Brad Pitt. The Pink Project

Tennessee and Derbigny Streets
December 26th, 2007
Lower 9th Ward
New Orleans, La.

Dear Family and Friends,

Until recently, the daylit view off the Clairborne bridge was an unlikely inspirer. Looking towards the intersection of Tennessee and Derbigny, the residential lots blended together. Grazing grass replaced front yards.

What once was a lively part of the Lower 9th Ward had become an American eyesore that millions flocked to see. Devastation tours became big business.

Now, however, an artistic expression, a battle cry for sustainability, and a stab at correction is covering the most devastated area in New Orleans. The experiment is Brad Pitt's Pink Project. The Make It Right foundation hopes to build 150 homes here.

Over 400 scaffolded triangles and squares wrapped in pink are scattered across 15 square blocks symbolizing the homes lost in the Storm. It's an art installation on a massive scale, and I'm beginning to think the symbolic merit of the process will ultimately be its most important component.

The 150 homes rebuilt are a drop in the bucket in a neighborhood where over 5,000 homes were destroyed. This is not a save the City project by numbers. It's far more important from a spirit and upside outlook. The sounds of diesel engines and heavy machinery--not silence--give way to the crickets at dusk. When people drive through "ground zero" they don't think, "What's going to happen here?"

Too many Americans have left this neighborhood feeling angst, hopelessness, pity and shame.

The art component of the project is genius, really. We're a culture of extremes. If it isn't the fastest, the slowest, the youngest, the oldest, the biggest, smallest, the worst or the best it ain't a headline. For two years and four months, despite the truth that 80 percent of the City sustained considerable damage, these 15 blocks were the center of attention.

The Lower 9th Ward was Brad Pitt. We were the paparazzi.

Pitt called the project a small act of civil disobedience, citing pink as the color that screamed the loudest. The bright pink thingees have achieved what no guide or resident has been able to do--inspire.

Each time $150,000 dollars is raised by the Make it Right Foundation, the fragmented pieces of pink scaffolding will be joined to form a house in wrapping paper. Currently, enough has been raised for 52 of the 150 homes. At night the installation exhibits similarities of several pink jack-o-lanterns on a really big porch.

Pitt had 13 architecture firms submit designs for the homes, with sustainability a key concept.

“If you have this blank slate and this great technology out there, what better test than low-income housing?” Pitt told the New York Times. “It’s got to work at all levels to really be viable.”

"You can adopt a tankless water heater or a solar panel or a tree or a low-flush toilet,” Pitt told the New York Times.

And for those who've wondered whether Pitt is figurehead or real contributor--friends close to the project say it's the latter.


--Best,

Robert

Donations can be made through the Make it Right foundation's web site: www.makeitrightnola.org.

Photo Credit: Lee Celano, Reuters.

New Orleans' Music. The Second Line.

September 30, 2007
Congo Square
New Orleans, La.



Dear Family and Friends,

When I die, throw me a party.

It's the only way it should be. Like the ones who thought up jazz funerals so long ago will tell you, the dead are off to a better place. Pick up your feet, raise your hands and celebrate cause you'll see them on the other side.

I went to a second-line the other weekend, the formal name for a musical procession through the streets for an event or more historically to honor a fallen New Orleanian musician. They call it a second-line because the first line is typically the band and integral members of the deceased's family and friend circle. The second line is the scrum of people--old and young, friends and never-knew-hims who dance behind.

Sometimes, I hear, they last for miles.

The one I went to wasn't a celebration of a musician's life, it was kick-off of to a music festival--and my first time. I went telling everyone, "it's my first second line!"

Such a tourist.

A friend told me, "Do you see why New Orleans is worth saving?"

There is this old-guy in the band. I've seen him around town. He's always wearing a bowler's top hat, the one that famous pale white guy with the funky mustache wore.

Charlie Chaplin?

But this guy, a member of the famous Treme (Treh-May) brass band, he's cool. Cool, like only a guy who plays an instrument and knows it like an extension of his hands. Many of the city's musicians have moved on, taking their acts to the clubs of Austin, Tex. or New York City.

The ones who've made it back, including the bowler-top-hat-wearing-I'm 70-years-old and cooler-than-most-gen-y'ers, have the soul of this city in their lungs, hands and feet. In New Orleans, people say, the music must continue, the show must go on.

This second line started at a church called St. Augustine. It ended in Congo Square, the section of land just outside the French Quarter where African slaves spent Sundays playing music and dancing in 18th Century French and Spanish-controlled New Orleans.

It rained. People danced without regard. Others hid for cover.

This is New Orleans. And Austin, you can't beat it.


Best,

Robert

Remember Carl Davis? An update

New Orleans Public Library
October 10, 2007
New Orleans, La.

Dear Family and Friends,

Carl Davis looks skinny. Skinnier than the first time I met him in June, when he told me things I felt wrong to repeat. Davis says its ok to repeat these things.

A man on the ropes isn't much on maintaining an image, I guess.

