Odometer Update: Day 6

There are 117 new miles on the odometer.  It took three days of nonesuch to rack them up.  What did I do?

On Wednesday, I went to Sam's Club in Metarie.  It wasn't to buy food.  As someone who doesn't mind shopping at the grocery to pick up the night's fixings, I get overwhelmed buying anything by the case.  I went to buy some printer paper.  I like to go between 7:00 and 9:00 AM, business hours.  I don't bat an eye when I see a convenience store owner stocking up on cases of Snickers bars.  When I see a mother of three buying them, I have to pause and wonder why.  I prefer not to wonder about these things.

I donned full motorcycle armor for my trip to Sam's Club.  Padded jacket, thick pants with padding in the knees, and my Combat Touring Boots (pictured above).  The lady of the house asked where I was going.  I replied, "On business."  I wanted maximum protection because I intended to open up the Littlest Ninja and let it scream a bit on Earhart Highway.  Neither the Ninja nor I have had a chance to really fly the past few months, so I thought it would enjoy having its pipes cleaned.  Top speed was only 80mph, I'm too used to topping out at 45mph in city traffic.  The Littlest Ninja would have gone faster if allowed, but I had to reign it in.  I guess I'm too old to go 110mph anymore.  It's a good thing, I suppose.

Thursday, I went to the bank.  That's not really all I did, but the rest is just as dull.  My errands took long looping turnarounds.  I went to Terranova's Market on the way home, but they were closed.  I suspect they don't want to deal with the many, many, many people who are converging on the farther end of  Esplanade Avenue for Jazzfest.  It is a regular clot of pedestrians, bicyclists, and out-of-town cabs up there.  My end of the street isn't so much affected, but I do notice an uptick in traffic when I look out my window.

Friday led to a trip to New Orleans East.  The lady of he house wanted to take a little ride.  I wanted to go out to Saint Bernard Parish to open up the throttle on some empty roads, but its too much hassle to get there with one of the bridges to the Lower 9th Ward closed for repairs.  I said, "I'll take you to a place you never imagined is in the city."  We went along Old Gentilly Road in the East, where all New Orleans' motor vehicles go when they die.  We saw a fleet of discarded city buses lined end to end in the swamp with nowhere to go.  The lady's verdict, "It's so ugly out here."

No motorcycle today.  We used the pedal kind to go to the Prytania Theater to see the noon showing of "Marnie."  We went down to the Central Business District to take Annunciation Street to Audubon Park for a picnic lunch pre-screening.  To get home, we took Jefferson Davis Parkway.  Total milage: 15.

Pink elephants and white elephants.

Seen in City Park the other night.

I'm a bit discombobulated today and behind schedule.  Spent a few hours learning about Holy Cross, a neighborhood in the Lower 9th Ward.  Lowernine.org is an organization I ran into on my first preliminary visit to New Orleans.  I detailed it sometime in mid-May but it's too late in the day to link to that post beyond pointing you in the general direction.

Laura Paul tells me that the organization is putting on a second line celebration on December 19th.  My usual cursory scan of their website doesn't provide any ready information but I'll be checking in regularly and will post the details when I'm aware of them.

In other news, the Times-Picayune reported on how the RTA will be looking into building a line from Canal down South Rampart Street and St. Claude with a spur down Elysian Fields.  It doesn't appear on nola.com's front page and a search of "streetcar" yielded the most current result dated in June, 2009.  Nice work T-P!   For local news, a "hard freeze" on the North Shore is considered more interesting, featured front and center under "New Orleans news" than a neighborhood expansion of mass transit.

A line will be built along Loyola Avenue between the train station and Canal Street, a little over a mile long.  While I'm not one to criticize the current administration, this is the project that won federal funding.  While this line will be convenient for people going to the Superdome from Canal Street, saving them a fifteen minute walk, it will do little to knit the city any denser.

St. Claude may not be the prettiest street but it is picturesque.  Making it more accessible would spur more development than taking what pedestrians there are off Loyola's sidewalks.  A streetcar line down St. Claude would make the already attractive Treme, Faubourg Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods more attractive.  The proposed streetcar line will be a bit too far from my new home to hold too much appeal to me, but I am sure more people would benefit than from another line sequestered downtown.  I wish the RTA the best of luck pulling this off.  It's needed.

