Next week I"m heading to Gautier, MS with 34 near-strangers to spend a week *mucking out* houses and helping re-build and rejuvenate a beautiful part of the world. A friend told me he thought it would be heart breaking. I said I think sometimes you have to break your heart to learn about love again. I plan to use this blog to record my trip for myself, my family, and my friends. If you're interested in one person's perceptions, thoughts, and feelings, then come along!
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I went to New Orleans last week... certainly without planning and nearly by accident.
My friend Susan and I were on our way to Gautier, Mississippi as part of a mission trip with four Granville churches to help rebuild after the damage done by Hurricane Katrina. We were enjoying a Magnolia Springs microbrew and tamales in Jackson, MS when our server said, “Y’all ought to go to the Quarter. Things are poppin’ there.”
Next morning, we did.
And our server was right. Things were “poppin’ in the French Quarter. Bourbon Street was busy on a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon. Almost every table was full at Café du Monde and the two performance artists at the edge of Jackson Square drew a crowd of amused onlookers. Aunt Sally was pushing pralines by offering the unsuspecting, and soon-to-be addicted, tourists a small, sweet sample of sugar-coated pecans. At brunch, I dined in full splendor on the famous Pain Perdu that many restaurants in the Quarter consider a staple of Sunday brunch. Mine was made all the sweeter with a Mimosa. Champagne was back in the Quarter and all seemed right in the world.
As we walked and shopped around streets bearing their charming names -- D’Iberville, Royale, Chartres, St Peter’s -- the horrible pictures from last summer seemed so far away. Could New Orleans really be in the bad shape we keep thinking it is?
In the Virgin Records store where we each bought a kick-butt new benefit CD produced by log-time resident and pianist Allen Toussaint, Susan asked the clerk for directions to the 9th Ward. He offered to call his grandmother who was now making a business by providing tours of the well-known sights showed over-and-over again on TV. Susan politely declined in favor of our own self-guided and self-paced tour.
A quick left off the Florida Street exit took us into the clerks’ neighborhood where he lives in a FEMA trailer on his property. We were in the ghost town formerly known as Lakeview. Home after home was empty as we drove for blocks to the west and then slowly back toward the east. Many in this upper and middle class neighborhood swore to rebuild as the signs posted in yards defiantly told us “We Are Coming Back - Lakeview.”
Our hearts dropped and the day’s easy spirits of the French Quarter turned to the reality of that neighborhood. We headed on to our assignment with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance in Gautier. Leaving New Orleans on I-10 heading east, we drove through the largest ghost town in America. For more than 15 miles, each side of the Interstate was bounded by empty housing, closed store fronts, and vanishing businesses. America, known as a land of shopping malls, has one fewer these days right off I-10. Department stores and boutiques sat shuttered and cold. Even Wal-Mart was closed. The mall looked as a crowded movie theatre might about 10 minutes after someone shouted “Fire”. Apartment buildings with boarded-up windows sat row upon row. Silent houses awaited families now long gone to Baton Rouge, Houston, Atlanta and cities farther north.
It was a relief in some ways to leave New Orleans behind and continue to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Buoyed by the sunny day, we left I-10 for the more scenic route and began to follow 90 east through Waveland where mattresses, trucks, trash, and even a beat-up trailer home lay by the roadside.
We slowly drove on into Bay St. Louis and wondered where folks bought bread, milk, and other necessities as we passed three closed grocery stores. A sign announced a local shopping plaza, but all we saw was a flat parking lot with a large pile of trash at the back where the stores once offered goods to locals. Soon another sign said, “Road ends, 1500 feet.” And, sure enough, it did. Route 90 ends abruptly like a bad argument between friends just outside Bay St Louis. People come to stand and look across the expanse of water. Some take photos. Some shake their heads. Others cry.
The end of Route 90 signaled more than a structural failure of asphalt and concrete. We retraced our steps and found a new path to Gautier. I continue to hope New Orleans citizens have that same opportunity to find a new path.
Just back from NOLA ... this was trip 12 or 13 since the mid-1980s. The Paris of the New World calls me and I respond.. to the beauty of creole cottages, the street car on St Charles, the trumpet player at Cafe du Monde who held the last note of the Doxology so long my husband thought it was the call of Gabriel, to the Pims Cup at the Palace Cafe, to the Quarter.. its craziness, its history, and its undeniable charm. How long until I return?
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