The Second Line

<Still Shipwrecked At The Superdome>


One year later, this boat remains on the street in front of the Superdome, two blocks from the Mayor's office, in the New Orleans Central Business District. 



<What's The Plan, Ray?>



I had a quick question myself - but I forgot my can of spraypaint on the way to work....





WHO YOU GOTTA SCREW AROUND HERE TO GET THE F---KING BOAT PICKED UP ALREADY?!?!?

For crying out loud...





                                                                -THE END-



secondlineno at 7:22:01 PM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 11 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

Today is the last day for entries in this blog.  I want to thank AOL Black Voices for making New Orleans a priority and giving me the opportunity to share my slice of New Orleans with you.  Thanks to Spike Lee for doing it right.  Thanks to everyone who took the time to read this blog and to write responses, questions and insights.  And to those who have brought New Orleans and the Gulf Coast into your hearts, into your homes, and exerted valiant efforts to help us there in your town, your efforts are supremely appreciated.  And lastly, to those who made the pilgrimage to New Orleans to help in your own way – we are truly humbled by the way in which you’ve you stepped into the void created by the fed’s faulty levee system, slow response time, and begrudging assistance, to love and support your fellow brothers and sisters in our darkest hour.  All of you are the real Americans – not the distorted caricatures created by our government’s actions, which have created such animosity towards the U.S. in the rest of the world. 

I've always said, 'You don’t choose New Orleans – New Orleans chooses you'.  You know if you have her in your blood – she is a haunting call, beckoning you to her.  She is a flame, alluring, distinctive, unsettling even, that's already alive in your soul the moment you first encounter her.  She is unlike anything else, at once a delirious magic spell, a mother’s unswerving love and devotion, a tragic disappointment, an unbridled passion, a dreamland that stands arms akimbo, stubbornly planted in long ago.   

And if New Orleans lives in your heart, then this past year was not easy for you, for any of us.  We’ve seen aspects of our collective selves that was troubling – at times, even horrifying.  But in the midst of this self-reflection, we are rising up, developing character and fortitude, and bettering ourselves on an individual, community, and governmental level.<spanstyle ="">  Which means that all this suffering did not happen in vain.  Which means we’ll one day burn brighter and stronger because of what we’ve accomplished – together.

Until we meet again
In our beloved New Orleans,

Deborah

secondlineno at 1:34:12 PM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 2 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

With the swift, nimble strokes of fingertips to keyboard, our local laureate columnist Chris Rose is able to verbalize the content of our hearts and minds. He saved many of us from cracking up during 'The Dark Days' this time last year.  He moves us to action.  He is our defacto leader. 

*****************************************************************

We raze, and raise, and keep pushing forward

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Chris Rose

I drove down Louisville Street in Lakeview the other evening, one of the Avenues of Despair that I have incorporated into my regular rounds of the city as I seek out the progress of our recovery.

I have several friends who lived here. One of them had not mucked out or gutted his house since it soaked in its own sewage last fall and, rather than take offense at the disaster tourism phenomenon that abounds in our region, he welcomed visitors -- friends and strangers alike -- to enter his home and experience the full-sensory shock of what happened here.

To walk into this foul and infected house and gaze upon the domestic carnage was, in many ways, a more effective story-telling device than driving past miles and miles of wretched and abandoned exteriors. The eyes burn, the breath shortens and the weight of lost history, memory and family is crushing.

"Imagine if you came home to this,"I used to tell my visitors.

This week, my friend James had that house -- where he lived for 14 years and raised two sons -- torn down. He left work one morning to witness the act with his wife. He bought sodas and ice cream from a passing truck for the work crew, went to Subway for lunch and then went back to work.

Three blocks down Louisville, I drove past my friend A.J.'s house. His block was nearly pristine, having been recently mucked, weeded and scrubbed out by one of the legions of young volunteer groups who have come from elsewhere to aid our city in its distress.