But, it's a man on the ropes who isn't afraid to give a story, a real oh my god that's whats going on and I'm no shrink but that's some crazy stuff kind of story. That day, Carl Davis told me how Hurricane Katrina had psyched him out. Voices that talk to him everyday. Voices that have told him to kill himself twice since the storm.

The last three months have been better for Davis physical condition. The terribly-sun blistered lips are now more healthy. The damage, I'm sure, will always keep Davis' lips looking a little off.

His head is still in shambles though. "There are two voices," he says. I asked what they look like--if voices had a face. White guys he says. The bad one, the one that tells him to kill himself looks like the devil.

"The good voice is telling me you're alright, Robert," he says.

Knowing that Carl has something else making judgments about me are unsettling sure, but he is a gentle man, whispering when words matter and other people are around him.

Davis weighs 135 pounds. "The voices tell me not to eat," he says. "It's poison," they say.

"The bad voice told me to kill myself the other day."

He's living in an apartment with the help of a homeless shelter in town. They gave him a deposit and first month's rent on a little place off MLK Boulevard.

"I got robbed again," he says. "It was stupid, I bought me a piece of ass."

"I hadn't had no ass in a year."

Asking was shameless and intrusive, but the answer would be a market rate snapshot in America's underworld of desperation--so I wanted to know:

"How much?"

"She had charged me 20 dollars and stole my keys. Her boyfriend came back with a gun."

They took 600 dollars, he says.

After we met in June, I didn't think I'd ever see him again. He's a classic disappearing act, but not in the romantic world traveler way. When he came to see me, we hugged. We walked three blocks and sat in the shade, ate snickers and drank orange juice.

"I'm glad you came in," I said.

"I just heard you were giving away tennis shoes," he said laughing. "I'm an 11 and a half."

Best,

Robert

To see initial Video and Column about go to the "JUNE" Folder

The storm you almost heard about

September 24, 2007
New Orleans, La.

Dear Family and Friends,

Whew.

So the storm you almost heard about turned out to be clouds. Guys like me still needed sunblock for the supposed day of wind and rain. Tropical depression "10" had been tracked to hit New Orleans on Saturday morning around 4 a.m. Ten wasn't big enough to pose a threat to foundation-housed-residents, but the 60,000 people living in FEMA trailers in and around New Orleans began throwing out what-ifs and where-to-gos.

No, I didn't add a zero. 60,000.

The City of New Orleans Office of Emergency preparedness announced shelters would be open for FEMA-trailered residents.

Storms and Shelters are two words people in New Orleans don't want to hear. It was the first time since Hurricane Rita that a storm posed danger to the fragile rehabilitation of New Orleans-physical.

New Orleans-mental went into a tail spin--albeit a tiny one. More like a tail-pirouette. But, the City took it seriously. They prepared. They readied shelters with cots and food, volunteers and generators. My buddy Jon and I were ready to work a 1:30-am-10:00 am shift at a high school gymnasium. The Office of Emergency preparedness called and said the storm moved. I text messaged Jon.

"We're off the hook."

"Ten" didn't even come close to New Orleans. It turned out to be a test run for the most vulnerable. What if it had been real, I asked myself. What if people either in FEMA trailer parks or with FEMA trailers in front of their house had their temporary residences blown over by the big bad number "10?"

There is nothing big or bad about a tropical depression in these parts. But to 60,000, even a tropical storm poses major threats. FEMA trailers are to be evacuated in the event of a tropical storm, which begins at 35 mph.

Two-lane street winds.

Thousands of people worry here when the tropical depressions/storms huff and puff their little lungs. Ten was neither big nor bad for anyone in New Orleans. But another of these little storms will pose a problem for those hung up in foundation-less homes.

Bad little wolves.

Best,

Robert

The Superdome

The Superdome
Central Business District
11:00 p.m.
New Orleans, La.

Dear Family and Friends,

I met a girl the other day. Told me she watched a man fall from an upper-deck seat to the field in the Superdome.

"I can tell you so many stories," she says of her time in the Superdome during Katrina and her aftermath.

She's 21. After meeting her, I know that what people say is true: Age really is just a number.
Most 21-year-olds I know are happy to waltz into bars and pubs joking about the days-gone-away when they had to sneak inside.

Not many of my friends have ever seen a man die.

Her 44-year-old boyfriend kicked her out five days ago. She's sleeping down the road from the Superdome. You can't really call it sleeping, she says. If you sleep she says, as a woman, you're vulnerable.

"I try to keep standing, walking," she says. "But, I doze off sometimes." It's how she was at the Superdome, she says. The micro-society inside the dome didn't form protection fast enough. In there, often it was every woman for herself.

Tonight, all is calm in the Poydras St. moonlight. I have a copy of Chris Rose's 1 Dead in Attic in the backpocket of my linen pants. My linen shirt breathes. I wear no socks.

Damn New Orleans' heat.

If you haven't heard of Chris Rose, google him. He's made a name for himself as the post-Katrina voice. He is a satirical and real, laugh-inducing and tear-jerking local newspaper columnist.

As I sit on some granite with the Saint's Fleur de Lis logo etched in it, I open Rose. I've been reading it on and off for two weeks and knew there had to be a story about the Saints Monday night football game last September. A Night to Remember, he called his column.