And with that gentle readers, I bid you good night and pleasant dreams.
WK

The gods are not crazy

Who hates Bloody Kansas?  There are worse places and there are also much better.  I can't comment on Nebraska.

The saints have special favor for Louisiana, New Orleans in particular, and I don't mean the football team.  A glance at the television shows me that the Saints are playing the Bengals today, and winning at this point.  No surprise.  I wonder if the Saints will be in the Super Bowl this year.  Evidence of their 2009 victory season is everywhere in this city.

There are two topics of conversation in this city: Katrina and the Saints.  Other subjects crop up, don't get me wrong, but if you are an eavesdropper like I am you'll hear talk of these two things more than any other.  I shouldn't find this surprising since both are an ongoing presence.  The Saints, of course, play every weekend so its natural they should be brought up regularly.  I'm used to living in Boston, a sports-obsessed town if there ever was one.

Boston has the Celtics (basketball), the Bruins (hockey), the Red Sox (baseball), and the Patriots (football).  New Orleans has the Saints (football) and the Hornets (basketball).  I never hear anyone talk about the Hornets.  Never.  I wonder how the Hornets feel about that.

The federal levee failures that occurred during Hurricane Katrina have been patched and the floodwaters pumped out.  The aftershocks are evident everywhere though.   Most of the neighborhoods I frequent don't show obvious signs, but if you listen to people talk, as I do (my ears are bent), the psychic effects continue to linger.  People talk about where they were and what they did after the storm.  They talk about how they rebuilt and how they are still rebuilding.  Visit places like Hollygrove or the Ninth Ward, not even the Lower 9th, and you can see the physical wounds to the infrastructure and civic fabric without needing to eavesdrop.

I am at a loss when anyone wants to discuss either subject.  I don't follow sports and I wasn't here for the event that unravelled New Orleans' tightly knit tapestry.  To me, everything is new and just as it has always been.  I get my knowledge of the past city through books and archives.  Pre-K New Orleans is viewed only through microfiche.  Armed with what I've gleaned, I can say that New Orleans is resilient. Its citizens do not know how to bow.  This is a place where funerals are commemorated with parades rather than tearful wakes.  It is that never-say-die, never-give-in, never-give-up-hope spirit that inspires me in its turn.  I may have what seems a superficial take on things.  My newness is my alibi.  In time, I will absorb more.  More of the city's spirit will fill in the chinks of my own.

New Orleans, despite hardship that would break an innocent's heart, does more than survive.  It thrives.  Whatever gods may hate Kansas or any other state in the Union, they shower bounty on New Orleans.  It is a city of animal spirits afoot and a'prowl.  If anything comes easily in New Orleans, it is a smile and a chance to talk about why this is the greatest city on earth.  And it is getting better.  The proof is everywhere, discussed within earshot of anyone sensible enough to listen.  I listen and learn.

Today is the second Sunday of Advent but everyone is thinking about Mardi Gras.

My last post left the impression that I adore all women, and I do.  I would much rather spend my time with members of the fairer sex than with men.  All shapes, all sizes, all ages; a woman is a wonderful thing rather than a sometime thing.  Just to keep my masculine credentials intact, though, here is something that I could watch all day long...


Not much of a New Orleans connection except the saxophones.  It is cut and paste electronica rather than the instrumental craft that New Orleans musicians spend lifetimes mastering.  Unlike the song, New Orleans' destination is not unknown.  The future is brighter and better than anything that has happened before.  When you are in New Orleans, you are not far from home.  You are there.  I am and I am glad for that.

New Orleans is a blessing

You may have noticed that the past few day's I haven't been writing up any lengthy reports.  I'm too busy living in New Orleans.  Words can't capture the experiences.  Greater writers than I have tried to describe what it is like to  be alive in this wonderful city and they've failed.  What dram of insight can I add?