Across the street from his house, a woman and her daughter were sweeping the sidewalk. They have already moved back in. She asked me for A.J.'s phone number and called him right then -- he's in Covington now -- to invite him to a neighborhood get-together, a gathering of souls and survivors to commemorate just being alive.

Next to A.J.'s house, I was taken aback by the spectacle of a house in transformation; it had been raised that afternoon on giant piers, looming above the shoulders of a profoundly cheerful woman who stood in her yard, planted her hands on her hips, regarded me and said: "Whaddya think?"

What do I think? I think she's crazy. Bonkers. Stark raving mad. That's what I think.

But what I wanted to tell her was that I loved her. I wanted to hug her. And what I said was "Looks great!" and I continued on my journey, strangely comforted by what I have come to consider the nearly delusional optimism of our populace. Life gives you lemons?Make icebox pie.

The Corps of Engineers gives you 8 feet of water? Raise your house 8 feet. Move on. Move up.

Not all stories around here are so cheery, so full of equanimity and can-do. Far from it.

One of my favorite local stores, Utopia, a funky Magazine Street boutique, closed a week ago because of lack of business. In one of the mayor's ever-increasing public gaffes -- his pronouncements on race, progress and politics have gone from comic to weird to just plain alienating -- he recently dismissed concerns of business owners who say the economic and political climates are driving them away from the city. He said he'd send a postcard to those that leave.

Mr. Mayor, Utopia's forwarding address is a shopping mall in Houston.

And so it goes.

This isn't the Sudan. It's not Lebanon. There are greater hardships all across this planet than living in New Orleans. But by American standards; by the standards of those families who lived side-by-side in the same voting precincts for the past 60 years in Chalmette, Gentilly and the Lower 9; by the standards of those who worked their asses off to get a nice house, a nice car and a picket fence in Old Metairie, well . . . it pretty much sucks here.

But we move on, move up, our faith in government washed out to sea with all that floodwater and our hopes for recovery rooted in our reliance on each other and the triumphof the human spirit. They are our best and only chance.

Folks from other places must think we're out of our minds when they see pictures of the ruination and hear about all the stress and depression and hear the crazy stuff that comes out of our mayor's mouth and maybe they're right.

It will be decades before we sort through our post-Katrina housing landscape while psychiatric journals write about our post-Katrina emotional landscape.

Most of us have visited other places this past year, where sidewalks are clean and parks and playgrounds are pristine and schools are progressive and city government is efficient but still, this is where we are.

We stay. We raise our houses and we raze our houses and we get up and go to work -- the lucky ones -- because this is home and no word has a stronger allegiance in the English language.

I'm not going to try to lay down in words the lure of this place. Every great writer in the land, from Faulkner to Twain to Rice to Ford, has tried to do it, and fallen short. It is impossible to capture the essence, tolerance and spirit of south Louisiana in words and to try is to roll down a road of clichés, bouncing over beignets and beads and brass bands and it just is what it is.

It is home.

I have a friend evacuated permanently to Chicago who confirms my belief that, as bad as it is here, it's better than being somewhere else. To be engaged in some small way in the revival of one of the great cities of the world is to live a meaningful existence by default.

You can't sleepwalk here; you will fall into a pothole.

My Chicago friend told me over a crawfish boil this spring that the only person he has in the world to talk about all this -- this Thing -- is his third-grade daughter.

At night, they talk. No one else understands the thousand-yard stare and the apoplectic frustration of not being here to be a part of this. It's that song: "Do you know what it means . . . ?"

Yes, we do.

As Ernesto wobbled its precarious path over the weekend, my wife and I secured our papers, discussed our options, made our evacuation plans.

"Is this how we're going to live?" she asked me and I don't think I answered her directly but instead offered only a shrug -- not of disregard or defiance or even determination, but a simple motion of the head to look around the room, our house, our home and absorb what we've got here.

It's not another day in paradise, not by any means. And I am tired of the trash and the theft and the blame, just like everybody else.

