I had a truly fabulous trip to New Orleans, although it was considerably faster than I wanted it to be and I found it incredibly difficult to leave. I took The Youngest along and we squeezed it in between two of his summer college wooden bat league baseball games (Wednesday night and Sunday night), arriving home and to the park, just in time for batting practice. Although we carry a large roster because this age group is so busy we know kids are going to miss games, The Youngest really can't. We have four pitchers who play (or are going to next year) college baseball and we simply have no one else who can safely catch any of them. Three of them have really nasty stuff. This was, quite literally, the first time since the storm that I had the time and the means to make the trip, and I wasn't going to miss it.
Middle son is coming home next week for a visit, so it seemed almost silly to go down there, but I really, really wanted to see the city and to stock his kitchen and medicine cabinet (something for which the great need was clearly apparent, once I got there), but mainly because it provided the opportunity to attend the New Orleans Geek Dinner hosted by Alan Gutierrez. It was amazing to meet and interact with so many folks whose ideas I've been reading all these months since the storm, and whom I've come to respect. In addition to Alan, Maitri was there, as well as Ray, Adrastos, Dangerblond, Mark of the Wetbank Guide, Editor B, Schroeder from People Get Ready, Karen of Northwest Carrollton , Ashley, Loki from Humid City, Morwen a/k/a Gentilly Girl, and Oyster, otherwise know as Your Right Hand Thief. I regret that I didn't get much chance to talk with either Dave or Lisa, and I'm sorry I missed any NOLA blogger who weren't there, but I'm hopeful there will be another chance. It's very interesting to meet for the first time others with whom you have already been sharing ideas. There were no pauses in conversation, no awkward moments with nothing to say. In fact, it was just the opposite, some of the livliest, most insightful interaction I've experienced in a long, long while (ever?). Please visit the links I've provided. In many (most?) cases, I've linked directly to their posts about the event, many of which contain pictures (if I've inadvertantly missed anyone, please leave me a comment or send me an email).
I did manage to go to Loyola on Friday, and the campus looked perfectly beautiful, as if nothing at all had happened. I bought a license plate frame to put on my car and a book to leave for my host as a gift. I was so very fortunate to have been offered the use a lovely house in the Garden District by folks with whom I became friends after their evacuation to Atlanta. It was beautiful, surrounded by lush tropical vegetation. Its rooms, with their fourteen foot ceilings, were filled with funky local art and antiques. In addition, although my hosts were out of town, I had the chance to spend some time visiting with the family's grandfather, a colorful New Orleans native and avid baseball fan, whom I'd met briefly last fall. I can't wait to see him again. His stories, particularly about the history of baseball in New Orleans, alone merit a blog entry, if not more.
I only ate out twice, besides the party. On Friday we had lunch at Pascal's Manale (a/k/a Manale's). The Youngest had the famous barbeque shrimp po boy and I had Veal Oscar, breaded sauteed veal topped with fresh crabmeat, asparagus and hollandaise sauce (okay, I'm a hollandaise whore, I admit to being totally hooked on it, searching for the best in the world, and I simply can't resist it anywhere). It was unbelievably delicious (although it doesn't unseat my #1, Bone's), but frighteningly rich, especially when we topped it off with the Bread Pudding, the recipe for which you can find here. We also got to Dom's for po boys and root beer in ice cold bottles (sorry, Zen, I didn't make it to Mother's... this time). We didn't manage to get the time to visit the New Orleans Museum of Art for Katrina Exposed (another reason I must go back soon), but I did find out that the father of one of Middle Son's friends took some (many?) of the pictures. We also went to Perlis, at the boys' request, and both of my younger sons now proudly sport their crawfish emblemed golf shirts. Finally, on Saturday night I had a great time visiting the French Quarter with an old baseball buddy who raised his family here but has moved back since It Happened. We ended up between the River and Jackson Square, at what they call the Moon Walk, with the moon over the Mississippi on one side and Jackson Square on the other, with St. Louis Cathedral all lit up just beyond it, just like it looked that night last fall, when Bush stood there and made all those promises.
As for the City itself, my reaction to that surprised me. I was less shocked than I expected at the "bad parts". The Lower 9th is hard to describe. What wasn't wiped clean by the wall of water that swept through it, is poignant piles of marked up rubble, with houses still on top of cars (or other houses), the remnants of lives still shattered, and scattered. A brindle puppy roamed loose, I don't know where from, some big breed, probably a boxer. He looked well-fed and healthy, so I guess somewhere near there was an owner for him. There was activity, a few cars and a fair amount of what we call here at the KnockingShitDownCo, "Big Yellow Iron". There's a brand spanking new concrete floodwall where the breach had been, giving stark understanding of its enormity. We then went to Mid-City, Lake Vista and Lakeview, where, although the devastation was still evident and hugely vast, which is the most difficult aspect to comprehend, there were also more signs of recovery, with more organized rubble piled in front of more houses still standing, relative to the 9th Ward, and FEMA trailers giving evidence to people who've come back to try. But the water lines were there on every structure, everywhere, as were the piles of debris (as I was so correctly warned), so I had to keep reminding myself, that even the houses that looked alright on the outside, were destroyed on the inside by water and the mold that followed it. What did surprise me was the "good parts". I really expected Uptown to look "normal" but it didn't. St. Charles Avenue was raggedy, the loss of its streetcar evidenced by piles of gravel and excavators parked on the tracks. There were broken or dead trees and much of the avenue's canopy seemed lost to the wind. It looked particulary gnarly around Upperline, and at the intersection of Napoleon and St. Charles, both the prominent Copeland's and the RiteAid (the one my son could walk to for supplies) remain boarded up. Shame on them. We didn't get to Chalmette or down into St. Barnhard Parish this trip, but the biggest sense of the vastness of the damage came for me as we left the city Sunday morning. The Youngest was asleep in the back but as I drove through New Orleans East towards the I-10 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, keenly aware of how far I had just driven from the city I had toured the day before, to my right for miles and miles and miles there stood dead and broken trees left by the surge of salt water. The only thing living as far as I could see was the four feet of weeds that have grown up in their stead since the storm.
Thursday night when we arrived, leaving The Youngest at his house to hang with his roommates, Middle Son and I rode down to Tchopitoulous Street to buy beer. On the way back he explained to me that his roommate from Atlanta will be coming back next week for a month between summer school and the beginning of fall classes and that he (Middle Son) has arranged for some time off and has a ride. Then he said those words to me that I've been waiting to hear, that I remember hearing from his brother a year or two into his time at UNCW in Wilmington, North Carolina. He said, "Mama, I can ride to Atlanta with Lee, but I'll need you to buy me an airplane ticket home."
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