New Orleans lives on in those who love the city
By WRIGHT THOMPSON
The Kansas City Star
The water’s still rising, filling up the neutral ground, washing over the restaurants where generations of families have broken bread. It’s nearing the French Quarter, sweeping away 300 years of history. For those of us who love New Orleans — people like me who’ve lived there and others who’ve just visited — it’s simply heartbreaking. Sandbags drop, helicopters circle, politicians plot and, all the while, the murky water keeps rising, impervious.
The most immediate tragedy is the loss of life, and of fortunes. But as I opened my paper on day three, I saw former mayor Marc Morial finally put words to every current or one-time New Orleanean’s worst fear.
“We’ve lost our city,” he said, sadly.
That’s the thing no one has wanted to consider. That New Orleans might be gone forever. That whatever they build in its place won’t be the same. It might look sort of similar, you know, in a studied way, but with the funky spots and easy vibes torn away. The fun of dancing at F&M’s late into the night was its organic vitality, built by time and convenience and not by corporate mandate. Some cities are created. New Orleans evolved. So for the past week, I’ve tried to find out what happened to the places special to me.
I’ve sat in front of my television, scanning the photos flashing on the screen, looking for something familiar. But nothing seems familiar. It’s like another place, some waterlogged cousin of the city I once knew. I’ve looked for Galatoires, and for Jacques-Imos, and for my friend Jeff Duncan’s house. I can’t get in touch with him. He covers the Saints so I know he’s safe, but also I know the despair he feels over an Uptown shotgun he’s lovingly turned into a dream home. I’ve tried to check on my cousin, Charles, but communication’s shoddy. Phones don’t work. All circuits are busy right now. Surely he evacuated, right? I’ve tried to find the French Quarter hotel where my father and I vacationed for the last time together. I can still see him sitting in the muggy courtyard, reading the newspaper, drinking a Diet Dr Pepper.
I look, but all I see is water. Wave upon wave of water, and of destruction, as the sea reclaims what was once hers.
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I remember walks down the French Market, café au lait in hand and sugary beignet dust on my shirt, looking up as boats passed by on the river. The water was always there, a constant threat, a heavyweight boxer taking a breather in his corner. Everyone knew that the city lived at the mercy of the gods. Maybe that’s why it was always a little off-kilter. Living on borrowed time can do that. Now, as the aerial shots show the town becoming a lake, I wonder: is that old coffee stand still there? Is Molly’s at the Market, a journo bar across the street, still serving drinks?
Or are they gone?
There were lazy days at City Park, where fathers and sons played golf. It’s reportedly under water, and my friend Colleen lives nearby. Her house was the spot of the kickingest Mardi Gras party you ever saw, with crawfish and potatoes and corn and booze flowing. The editor of the paper would show up on his bike, adding to the laid-back feel. Now, as reporters do stand-ups on hotel parking garages, I wonder: Is her house even there? Is the living room, where so many SEC football games were watched, safe?
Or are they gone?
I loved long meals at a catfish joint named Middendorf’s, along I-55, about 20 miles out of town. It was a family place. My grandparents Thompson ate there on their honeymoon, which was in New Orleans. My father and I talked of that catfish constantly, driving hours out of our way to sneak in a plate, begging to go back to the kitchen to see the old ladies deftly working filet knives, churning out paper thin strips of fish. It sat on the water, already one foot in the swamp, and, as the news cycles come and go, I wonder if I’ll ever lounge in that quaint dining room again. Are those old ladies and their restaurant dry?
Or are they gone?
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Is it all gone?
That’s the question now, a question only time can answer. New Orleans has known this was coming. It was the other shoe, but progress has a short memory.
Several years ago, I traveled down to Grand Isle, La., a barrier island that took Hurricane Katrina’s first nasty jab. It was turning into a gentrified vacation spot and no one seemed to remember that, more than a 100 years ago, it had also been just that. Then a hurricane blew it away. The sand reclaimed the island and, where glitz had stood, fishing shacks on stilts arose. I wrote a story then, about the way Louisiana history seems to be cyclical, and, as I re-read the piece yesterday, the final sentence struck me. I wrote: Where Grand Isle is going, Grand Isle has been.
That’s true for all of New Orleans. I once worked for the Times Picayune, and we often joked that the day-to-day papers were mediocre, but come a big event, the T-P rose to the challenge like the New York Times. As I’ve struggling in the past week to find bright spots, to find signs that the city might once again be the place I loved, the only thing I can cling to is the weakened but audible pulse of the newspaper.
The Times Pic, as locals it, is as much a part of that city as red beans and rice on Mondays. It often has the highest penetration rate of any metro daily in the country and, for the past few days, it’s been putting out an online edition, linking PDFs of newspaper pages on the Web site. Even with no power and shut down presses and a subscription area covered in water, the newspaper refuses to break. Its city is surely proud but not surprised.
So many people just know New Orleans for its revelry, but behind the good times is a vibrant soul. It’s in the paper, the people, the places. If you live there, even for a short time, it gets in you. Folks who haven’t been a resident for years still display those bumper stickers: “New Orleans. Proud to call it home.” The city is a state of mind as much as mortar and brick, and so, as I watch the obituaries of my favorite place on earth, I’m left with a glimmer of hope.
The city is a feeling and feelings won’t be destroyed, can’t be washed away. Sometime in the future, I plan to walk down that riverfront again, with beignet dust on my shirt, listening to the jazz filtering out of the windows. Is it gone? No. Never. In my heart, and in the hearts of countless others, New Orleans lives.