But there's something about being here that makes you feel alive. I mean, if offered a chance to be one of those guys who raised the flag on Iwo Jima, you'd take it, wouldn't you?

That's kind of what this is. A shot at glory.

There are tough hours, tough days, tough weeks at a time but underneath all our sorrow is the power of community and the common good.

I remember sitting on my front stoop near the end of the first week of September last year when a disheveled and seemingly disoriented guy pulled up in front of me in his pickup truck. He had Michigan plates and was pulling a boat behind him.

"Which way?" he shouted to me. "Who's in charge here?" he said.

I had to laugh at that part. No one's in charge, I told him. But if he wanted to put that boat to good use, I said: "Keep going straight and you'll hit the water."

He nodded. And then he started crying. "I'm sorry I took so long, man," he told me. "I got here as fast as I could." And he drove off.

I saw him two days later on Canal Street, looking fresh and invigorated. He had been rescuing people and pets ever since I'd seen him.

From time to time, I talk to a retired New York City fireman named Jim Kearney on the phone. He has made several trips here and to the Mississippi Coast to give free massage therapy to first responders, rescue workersand volunteer house-gutters.

He says that every time he goes back to New York, he flounders with a sense of loss of purpose and direction. He says his friends who have volunteered to work here feel the same way.

"They go through their own grieving hell when they leave New Orleans," he said to me. "It's like leaving the Titanic for a safe distant shore -- and leaving all the people behind. There is such a dissonance between what's going on down there and everywhere else in America. Everyone in New Orleans is going around with a spike stuck in their heads and they don't know how to get it out."

He paused and said: "You all are amazing people to be doing what you're doing."

And he's right. We are.

Tens of thousands of other volunteers like him have discovered this, too. They have come by the bus and plane load to help us help ourselves and the ship is far from righted but, one year into this, we're trudging forward.

Moving on, moving up.

It's impossible to thank all these people who have come from far away places. It's impossible even to know who they are anymore, so many have come and gone and they come still and again.

There is only one way to properly express our gratitude to the masses, to show them that what they have done is not wasted time and effort. To show them that we are worth it.

And that is by succeeding.

. . . . . . .

Columnist Chris Rose can be reached at chris.rose@timespicayune.com, or (504) 826-3309, or (504) 352-2535.

 

secondlineno at 12:55:08 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 1 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

 

I got a wonderful letter from a reader last week, a New Orleans native.  She wrote to tell me how much she appreciated my article about going on tranquilizers (now that’s a REAL old school term!) to deal with my post-Katrina stress syndrome and my delight at the arrival of the National Guard to help bring some stability to this insanity.  She even went as far as to post it on the Times Picayune website forum where several locals read it and praised my newbie-on-the-scene-gets-it analysis of life at Ground Zero.  At the end of her correspondence, she announced,

“I officially anoint you as a bona fide LOCAL!  Heaven knows you earn it every hour of every day!. Congratulations!”  

Wow!  A local!  Let me just tell you, that’s a highly prized, very exclusive, hard to earn title – especially coming from a native!  I just passed my one year anniversary – or I should say ‘made’ one year here, as the locals say, and I feel like I went through Dante’s Inferno.  You damn right I earned that title!  I’m a New Orleanian baby, come hell and high water!   

Being a local is earned.  But being able to say you’re a native – well, now that’s priceless.  And having generations before you come from here?  Forgedaboutit.  In New Orleans, that’s ‘Imperial’ status.  Unfortunately though, there are a few imperialists here who will let you know that, in their book, if you’re not from here, you can just keep it moving... 

I was first made aware of the non-native/non-relevant status at a Superbowl party last winter.  The host was introducing me to his guests and brought me before a pearls and tweed pants-wearing sister (tweed and pearls at a Superbowl party- I’m not quite sure what was going on there…)  So I said in my eager-beaver-Cali-girl way, “Hi!  I’m Deborah.”  She responded as if I’d just made a flagrant faux pas,

“Last name?”