I'd like to share with you excerpts from what I read in solitude under a dim streetlight outside the place that means more now socially, politically, economically--any ly than it did before Katrina.

A Night to Remember
9/27/2006

...Now of course there were naysayers out there in the Great Elsewhere. All that money, they said, that could have been used to fix people's houses. All that effort that could have gone somewhere else. All this fuss--about a game?

The simple answer is that, for the city's economy to survive, the Convention Center and the Dome had to be fixed-first and fast-because they are the bread and the butter.

A more nuanced answer is this: Better a Saints game to rechristen the building than a boat show or a gun show, for the irony of that would have been simply too much, even here in the city whose chief export in the post-Katrina age is, in fact, irony. By the ton...

This building, this monument to our shame, our disgrace, and our sorrow, will always be so, but it always has been and always will be more than that. Neither Katrina nor Tom Benson has been able to make the Superdome go away.

Its durability is our durability...

The game. When they blocked the punt and scored the first touchdown, something inside me that I didn't know was there broke loose. I let out a yell so loud that my throat still hurts today.

I fell into a human scrum that consisted of a tall skinny guy, a short woman, a cop, and a beer vendor. Every layer of authority and sociology was stripped away. We literally fell on top of each other. I have never experienced a flash point of sudden emotion unloosed so fast...

It is superficial and meaningless and a total loss of perspective, but I stand before you and I declare: It is good to feel like a winner...

Ah, but let us live it, just for today, because who around here hasn't felt as though we've had a big L stamped on our foreheads for the past year and I, for one, am ready to wipe it off...

Only a game you say?

Like hell it was.

Thanks, Chris.

Now, Reggie, Deuce and Drew are the patron saints of New Orleans' spirit. They hold services every Sunday.

Michael, Mary and Joseph have some stiff competition.

Best,

Robert



To purchase 1 Dead in Attic
go to www.chrisrosebooks.com

To Read A Night to Remember in full, cut and paste the thread below:
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1159337420130960.xml&coll=1

Normal in New Orleans?

Audubon Park,
Uptown
September 9, 2007
New Orleans, La.

Dear Family and Friends,

In K-Ville, nothing is easy.

Post-Katrina normal has returned since the two-year water mark came 12 days ago.

During that week, Senators and Congressman, Presidents and Prime Ministers flew to New Orleans to deliver messages of hope.

Senator Barack Obama said, “I can promise you this: I will be a president who wakes up every morning and goes to bed every night with the future of this city on my mind."

President Bush said, “This town’s coming back. This town is better today than it was yesterday and it’s going to be better tomorrow than it is today.”

Senator Hilary Clinton said, “Rebuilding New Orleans is not a local obligation, it is an American obligation. And we must finally begin to fulfill it.”

John Edwards said, “America is better than this. We need a national effort to end poverty in America, and we need every American to take action in our fight to build One America. And we need to make sure another Katrina never happens again, in New Orleans or anywhere in America."

Mike Hukabee, the Republican presidential candidate and current Governor of Arkansas said the country needed to put “people first, paperwork next in a disaster the size of Katrina.”

The fingertips of the Newsweek writers and the voices of the CNN reporters came too. They switched interchangeably from New Orleans to the Big Easy and the Crescent City.

New Orleans, the word, started to sound redundant. The amount of material published was massive. For two days, the Big Easy was on everyone’s mind.

Then it was over.

Back in Ohio or Oregon or California, you picked up the kids and snuck in a round of afternoon golf--everyday American life.

That life isn't lost and gone forever in New Orleans.

Last week, your alarm clock still wasn’t a welcome sound.

Same here.

Last week, you sat in traffic on your way to work.

Same here.

Last week, you bought your coffee at Starbucks.

Same here.

The Anderson family has cruisers. Their bikes are stylish and hip. The youngest daughter even has the ribbons on her handle bars.

The ones that stream when the open trail warrants straight-away biking. Jasmine, the mother, says the only thing normal these days is her daughters’ school. Their eighth-grader went to four different schools during the chaotic months after Katrina.

Her husband Eugene owns a furniture refinishing company and has “more work than he can handle.”

They, like hundreds of others, are playing in Audubon Park. A highly-rated golf course is kept in immaculate shape. People run, jog and play Frisbee and football.

People also barbeque at the “levee.”

In K-Ville, nothing is easy; the school and health care systems are starting from scratch. Thousands are still in trailers. Everyone here knows the length of the "K-to-do-list."

Even in K-Ville though, there are still days at the park.

Best,

Robert.

Two Years Later...

August 29, 2007
Midnight
5223 Basin View Drive
New Orleans East





Dear Family and Friends,

It's midnight in Katrina's garden of ups and downs. Yes, two years ago Michelle Mohammed, like so many other New Orleanians watched her city drown.

She lived in Portland, Oregon for over a year after the storm. In October, 2005, she flew from the Northwest to see the home she'd owned for 11 years for the first time.

"There's nothing else you can do when you see that, I broke down and cried."