I'm not despairing at my lack of ability.  Rather, I am reveling in it.  Bombarded with so many sights, smells, sounds, tastes, changes in air pressure and temperature... Blinkered by sudden shocks and delights and mysteries around every corner...  Besotted by kaleidoscopes and cornucopia and cacophony in the light of day and the dead of night...  I am rendered dumb by the mixture of joy, beauty and resilience that courses through New Orleans' neighborhoods, main streets, side streets, alleys and concourses.  The tap rooms and living rooms, the shops, the libraries, the front porches, the riverfront, the parks, the markets, the offices and their lobbies...all of New Orleans is soaked through with the sustaining ether that pervades every action and every moment.

Rather than write, I live for the moment in the moment.  I am delirious, dizzy and devil-may-care.  If a city can be a sinful place, New Orleans is a blessing.  I am not debauching or pursuing hedonistic, libertine delights.  I am going about my business, running errands and sharing conversations with my fellow citizens in this most delightful metropolis in the whole, wide world, a place where the mundane is magical and the miraculous is more common than pennies on the sidewalk.

If you've never been to New Orleans, everything you've heard, positive or negative, is true but bigger, better, more robust and vibrant.  If you've spent an hour here, you know what I'm talking about.  If you were sitting next to me we'd nudge each other and wink in agreement.

'Nuff said.
WK

New Orleans dream

From the Man of La Mancha:

“To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow, to run where the brave dare not go. To right the unrightable wrong, to love pure and chaste from afar, to try when your arms are too weary, to reach the unreachable star. This is my quest: to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far.”


I live in New Orleans.  My dream has come true.  I have followed my star and reached it.  It's like walking on the moon.   


The city has seen tough times, tougher than I'll never know.  I just got here.  There are tough times ahead.  Heck, I spent time in St. Roch today (look at those street names in the first paragraph of this link!).  While I don't always agree with the methods Mayor Mitch Landrieu is employing, I admire his vision.  I understand that after the dismally unaccountable Nagin administration, a climate change is necessary to build trust.  As a new New Orleanian, I'll try to do my part to make a better life for myself and for my new home.  


I don't think there's a better city in the world.  If I feel like Don Quixote sometimes, it's only because I don't share Sancho Panza's point of view.  There is little wiggle room for cynicism in a city robustly overflowing with hope and creative passion.  

I wouldn't dream of living anywhere else now.  I'm home.

A human metropolis

I visited Bayou Bienville again, a melancholy visit.  I've been to this part of the Lower Ninth Ward before but this morning didn't make it any less surreal to see.  I brought company with me this time and while we sat on the levee overlooking the brackish marsh that is Bayou Bienville, my companion could only say, "This is such a lonely place."

Lonely indeed.  Not only is the bayou an expanse of unrippled algae mats punctuated by decades-old, dead cypress stumps; in the other direction are the overgrown, abandoned blocks of the north side of the Lower Ninth Ward.  The land isn't totally abandoned to nature, but the scrub grass and shrubbery are running a slow motion, quiet riot over evidence of civilization.  Bushes overtake half the roadways.  We turned down one street and had to turn back, the pavement had dissolved into muddy, impassable sink holes.  It is quiet in this part of New Orleans.  Too quiet.  There are inhabited homes scattered along the remaining grid of streets but they are few and far between.  It must be lonely to live there, especially if, half a decade ago, you were used to having neighbors.

I stopped for gas on North Claiborne Avenue and found the best price I've had the pleasure to pay in a long, long while: $2.34 for a gallon.  While filling the tank everyone who walked past between pumps and cashier said hello.  Even in this part of New Orleans where the evidence of tragedy is self-evident for anyone with eyes to see, people partake of common courtesy and humanity.  As usual, we chatted motorcycles and weather while the gas pumps filled our tanks, mine much quicker than anyone else's.

"Hope you don't get caught in the rain," one man said.  "No thunderheads yet," I replied, looking up. "Not yet, but they're coming.  Keep dry," he answered.  "Will do.  You too," I said.

We took North Claiborne home.  My companion said, "The Ninth Ward is still devastated so many years after the fact."  I couldn't do anything but agree.  The further you get from downtown in that direction the more proof you see that work needs to be done.  Tourists don't see it.  We don't really see it where we live, but the wounds inflicted on the city remain deep and raw, undressed.  If they are being addressed, it is a slow process and most probably a painful one.  It is a black mark against the federal government's reputation as much as the oil slick currently polluting the Gulf of Mexico.