“Uh…oh...Cotton?” I heard myself ask.

Her eyes veiled over and she dismissed me - albeit politely of course, with a practiced smile.  It seemed since I didn’t have an ‘eux’ or ‘aux’ or ‘ette’ at the end of my name, I was of no interest to Ms. La Tweed.  I’d never had anyone openly inquire about my people’s name a.k.a. pedigree, and I was so shocked I couldn’t decide whether to gasp or laugh out loud.  I walked away instead.  But I thought about for days afterwards.

Now don’t get me wrong - the majority of born and bred New Orleanians aren’t discourteous hussies….  But nonetheless, when you’re not from here and you find yourself in a social setting with natives and locals, you invariably feel a sort of clannish vibe just below the surface of it all. 

Now, however, there seems to be a new social rule emerging.  Now if you’re here and you went through Katrina and more importantly decided to return to New Orleans– well shoot…that’s instant street cred!  You’re in!  It’s the all-access ghetto pass. 

New Orleanians remind me of Jews in this way.  I can talk to a Jew forever and receive consistently formal, courteous responses.  But if I tell them my mother’s Jewish, jaws drop, followed by, “Well, why didn’t you SAY SO?!?”  After which they try to introduce me to their single sons, offer me jobs, bring me noodle kugel, and give me same day doctor appointments.  Here in New Orleans, I tell people I’m a journalist and they put me on ‘ignore’.  But if I add that I moved here before the hurricane and returned soon afterward and stayed, I’m immediately hustled into the sacred inner circle of Katrina survivors.  I’m family, a member of the tribe, patted on my back, and told “welcome into the fold.”

But I’m starting to see that, rather than stripes earned, being a local is really more about a worldview that comes from living in the inverted universe of New Orleans.  Sooner or later, after spending too much time here, you begin thinking, acting, and speaking in ways that before would have seemed preposterous to you – or, at the very least, confused.  It just sorta sneaks up on you.  I recognized just recently the extent of my indoctrination when I ran across an article, originally posted in the Gambit newspaper, about how to tell if you’re a New Orleanian.  Native or not, these have now become my truths too: 

YOU KNOW YOU ARE FROM NEW ORLEANS IF…

Someone says "Magazine" and you think ‘street’ instead of ‘periodical’.

You get on a bus marked "Cemeteries" without a second thought.

You know the Irish Channel is not a Gaelic-language station on cable.

You can cross two lanes of heavy traffic and U-turn through the neutral ground while avoiding two joggers and a streetcar, then fit into the oncoming traffic flow without ever touching the brake.

The major topics of conversation when you go out to eat are restaurant meals that you have had in the past and restaurant meals that you plan to have in the future.

You not only think the colors purple, green and gold look good together, but you would also consider eating something that was those colors.

You know the definition of "dressed" means lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise.

You think `drinking water' when you look at the Mississippi River.

The white stuff on your face really is powdered sugar.

You know that a po-boy is not a guy who has no money, but a great-tasting sandwich on French bread.

The four seasons of your year are crawfish, shrimp, crab and ‘erster’.

You refer to any strawberry soda as "Red Drink", as in “Let me have a red drink to go with my po' boy."

You visit another city and they "claim" to have Cajun food -- but you know better.

You don’t worry when you see ships riding higher in the river than your house.

You hear the word ‘zink’ and think ‘place to wash your dishes’ rather than ‘vitamin supplement’.

You have a parade ladder in your storage.

You know that the two speeds in this city are "slow" and "stop".

You are neither shocked nor bothered by sightings of people navigating traffic with a beer in one hand and the other on the steering wheel

You wouldn’t think of going down to Bourbon Street – except to go to Galatoire’s

Someone says “Where ya at?” and you respond “Doing Good!” instead of giving your location.

You consider a Bloody Mary a light breakfast.

You have your own monogrammed go-cup.

You really believe this year, the Saints could go all the way!