I work with Michelle. I went to the University of Oregon so we had a connection from the first day. Over time Michelle and I grew closer. She has a 23-year-old daughter and a 19-year-old son.

One day Michelle said to some co-workers, "Look ladies, that's Robert, that's my son!" We joked about it. A black woman with a white son. We joked about going to restaurants and telling the waiter.

And then something real happened. On my 24th birthday, Michelle showered me with gifts. Like only a parent gives kind of gifts. A new shirt, a tie, a pair of pants, and a bottle of cologne.

"I wanted my son to look sharp on his birthday," she says. Later that week, a friend and I spoke of the gesture. What started out as fun had become something much more for the both us, my friend said.

"Robert, you know she's really adopted you. You're her son, she tells us that when you're not around."

Mohammed's house took eight feet of water. Her husband still lives in Portland. The 21-year-veteran of the New Orleans Public Schools was without home or career because of Katrina.

She's shown me that people overcome obstacles and do it with grace.

"It's been a struggle."

It's close to 1 a.m. She walks me back to my car.

"I love you," she says. "I love you, too."

"You know I pray for you, Michael and Aryanna every night. It's the only way I can go to sleep," she says.

I drove home.

And slept well.

Best,

Robert

Katrina's eve. How about something good?

August 25, 2007

Circle Food
1522 St. Bernard St.
New Orleans, La.

Dear Family and Friends,

Wherever you are, New Orleans will be on your tubes and your screens, your breakfast and coffee tables this week.

Whatever you read in the big shop media this week--read it with a critical eye.

There will be stories of struggle and heartache. The ones that tug and make you say, “Oh my.” It’s what writers want you to feel. It’s what writers dream you feel.

These are good writers. Human interest is what we--humans--are all about.

And then you’ll read about the crime. And the still partially sutured status of what The New York Times calls our “Patchwork City.” You’ll read about the lack of this and that and slowness of here and there. And the “Two years later the Big Easy struggles to Recover” headlines.

It’s all true.

But, know that buried underneath the stories of struggle and patchwork, stories of strength and persistence are here, too.

And I’d say: Where are those stories?

Take the Circle Food, a grocery store in New Orleans’ Seventh Ward, which had been in operation since 1938 until Katrina. This weekend, the owner, Dwayne Boudreaux opened Circle Food in its parking lot to test the viability of reopening.

“We were the original one-stop shop,” Boudreaux said. “We tried to provide what the community wanted and needed.”

I met a woman and her mother at the parking lot grocery store. People came and shopped, I asked them whether they’d shop at Circle Food if it reopened.

I must have seemed out of place. After all, I had a clipboard.

The interactions with a few discrepancies went like this,

Excuse me, mam, may I..?”

“Oh, Baby yes, bring my Circle Food back!”

“Well, why?”

“Because I’ve been coming to this store my whole life. It’s the only place in town where you could get five peppers for a dollar and pay your utility bill too.”

I think Circle Food will reopen, insiders tell me so. Boudreaux wants to do a few more one-day sales to gauge the community need. Again, he’ll bring people in for a make-shift block party where people leave with peppers and seafood, toilet paper and iced tea.

Saturday was hot like everyday. A sheen topped the parking lot. People without sunglasses looked funny, really. One eye open or squinting, saluting the sun while they shopped, socialized and listened to a DJ underneath a tent.

If Mr. Boudreaux has anything to say about it, they’ll be inside the store soon enough.

Chalk this column up in the Boring Category. Circle Food is a solid this is happening but not quite amazing enough or sad enough or despicable enough story for a headline. But it's good enough to know New Orleans will be ok kind of news.

And I’m ok with that.

Best,

Robert

Day 163

Day 163
New Orleans, La
August 16, 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

You could call my 163 days a whirlwind. The nights are long, days are bright and it often doesn't matter if my eyes realized the transition. People in New Orleans are saying more and more, "New Orleans got you didn't it?" Yes--like an addiction--New Orleans has me.

But no one ever said honeymoons last forever.

There have been days filled with frustration. What is frustration for a healthy-white-24-year-old with a degree, a job and a place to stay anyway?

It's nothing like what the people here experience daily.

Maybe Webster could condense the word for the rest of us--we could call it "frust."

Or frustralite.

For the transplants, these are the days you look around at mothers with children, dirty and unhealthy. You drive by vacant residential and commercial real estate. You listen to stories of struggle and heartache. The ones that begin the same, but always take unique twists, making each increasingly harder to hear than the previous.

And then I go home to my apartment, which I'll never have to rebuild. Or I go to the romance of the French Quarter and refuel my affection.

"Frustration" should only be used by New Orleanians.

People down here call it "Katrina fatigue." Everybody gets it. My friend at work lives in a three-bedroom ranch house with 11 people. She sleeps in a twin bed and jokes that her seven-year-old doesn't realize, "Mommy doesn't like legs in her face, honey."

But she remembers the king bed she used to have. She remembers the home she used to own.

"How long do you think it will be until you have your own spot," I ask.

"Probably another couple months," she says.