I have a lot to learn about my new city, the good about it as well as the less so.  I remember my New Orleans moment on the corner of Humanity and Metropolitan Streets.  I hate to keep bringing it up but it cemented my view of this city, one that is bittersweet yet full of hope and the scope of life.  I am a stranger in a strange land yet I feel I'm home even if I don't speak the language fluently.  Sure, I'm part poseur and neophyte.  Sure, I romanticize what I experience.  Struck with so much culture shock traveling from block to block, how can I be anything else?   I cannot apologize for being what I am not.  Like New Orleans, I can only strive to be better than what I am today.  Time will take the measure of this man as it will take the measure of this city in the face of all odds against it.

With Union, Justice, and Confidence,
WK
Qui Transtulit Sustinet.

Lower 9th Ward

I was reading in the Times-Picayune yesterday morning about how New Orleans has more blighted buildings than any other American city.  The number is going down, but I can attest that I think this statistic is probably true without my having visited  many other cities.  Empty buildings and lots are everywhere, more in some places than in others.

They are in Central City and Mid-City.  They are in Gentilly.  They are in the Ninth ward and they are in the Lower Ninth Ward, unsurprisingly.  I try to make it a point not to groove off other people's misery, but when visiting the Lower Ninth, it's hard not to be sad.  Happily, there is a lot of activity and renovation going on.  I visited last August and I could see differences for the better today.  There's still a long way to go.

The work seems to be progressing from the Mississippi inland.  North of North Claiborne Avenue has been mostly replaced by wilderness. I took Alabo Street and it was like passing through the Bayou Sauvage Wildlife Refuge in the North part of the city except for the house foundations left in the tall grass and the telephone poles still laid out in the neighborhood's former grid.  There are a few refurbished houses scattered along the streets, but most of this area has reverted to grassland.  Surreally enough, there is a new playground on Roffignac Street to serve the three houses across the street.  Built for future better days.

I climbed the levee to see Bayou Bienville north of the Lower Ninth.  A wet landscape of cypress ghosts.  A sign showed what the Louisiana coastline looked like 100 years ago compared to today.  When people argue that the environmental catastrophes in Louisiana are not natural disasters but man made ones, they are right.  A comparison to how much delta shoreline has disappeared in a century leaves no doubt.

I saw what were presumably volunteers working on damaged homes and I stumbled across the Lower 9th Ward Village, a community center for the neighborhood.  Nice folks.  They need to update the building's photo on the website though.  It's much nicer looking now than when that picture was taken.

I don't know if I would say it's very sad in the Lower Ninth but it got to me after awhile.  It's far from a cheerful setting.  The people who live there were uniformly friendly while they were going about their business, waving to me as I passed.  I stopped for a sno ball at a truck and passed the time with the other people gathered in the shade.  It was the usual motorcycle conversation:  "Is that a 600?"  No, only 250cc.  "250! I've never heard of a 250cc Ninja!"  It's the most popular model, maybe because it's the cheapest.  "What's it cost?  $6000?"  Half that.  "I'll have to get one of those."  I recommend it.

License plate questions followed as they looked over the bike.  I described my 2000-mile, six-day trip and said I am moving here.  "Here to the Lower 9th?"  Probably not.  "Well, welcome to New Orleans anyways.  We're glad to have you."  I'm glad to be here.  Thanks.

New Englanders take note:  sno balls are like Italian ice.

On another note, if you are curious how long Elysian Fields Avenue is, it's 5.2 miles from the LSU technology center rotary at one end to where the avenue begins at North Peters Street.  From Lake to River, it runs through suburban seeming neighborhoods with their share of abandoned homes to more cluttered and busy Faubourg Marigny.  The length of Esplanade Avenue is 2.7 miles from the old mint, where it begins, to City Park, where it ends.  Beautiful street.  Degas lived there.  Probably other noteworthy people too, but the French Impressionist is the only one who's got a historical marker at the sidewalk.  For the Bostonians reading this, Esplanade is pronounced essplanAID, not essplanAHD.

In Greek mythology, the Elysian Fields were where virtuous souls went to spend their days in ease and enjoyment.  While those who inhabit New Orleans aren't yet dead, Elysium would be an apt nickname for this city.  It is a state of mind that extends to more than just this street.