Originally published on www.eurweb.com  July 6, 2006

secondlineno at 7:35:54 PM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

 

<Xavier Prep School Band>

Tipitina's had a street party yesterday – they threw their annual ‘Instruments A Comin’ Schools Brass Band Show on the corner of Tchoupitoulas and Louisiana.  So fun – I love anything country like that where you drive your ride up onto the neutral ground, order up some seafood dressing from a home cook on the sidewalk named Ms. Mae, and walk around with a draft beer, cooling off at the end of a scorching late summer's day. 

Tip’s Foundation awarded the New Orleans Public Schools music programs with $500,000 worth of new instruments yesterday.  I got there in time to catch Xavier Prep All Girls School Band and McDonough 35 High.  The sisters of Xavier Prep represented, all with their little brass horns, doing their ‘I’ma big girl’ fass dance moves in their homely yellow, white and black plaid uniforms.  TOO CUTE!

One of the girls, Kirby, has been playing the melophone for four years.  Her two sisters also are in the band – tuba and trombone.  The tuba is to Black New Orleans music what the bass guitar is to R&B bands in the rest of Black America – it's what drives the funk.   And to see these young girls rocking these instruments normally dominated by men was really inspiring.  Kirby summed up her joy at doing the show on Katrina’s anniversary.  “After Katrina, people didn’t have much to look forward to.  The band is what’s it.” 

When I asked her what she meant by ‘The band is what’s it’, she just repeated the line knowingly, like one of those old seasoned Black musicians that aint gonna explain nothing to you on your terms - you got to break your mentality down and get your understanding on THEIR terms. 

Then Rebirth took the outdoor stage and got e’erbody and they momma dancing.  The interesting thing about dance culture in New Orleans is that everyone can Second Line, White people same as Black people.  White people here genuinely got that Black New Orleans rhythm in ‘em.  I have to stop myself from staring when I see a White man in seersucker shorts and polo shirt break out with the Funky Butt – and looks right doing it!  Another one of those ‘Only in New Orleans’ deals.

I spoke with Shemar Allen of Rebirth after their show.  His house was in the Ninth Ward – gone now.  He’s living in Atlanta, commuting for shows with the band.  “I’m in Atlanta in the middle of music project, doing production for a rap group  called ‘The Outfit Cartel’.  Since last year, he’s been driving back and forth from Georgia, to Louisiana and into Texas and Oklahoma where his family is spread out. 

Just don’t go getting all Andre 2000 on us, going too far off on your personal projects…  Admittedly, I’m one of those hyper-sensitive New Orleanians that fears they're being rejected every time someone chooses to stay someplace else rather than come back here and rough it with the rest of us. 

“I don’t want to leave New Orleans,” he reassures inquiring local number 1,399.  “I love the band – it made me who I am.  The city’s coming back.  It’s slow – like tortoise slow.  Not even turtle slow - its tortoise slow.  But it’s progress.  I’m a keep coming back.” 

Did I mention how fine he is?  Just dark chocolate brown and magical dreadlocks -Lordy!  My weakness.  Swore off that type years ago when a guy with similar looks broke my heart. 

Other performing artists at Tipitina’s last night included Ivan Neville, members of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Troy Andrews and Orleans Avenue, and the Soul Rebels Brass Band.  But I missed them - being fass, chasing up behind Rebirth who moved on to the Maple Leaf Bar…

I know, I know…  Whadaya gonna do…

<Shemar Allen of Rebirth Brass Band>

secondlineno at 12:10:51 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

secondlineno at 12:10:14 PM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 1 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

i am watched alot of the anniversary programming that was shown over the last few days.  i am so upset by what is REALLY being done.  i mean under the surface, what the true motives are.  now i ask you what can we who dont live in N O do to protest this remodeling of the city.  what can we do?  i am very angry and saddened that people will take advantage again of this misery.
Comment from sharentu4 - 8/30/06 6:49 AM

 

********************************************************************************************

 

Hey sister,

Thanks for writing in.  Part of the pain and frustration I’ve felt for many, many months was over the same issue – the planned closure of Black neighborhoods.  But a lot has changed in the last couple of months.