Like I said at day 77, the human spirit is stronger than I initially imagined. But people are tired and more and more I hear, "I don't even want to hear the word Katrina."

I ask my co-worker how she does it.

"It's what you gotta do," she says.

Best,

Robert

Baseball and levees

Lower Ninth Ward
Intersection of Roman and Reynes
New Orleans, La.
July 30, 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

Ray Chang’s professional baseball journey started in stop-light towns like Beloit, Wisconsin where mayors double as maintenance men. But with every promotion, Chang, a 23-year-old with a gregarious school-boy’s demeanor in a Major Leaguer’s body, plays in bigger, more glamorous cities.

He isn’t quite two full seasons into his professional career, but the undrafted, a-scout-found-me-at-an open-tryout-shortstop, finds himself playing for the Portland Beavers, one call away from becoming a San Diego Padre.

Recently, he played in New Orleans, a City, it seems, in the eternal international consciousness. His travels have never taken a turn quite like this, he says.

Storm surges sometimes topped 20 feet in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward. City-owned street signs rarely exist. At the intersection of Roman and Reynes, a centerfield to home plate’s throw away from Hurricane Katrina’s Florida Avenue Canal breach, a house sits doorless, a house sits roofless and a foundation sits houseless.

Several foundations on this block idle in the Louisiana heat. So Chang brought his glove. At least for a day, this former kitchen floor served a purpose. As he plays catch, the only returned resident on the block stops his yard work and stares.

Leaving the Lower Ninth for the higher ground of New Orleans, where the romance of the French Quarter and the majesty of Garden District mansions are, Chang turns back.

“That was mindblowing,” he says.

He went 3-4 the night before, but he’ll never remember New Orleans for the baseball. He’ll remember this stop for the nights in the French Quarter socializing in buildings nearly 300 years old, and for the disparity of existence between the haves and the have nots of the Big Easy.

The Lower Ninth Ward is nothing like he ever imagined, he says.

“I’m glad I came.”

We talked about the lack of residents in the neighborhoods closest to the Florida Avenue Canal breach, and the flow of outsiders driving around in taxis stopping in intersections and snapping photos.

After all, Ray and I are them minus the taxi.

The resident who watched Chang play must have been confused. Baseball? On an empty foundation?

This time at least, the gawker wasn't a visitor.


Best,

Robert

Face #3 New Orleans Mental Health Crisis. Meet Raymond Hall

Duncan Plaza
New Orleans, La.
July 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

Raymond tried to eat the slice of pepperoni pizza. He really did. Problem was, his teeth are falling out. But before they leave, he says, the teeth break off in pieces.

Hall was one of the first homeless New Orleanians I saw who came to protest the inadequate public housing in Post-Katrina New Orleans. Over 100 people night after night sleep in the shadow of City Hall at Duncan Plaza. They sleep in the gently elevated grass and under a statue of George Washington. And next to a boarded and vacant state office built the same year as City Hall.

As I walked by them the other evening, the air had cooled, many people were up telling stories, smoking cigarettes. The main branch of the New Orleans public library is next to Duncan Plaza. About 30 people sleep under a library canopy too. An electrical outlet is used by a woman’s boombox. It’s not quite a nightlight, but she seemed peaceful.

Hall, 56, wasn’t here for KATRINA. He’s one of the few, I’m sure. But, as a Vietnam veteran who lost two young children, ages three and five, in a house fire, he deals with his share of psychological trauma.

“In less than 30 days I was back on a plane to Vietnam.”

He, like many homeless, are in “as is” condition. His chest is ribby, with wispy grey hair. He could use 25-30 pounds. A crucifix hangs from his neck. Hall isn’t the only one who sleeps outside with a faith in a god.

He came to New Orleans after losing federal disability assistance in Florida. He tried to explain what happened, but it was tough to follow. It’s a similar story for many I’ve spoken with. Hall couldn’t remember dates, he jumped around, didn’t know names of lawyers instead beginning with “The guy said…”

Carl Davis was the same way. “He’s out of DC, ah, I can’t remember the guy’s name” kind of thing.

It’s one of the most difficult things about learning their stories. Truth is, often Davis and Hall probably remember only half of their own.

But, Hall came here as a musician. A percussionist, he says. Like Davis, Hall hears voices, “They say different things, like spirits” he says. He’s diagnosed with post-traumatic stress, but has no prescriptions to tame anxiety.

When he feels bad, Hall says he just wants to go away. He understands his problems.

“I need medication,” he says.

Problem is, there aren't many here to prescribe it.

Best,

Robert

Nebraska Football: Recruit from New Orleans is a mystery man

BY ROBERT X. FOGARTY AND TONY BOONE
FOR THE OMAHA WORLD-HERALD
JULY 22, 2007

MARRERO, La. - Eric Harper didn't exist.

Sure, people around the way knew of Eric Harper. Those up in Ferriday, La., knew him, too.

But in Nebraska? No way. Out in Cyberland, where college football junkies flit through prospect lists like side orders on a restaurant menu, Eric Harper wasn't an option. The recruiting wonks, who make it their business to know every high school football star in the land and slap them with a star rating? No clue. Five stars? Try no stars.

