Who Dat, indeed….
Perhaps this could have reverberated a bit more in Washington, D.C. a few years ago.
I spent some time in New Orleans, April of 2001. I have friends who live North of downtown, in Abita Springs, along the North shore of Lake Ponchartrain.
And you want to talk about a big-bass lake?! It took about a half-an-hour to drive across, each way.
And as such, we landed on Bourbon Street, NOLA, on a Saturday night….
And yes, some of the ladies actually flash for $3 Mardi Gras beads. And I thought I was the one that had too much to drink…….!
On the other hand, I was particularly impressed with the fact that I could drink my beer right in the middle of this little cobble-stone road called Bourbon Street, and not get arrested! Here in Portland, it’s illegal to consume alcoholic beverages in the middle of the street.
The first time I ever saw a cardinal (the bird, not the baseball team), was perched on the fence, in the front yard of Jessica’s home, in Abita Springs. We don’t have cardinals here in Portland. And in fact, they are much smaller that I though they were. I always pictured them as large as robins, when in fact they’re more the size of chickadees. They are handsome little guys nonetheless, and it’s the one and only time I’ve ever seen them in the flesh.
An ignorant Oregonian, as it seems, I’d never heard of parishes, beyond the Biblical reference. Here in Oregon, we have counties. I learned particularly quickly, that Louisiana consists of parishes (counties), the only state in the Union to do so.
One evening, Jessica took us down to the levees along the Mississippi River. Mom’s knees were hurting too much to climb up, but I, curious, trekked up to the top. Up there, it was very much like the berms around the Nike World Headquarters, here in the Portland suburb of Beaverton. The berms surrounding Nike Town have jogging tracks on top, and that’s what it looked like to me up there. I also noticed that the level of the river was much higher than the level of the street Mom and Jessica were standing on below. The thought crossed my mind that "if this thing ever breaks, this city is going to get wiped out."
A bit of analysis I left out, when Mom asked how the view was…..
Along Decatur Street, at Café du Monde, we ordered a bag of beignets for the bunch of us. And I gotta tell ya, these things have more powdered sugar than you can shake a stick at! The next morning, after I polished off the last beignet, there were several inches of powdered sugar still in the bag!
And as such, as an American citizen, I am thoroughly embarrassed about the way our nation abandoned New Orleans after Monday, 29 August 2005.
We like to think of ourselves as the richest nation in the world, and yet, we left one of our founding cities out to dry. Jessica, Venice, TC, and Melody deserved better from us. And they didn’t get it…….
Instead, Mayor Nagin, the City of New Orleans, and Jessica, Venice, TC and Melody were left to pull themselves up by their bootstraps -- our nation having completely failed them. A federal lawsuit for failure to provide competent disaster assistance should be filed.
In the meantime, Jessica and her family have managed to put the pieces of their house back together. She, and her family, and the residents of New Orleans have put their lives back together after a long, hard, slog.
It was particularly galling to read, here on the Chit-Chat board, someone disparage the City of New Orleans, and their football team, with the moniker, "the ‘Ain’ts."
One of the more ignorant comments of the year.......
For a city just now able to catch its breath, and survey its progress. Progress that it made all by itself.
Any city, any bunch of people, who can make that kind of progress, in a few short years, deserves the right to be proud of themselves.
And so, the "Ain’ts"……
Ain’t nothin’ to it.
One of our greatest cities – a city so important, a civil war was fought over it – has, for the first time in a long time, something to celebrate.
Who Dat?
You Dat!!
A city who's been through so much. A city who's accomplished so much.
A city not of "Ain'ts" but of Saints.
To the residents of Saint Tammany Parish, the City of Abita Springs, and the City of New Orleans, and greater Metairie, Kenner metropolitan area, this Oregonian raises his glass.
For You Dat are Who Dat and All Dat.
Who Dat?
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