Because residents and organizations pushed back so hard on this issue, and because the City Administration really doesn’t have the will or skill to go through with the plan they initiated which was to ‘shrink the footprint’ of the city by closing neighborhoods like the Ninth Ward and New Orleans East, the Mayor announced in July that they are allowing “ALL” neighborhoods to rebuild. 

Since then, neighborhood organizations have been pulling together to create plans of how they want their neighborhoods to be rebuilt – where to put schools, parks, bus lines, etc…  The city got funding from the Rockefeller Foundation to give each neighborhood association a professional planning group to help their process.  Granted there are still many problems to work out, but it’s a better foundation to start from.  And the will of the people is very strong and they are fighting tooth and nail to get theirs.

Now – how YOU can get involved out there in the diaspora/displaced community:  I would encourage you to contact ACORN – if you’re from New Orleans, I know you know who they are.  They not only are doing really terrific work to organize people in the displaced community to get involved, but they are actually one of the hired planning groups.  So they can help you to get as involved as you want to be.  I know personally two of the lead organizers Steven Bradberry and Tanya Harris and they are very aggressive about helping our brothers and sisters get their voices heard and ultimately get back home. 

FYI, there is also a project being worked out now between the city planning groups and several organizations to create a 2-way communication system for people in the displaced community to participate in their neighborhood planning meetings through several different communication methods including internet forums and video-teleconferencing.  I think it’s very exciting because wherever you are, there will be a way for you to participate in the rebuilding of your neighborhood.

Below is ACORN’s information.  I am also including the contact info for a couple of other organizations that are really good resources for people in the displaced community.  Good luck and come home soon,baby.

New Orleans ACORN
1024 Elysian Fields Ave
New Orleans, LA 70117
Phone: 504-943-0044
Fax: 504-943-3842
www.acorn.org
laacornno@acorn.org

Jeremiah Group
2028 Paxton St
Harvey, LA 70058
(504) 328-1784

ACT - All Congregations Together  
2301 Gallier Street  
New Orleans , LA 70117  
Phone: (504) 495-5338
www.actnola.org

www.louisianarebuilds.info – a great website for information on resources available to Hurricane Katrina survivors.

secondlineno at 11:04:11 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 1 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

GOD!  I was reborn!

Rebirth Brass Band – they are all their name suggests.  Their regular night is Tuesday at Maple Leaf and, as the god’s would have it, the anniversary of our worst moment in our city’s history fell within their jurisdiction.  No one could have put a better end to our day of reckoning and reaffirmation of survival than this collection of brothers and their hard-driving alpha horn melodies.  The place was a fire hazard two times over, bodies pressed and climbing over and around each other, screaming, writhing, applauding the heavens for saving those of us there.  It was life at its fullest.

Today, the city was full of concerts and speeches and reunions and marches and – life.  I’ve always had faith in New Orleans surviving this and flourishing again.  But today showed me what these people are made of.  Hurt feelings, frustrations, feeling like victims, lost and turned out – whatever!  We are rebuilding this city with every damn neighborhood in it.

The will of the people is stronger than our elected leaders.  I believe we’ll be a lesson for the rest of the Red Voting, consumerism occupied, spoon-feed-me-my directions-please country. 

And the fact that it’s a majority Black community that’s embodying this spirit makes me very proud, I gotta admit. 

secondlineno at 2:57:27 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 1 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

Mr. John Mullen From The Lower Nine

Went to the Ninth Ward this morning for the memorial.  There was a dedication in front of the levee walls.  Hundreds upon hundreds of white candles, like the little Jewish Yahrtzeit memorial ones.  Drummers, led by Luther Gray, lead the crowd alongside the wall to the altar.  The media was out there like Hollywood.  It was the most media I’ve ever seen in New Orleans since the flood.  And they were being really intrusive.  Racing over to talk to people who went to the levee wall to pay their respects or have a private moment, 100 or so cameras clicking away forever it seemed, getting every sigh, every tear drop, every intimate exchange between families of the neighborhood.  It turned me off, shut me down so, I put my own camera and notepad away and just meditated on the memorial.  I guess the national attention is a double edged sword.  While we certainly need the rest of the country to stay aware and keep us a priority, having reporters descend upon the perceived suffering and jamming cameras and microphones into their faces, asking inane questions…  just made it all feel shallow and distorted.