"I'm like an undiscovered talent who came from behind the curtain," says the all-metro player who more than a few coaches watched on film and offered a scholarship before ever seeing him in person.


* * *
Ehret's Eric Harper has the perfect graduation present awaiting him in December, a football scholarship to play for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Harper, a tall, rangy performer who played seven positions in 2006 and earned All-Metro honors as a linebacker, verbally committed to play for Nebraska on Tuesday. At 19, Harper has exceeded the age limit to play in the Louisiana High School Athletic Association, but he is qualified academically to receive an NCAA scholarship and will do so once he earns his high school diploma this winter, Ehret Coach Billy North said.


* * *

Yes, Eric Harper was born 19 years and some odd months ago, but as far as folks who follow college football are concerned, those words in the Times-Picayune the morning of July 11 were his birth announcement.

And that's just about right. They mark time here by the summer of 2005, when Hurricane Katrina made sane men crazy, old women cry, and kids like Harper, well, disappear.

Now, as a faint heart beat returns in the Big Easy and the Gulf Coast, it is a player's future potential united with people like coach Billy North and a former Nebraska football player that have given a kid back an identity lost in a killer storm.

Harper's case needs no detective. Just a little time to sort it all out.

OUT OF THE WAY PLACE

Drive the nine miles south out of the heart of New Orleans, past the Superdome and over the Mississippi River. John Ehret High School is nestled in this sleepy suburb. That's where you'll find North, a sturdy hometown product who built a program that has produced more Division I football players than anyone can remember, and six who went on to the NFL.

Pictures of former Patriots like Kordell Stewart, Reggie Wayne and other notable football alumni hang in his cramped office. If asked, North, who often punctuates his sentences with a bookend "Ya hear," would probably call this a cranny, but a comfortable one. Ehret High's been home for nearly 20 years.

Ask about a kid named Harper, and you get the feeling North might be clearing room on his wall someday for another picture. The storm had most to do with Harper's anonymity, North says. It sure wasn't due to lack of talent.

North's not big on measurables - the tools of the Web site wannabes. He's big on results. All you need to know is that after viewing a highlight tape, Nebraska defensive line coach Buddy Wyatt, previously an assistant at Alabama, expressed strong interest, North said. Not long after, Nebraska coach Bill Callahan's official scholarship letter arrived May 25. Before that, blind offers also came in from Texas A&M and Mississippi State.

The Times-Picayune article notes how Harper chose NU over those schools, as well as Auburn, Southern Mississippi, Arkansas, Tulane and Louisiana Tech, despite never making a recruiting visit to Lincoln. But the suitors continue to call.

Inevitably they ask, "How come I'd never seen you on (the Internet)?"

"A lot of things, I guess," Harper says.

After news broke of Harper's commitment to NU, a writer for a recruiting Web site called North asking how he'd missed Harper. "You know what I told him?" North said. "Fantastic, that means you guys don't have everything."

HUSKER ON THE WALL

Barry Cryer missed him, too. Little did Cryer know that Harper didn't miss him.

As an Ehret High product, Cryer's picture hangs on North's wall. The jovial Cryer started on the interior of the Husker defensive line last season and is now preparing for training camp with the San Diego Chargers.

Kids like Harper listen to guys like Cryer, who visits his old school whenever he's back home. Hitting the weight room is a good way to stay in shape while attempting to persuade the current prep players to maximize their potential.

"Anytime I get some time to take off, I go back down there and hang out with the kids," Cryer said. "I work out with them just to let them know you can do something outside of the rough neighborhoods."

Go to school, play football and get an education, is his message. "I just let them know, (school's) where you want to be, and it's your life to live."

After Katrina, words of hope go a long way at Ehret High.

In his first meeting after the storm, North had five coaches and four players. A week later, the Patriots played their first game with 19 players and finished the season with 33. "We've been building from then on," he said.

But it's been slow. Last season, the Patriots still had problems with numbers. After having nearly 80 players on its roster in Cryer's day, Ehret had just 45 in 2006, meaning some players were playing on both sides of the ball in Louisiana's largest classification.

In Harper's case, he was playing all over the field. He saw time at defensive end, inside and outside linebacker, strong safety, wide receiver, tight end, running back, quarterback and kick returner. He was named to the Times-Picayune All-Metro team in New Orleans as a linebacker, and may have been the newspaper's defensive player of the year if not for the dominating season by teammate Drake Nevis, a defensive tackle headed to LSU who shared co-MVP honors at Ehret with Harper.

It was Nevis with whom Cryer talked most during his recent trips to the weight room, according to North. Cryer didn't really know who Harper was.

Turns out Harper was usually in the room listening to discussions between Nevis and Cryer, North said.

"I think Eric saw where Barry ended up as far as getting an opportunity to get into an NFL camp. Nebraska has done good things for Barry Cryer, and our community has seen that. And Eric is a part of that community. We've all seen what Nebraska's done for one of our kids, and I think that sold Eric on Nebraska's program.

