrage” was in Newark, and presumably New Orleans, Rio and any other place plagued by outrageous violence. This morning I received a petition to send to congress and the president asking for an “independent bipartisan investigation into the failure of the Federal Levees on August 29, 2005 that flooded 80% of New Orleans and the surrounding region including St. Bernard, Jefferson, Orleans, St. Charles and Plaquemines Parishes.” A petition may not be the most extreme embodiment of outrage, but it represents a commitment to “Defend New Orleans” (as the T-shirts implore). Sign it at http://www.levees.org/campaigns.
Comment by continueyoureducation February 13, 2007 @ 4:02 pm“There is a new bohemia not seen since people discovered Seattle,” Jed Horne, editor of the Times-Picayune
Comment by continueyoureducation February 14, 2007 @ 6:50 pmA day after Valentine’s Day and two days after tornadoes struck New Orleans (aren’t trailers tornado magnets?), I got the following update from a friend; La vie boheme indeed!
“Went to a St. Valentine’s Day “tea party” tonight, blocks from tornado wreckage. After, we went to a noodle house and then drove around, past Brad and Angie’s. Nicest Valentine date ever. I am going to stop working ’til Ash Wednesday as soon as I get thru two meetings tomorrow. Company coming from Houston, parties aplenty now thru Carnival.”
Comment by continueyoureducation February 15, 2007 @ 4:43 pm