One news reporter from NBC World News, I forgot his name – he approached a black woman who was standing in front of the levee wall.   He’s in a Hound’s tooth jacket and Eddie Bauer Dockers and, in this very official newsworthy voice, asks her, “So…what do you call this particular neighborhood?”

WTF!?!  As if there’s a chance in hell he doesn’t know he’s in the NinthWard!  C’mon man!  I just groaned and walked away, I was so mortified – people like him make it hard for people like me to do my job.  What a nudnik!

As I left the NBC nudnik withhis Ninth Wards specimen, an elder Black man walking alongside me struck up a conversation.  We asked one another about our respective neighborhoods.  He told me he’s from the Ninth Ward, Winthrop Street at Tonti.  I said, “So, what’s going on with your house?”  He smiled.

“Gone.”

“You gon’ rebuild it?”

“Oh yeah….  See, the trick to living down here is…”

He waited with dramatic pause for me to lean in, which of course, I did.  If he’s got the secret to success for living in the Ninth Ward, I need to hear about it.

“The trick to living down here is…you gotta have a boat,” he says triumphantly, like it was the most logical, practical solution to the community’s problems.

“Really?  So, if you have a boat, you’ll move back?”

“Oh yeah.  I aint scared of no hurricanes, aint scared a no levees.  I can swim.  Just need a boat.”

He was so full of smiles and personality.  He reminded me of a 65 year old country fisherman version of James Evans. 

He is John Mullen, retired 6th grade teacher from MLK.  He told me about riding the storm, his house flooding.  Said there was a boat up in the telephone wires.  He and some other guys climbed out of their attics, on to the roofs, pulling themselves with the phone lines through the water until they reached the boat.  They were able to save 18 people.  He was telling me all this with the mischief of a college boy recounting a wild keg party. 

We walked over to his car for him to show me his photo album.  “I took 16 rolls of film at the Convention Center.”  He smiled a sneaky grin, “Some friends thought I was depressed so they commandeered me a camera and some film.” 

“That’s my neighbor,” he pointed.  “When we got to San Antonio, he was arrested for what?  Shoplifting!  Aint got nothing but one hand!” he snorted.  On closer inspection, I realized that guy’s arm wasn’t bent at the elbow, but completely missing from the elbow down. 

“And these two old people,” he said pointing to an image of two old folks with wild, uncombed hair, “they married.  They had Alzheimer’s.  I didn’t know it and took the husband off with me to find a phone.  Then he disappeared.  I had to go back and tell his wife that I lost her husband.”

He’s such a character, telling me these stories.  I’m focused on him like he’s TV.

“So what’d she say?”

“She said, ‘Take me to go find him.’  And I did  - and lost her too!  That’s when I realized they were both out there,” he loops his finger away from his head.  “They came back though.”

Every picture he showed me were of his neighbors, all with some wild footnote story attached, adding a funny hook to the catastrophe they all went through together.      

Folks like Mr. Mullen are the reason the Ninth Ward holds such a soft spot in my heart.  Although the press beehive was swarming to the extent I couldn’t have my own process of reckoning with all the souls I’ve met there through my interviews, the shattered empty homes that have become as familiar and beloved a neighborhood to me as my grandmomma’s hometown, I was blessed with a different kind of reckoning through Mr. Mullen.  This hurricane year is toughening my skin, showing me again and again the power of laughter in the face of tragedy.  I don’t have it down yet.  But I’ve made up my mind to try and get there. 