"It means a lot when a kid from our school goes to an out-of-state college, comes back and says good things about that college. It seems like there's always a domino effect. We've had four kids go to Colorado. At one point, we had three kids go to Fresno (State). It seems like they always go in pairs or two or three years in a row because of the experience of our former players."

KATRINA FORCES MOVE

Before the storm, Harper and his family evacuated to Ferriday, an inland town of about 3,000 residents along the Mississippi and not far from a national wildlife refuge known as Frogmore Bayou. There isn't much in Ferriday once you pass the "Home of Jerry Lee Lewis" sign.

In all, Harper lived away from New Orleans nearly four months. He played for Ferriday High in 2005, a Louisiana version of a Nebraska Class C-1 or Class B school.

"I couldn't wait to come back to New Orleans," he said. Neither could his family, which includes three sets of twin boys. There is Eric and his twin brother Derrick, who are the youngest. Next in line are Marvin and Marlin. Terry and Jerry are the oldest.

"My mother didn't rhyme them, I swear," he says. "We are all named after male family members."

Harper's Katrina story is an everyman tale of New Orleans. Located just outside the city's West Bank, Harper's home wasn't near the levee breaches, which flooded 80 percent of the Big Easy. But when his family returned to survey the storm damage, ruined floors, broken windows and an unwanted sky-blue view greeted them.

"A tree from the back yard had gone through the roof. Birds were flying in and out," he said. "We took a little under a foot of water."

When Harper returned for the field for Ehret High for the 2006 season, his football resume wasn't long. He'd played sparingly as a freshman at Ehret, and then the small-school season at Ferriday as a sophomore.

That wasn't enough to put Harper on North's "Coach, you have to see this kid play" college list.

"I'm not going to lie. I had to see Eric really play first," North said. "I have some credibility here."
SHOWCASING HIS SKILLS

Harper was enrolled in pre-school at age 5. Now 19, he's too old to compete in 2007. Because of his age and the relocation caused by Katrina, last season was North's only chance to get a good look.

"When he first came to us (three years ago) ... he was a strong safety-type player. I didn't know he could throw the football, I didn't know he could catch the ball and I didn't know he could run from the fullback position at that time. Then in the Katrina year of '05, we didn't even have him. It took us some time to realize what he can do.

"Physically, we're 5-A football. We play the biggest classification in the state. It's very difficult to play both ways. That doesn't happen a whole lot in 5-A football here in Louisiana.

According to North, Harper's best football is ahead of him. North calls him "a skinny 220" and believes he'll be 20 to 30 pounds heavier while still running the 40 in 4.6 seconds by the time he's through.

"He's an exciting kid. He likes to make plays," North said. "His excitement will add something to the defense at Nebraska."

A NEAR UNKNOWN

In a wired recruiting world where seemingly nobody falls through the cracks, Harper nearly did.

But he was savvy enough to not let it happen, all the while staying focused in the eye of a cataclysmic storm.

Academically, he is qualified with an 18 on his first ACT attempt. He wants to retake the exam even though a scholarship offer and a spot in school isn't dependent on a higher score. "I didn't meet my (own) standards," he said. "I know I am better than that."

He carries better than a 3.0 grade point average and will graduate a semester early to attend Nebraska beginning in January.

And even though coaches from LSU, Auburn and Louisiana Tech have all called within the past week, his allegiance to the Huskers appears strong.

"I've been ready for this," he said.

He doesn't own a winter coat, and he's never been to Nebraska. But he's comfortable with his choice.

Turns out, his tale isn't much of a mystery after all. He's just a too-old-to-play, displaced-by-Katrina kid with a load of talent and a lot of faith in his coach, a guy in the weight room named Barry Cryer, and ironically, the Internet.

"I typed Nebraska into Google," Harper said. "It showed anything you wanted."

National championships, academics, weight room, coaches - the Internet had it all, he said.

It just didn't have Eric Harper.

A CEO, Commissioner and Ambassador walk in...

Tournament Players Club Louisiana
July 2007
Avondale, La. (20 minutes from Downtown New Orleans)

Dear Family and Friends--

Norman has big eyes, the kind kids with something to believe in have. He’s 15, and I’ll bet he believes he can win the U.S. Open someday. Fantasies like these make kids great—and unaware of suits and slacks, shakes and waves, the day to days of grown-up business.

The PGA TOUR’s Commissioner, the CEO of Zurich Financial Services and the Former U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland addressed hundreds of Zurich Classic of New Orleans advocates and donors the other day. They announced the agreement to keep Zurich title sponsor of the professional tournament until 2010. Tournament organizers also announced that over400,000 will be given to charity from the 2007 event.

Chad, Chris and Norman are products of the First Tee program, whose mission is to give non-traditional junior golfers an opportunity to learn and play the game so many admire.

“Who has the best golf game?” I asked.

“I do,” they all said.

“We’ll have to see about that,” I said.

So Norman, Chris and Chad followed me to a hole on the green. “Ok, right here, six feet,” I said.

Chad, 10, was the sure underdog. He had a training set of clubs. Chris, 11, was also new to the game. But Norman? He dedicates his free time to golf.

Chad sinks his first, but goes one for three from six feet. Chris hits his first putt 12 feet, his second putt four feet, but nails the last.

Norman leaves his first two attempts short. “Oh man, I can’t lose to you kids,” he says. He makes his third attempt.

“Sudden death.” I say. “Oh yeah,” Chad says.

But Chad misses. Then Chris misses. Norman makes his putt with a “you’ve got a long way to go kids” smile on his face.

I gave them a wave and walked off the green. I had to do grown-up stuff. On the putting green, fantasy still rules. It’s the best thing about being young.

You can be a U.S. Open champion, someday.

Inside, suits and ties, microphones and cameras fixated on lottery-style checks and heartfelt words from a few very important people. A CEO, Commissioner and Ambassador--three dreams come true, I’m sure.

But they have to wear suits. And rarely get big trophies.

Best—

Robert

St. Bernard Parish: New Orleans' Overlooked Neighbor

St. Bernard Parish (County)
New Orleans’ Overlooked Neighbor
Chalmette, La.
June 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

People are drawn to the places they’ve lived. I couldn't imagine returning home to devastation. Still today, sunglasses block eyes, but not tears. For the residents of St. Bernard, many approaching year two in FEMA trailers and frequenting restaurants not quite like they remembered, every day is a struggle for attention.

New Orleans became the crown jewel of KATRINA’s seedy remains and attention. The Big Easy is the high school quarterback in the post-KATRINA competition for love and affection.

It’s made St. Bernard Parish feel like the last kid picked for dodge ball.

Murphy Oil, based in Chalmette, La., failed to properly hurricane-proof one of its massive storage tanks. Twenty-five thousand barrels spilled on the parks, streets and homes of St. Bernard parish. St. Bernard's road to recovery has and will continue to be an uphill battle given its proximity to Orleans Parish.

A friend of mine and fellow AmeriCorpsian, John Haley, is stationed in St. Bernard Parish. He lives in a FEMA trailer. The digs are nice but small. They remind me of a studio in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.

John took me on a tour of St. Bernard. Born out of white-flight during segregation, most Chalmettians are white working middle-class citizens. Pre-K population of St. Bernard was 67,000 according to the 200o Census. Locals estimate about 27,000 are there today.

The homes are suburban renditions of the Lower Ninth Ward. Two and 300,000 dollar pre-storm properties sit gutted and vacant block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood.

One high school is open. So is one major grocery store. And one entrepreneurial Domino’s franchise owner operates out of a trailer adjacent to his flooded business. The delivery guys take pizza through a makeshift drive-thru window.

Massive FEMA camps are the new neighborhoods for many Chalmettians.

When a visitor, developer wants to volunteer or help in the gulf-coast they think, “New Orleans, here I come. “

It’s only natural.

Overlooking St. Bernard could be fatal for the parish, New Orleans’ neighbor to the east.

Many St. Bernard residents, according to John, are optimistic about their Parish’s future. And in America, the last kid picked for the game usually grows up to be the Doctor of the group.

Best,

Robert

Rally at the Louisiana Capitol Building

Click in the image to begin Video. The images are grainy and unsteady. Kind of like the City in some ways, I guess.

Video #1: New Orleans' Mayor C. Ray Nagin
Video #2: A 18-year-old New Orleanian on his way to Tulane University in the fall.

New Orleans’ Rally
June 13, 2007
Louisiana State Capitol Building
Family and Friends—

Disclosure: This was a political rally and since I have employment ties to the Mayor’s Office, I will not comment directly about the videos.

It’s 80 miles to Baton Rouge. Organizers of the rally procured 20 brand new bright yellow school buses to take New Orleanians to the Governor’s mansion.

These buses were beautiful. “At least the schools have new buses,” I thought.

I walked behind one. “Mississippi” the plate read. And the next one, “Mississippi” and the next “Mississippi.”

“We can’t even get Louisiana buses to transport our citizens,” a resident said to himself but loud enough for me to hear.

It was the first hot day of the Louisiana summer. Pants stuck to men’s legs by nine a.m., sweat beaded while standing, and ladies’ nylons must have been bordering on unbearable. I wonder why women still wear nylons.

We made the drive to the Governor’s mansion and state patrolmen, politicians and news cameras greeted the New Orleanians. Signs lamented about the broken Road Home and poor medical conditions. The people talked about how their state had failed them. News reporters asked what they thought the rally would do for the future of their City.

People cheered, laughed and smiled. This wasn't an angry crowd. People walked and hugged all the way to the Capitol steps.

Leaders and residents from St. Tammany, St. Bernard, Jefferson and Orleans’ parishes spoke. The laughter turned serious. Their voices trembled. Their voices carried. And politicians were concerned little about following protocol.

And after standing for an hour in the Louisiana heat, the people went inside. They walked by docents and security guards, lawyers and legislators, all enjoying the comfortable capitol air conditioning.

The Mississippi buses pulled away at 2 p.m. People were hot, but happy, all wondering what the gathering might accomplish.

Best-
Robert