 

 Memorial Erected In the Lower Ninth Ward on Claiborne Ave.

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Well, tomorrow promises to be a big day full of tears and laughter and remembrance and closure.  Below are some of the events I’ll be attending. 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 29 HURRICANE KATRINA ANNIVERSARY

MEMORIAL EVENTS

Ceremonial Bell-Ringing and Wreath-Laying City Hall, 1300 Perdido St. The bells will ring for two minutes, signifying the levee breaches, 9:38 a.m. Simultaneously, City Council members lay wreaths on levees throughout the city.

WREATH LAYING IN LOWER NINTH WARD

Tuesday, August 29, 2006  9:15PM @ Tennessee and N. Claiborne near Monument

Council Member Cynthia Willard- Lewis with residents, religious and community leaders, and internationally renowned jazz musician Marlon Jordan.  Jordan will lead the procession onto the Claiborne Bridge while playing “A Closer Walk with Thee.”

9:10AM
Procession – Lead by internationally renowned jazz musician Marlon Jordan playing               “A Closer Walk with Thee” accompanied by National Guard Color Guard

9:23AM
Occasion – Council Member Cynthia Willard - Lewis

9:25AM
Opening Prayer

9:27AM
Musical Selection - “Wade In The Water”

9:32AM – 9:37AM
Blessing of the Water – Rev. Joe Campion, St. Maurice Catholic Church

9:38AM-9:40AM
WREATH LAYING INTO INDUSTRIAL CANAL – National Guard will play “Taps”

9:41AM – 9:50AM
Comments by Public Officials

Great Flood Memorial March Assemble at Jordan and North Galvez streets. March from the levee break in the Lower 9th Ward to Congo Square, in conjunction with the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and other groups, 10 a.m.-1. At Congo Square, commemoration activities continue with music and remarks by leaders.

One New Orleans Jazz Funeral Procession Honoring first responders and led by Lt. Gen. Russel Honore from the Convention Center to the Superdome, 2 p.m. The procession will include first responders, national, state and local elected officials, dignitaries, jazz musicians and the community at large.

Tipitina's Instruments A Comin' Ceremony Tipitina's, 501 Napoleon Ave. New Orleans public schools music programs will receive $500,000 worth of new instruments for their band programs from the Tipitina's Foundation. Performing artists include Ivan Neville, members of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Troy Andrews and Orleans Avenue, the Rebirth Brass Band, Soul Rebels Brass Band and others, 5. Free. Call 895-8477.

Remembrance & ReBirth Contemporary Arts Center, 900 Camp St. Multidisciplinary event consisting of exhibits, "Where Y'at," photos from the New Orleans Kids Camera Project, drawings from the Katrina Kids Project, and "Newer Orleans" an exploration of Dutch architectural solutions to rebuilding challenges; the dance performance "Ocean of Light" by the Battery Dance Company and Happensdance; work by New Orleans performance artists; music by the Rebirth Brass Band; and tributes to community leaders, 6-10. Tickets are $10, $5 members, free for children younger than 14.

Let the Circle Be Unbroken Ashe Cultural Arts Center, 1712 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. Town hall meeting on the future of the city and closing ceremonies, 6:30-9:30.

NIGHTCLUBS & CONCERTS

"New Orleans: Rebuilding the Soul of America . . . One Year Later" Concert with Stevie Wonder, Dr. John, Kirk Franklin, Yolanda Adams, Kim Burrell and co-organizer Wynton Marsalis and his septet, 6-8 p.m. Tickets are $35-$250 through Ticketmaster or the Arena box office, 587-3822. New Orleans Arena, 1501 Girod St.

Bullet's Sports Bar 2441 AP Tureaud Ave., 948-4003. Kermit Ruffins & the Barbecue Swingers, 6. No cover.

Maple Leaf Bar 8316 Oak St., 866-9359. Rebirth Brass Band, 10:30.

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