Year Three

August 29, 2008
New Orleans, La.

Dear Family and Friends,

The calendar is still valid here. Modified, of course.

Post-K New Orleans turns three today, and the City still carries the markings of its embattled recovery. Over 100,000 people have left, one in three residential addresses is vacant or blighted and its crime rate has passed casually guarded on its way to "Wow, I really do have to think about my safety."

Government-dispensed spray paint still lingers on many homes' facades. The X's are as common as mailboxes around these parts. "They're memorials," my friend says.

But, we, as Americans, shouldn't give up on New Orleans.

You'll read a lot about the bad today. And you'll read a little about the good.

For that, a buddy of mine decided to round up the 100 best things to come out of New Orleans since Katrina to balance the good versus bad scale. Like never before, thanks to the internet, bottom-up information gets the same street credentials as the stuff delivered to your doorstep.

He calls the list the NOLA 100.

New Orleans blogosphere is filled with citizen activism. No grants, no awards. Nothing but concerned citizens in love with their City. Likewise, neighborhood groups have been and continue to be the leaders of recovery. Caring for returned neighbors and the resurgence of one's neighborhood now comes right behind family, food and church.

They're paying it forward too. A contingent of neighborhood organizers went to Cedar Rapids in the weeks after the Iowa floods to give best practices on mobilizing neighbors.

Observing neighborhood resilience is enough to for me to know New Orleans is going to be fine. People who came back right after the storm will tell you that the City has progressed in many ways.

My co-worker Loretta, she uses military-issued "filtered drinking water" on the office plants.
We still have a case of the stuff.

She spent three months on the floor of a college basketball arena in Lafayette, La.

Talk about progress.

Now that I feel like I've got one foot in here, I sometimes forget about Loretta's story. The everyman story here, actually.

I watched the Spike Lee documentary When the Levees Broke the other night. My friends and I, who've come here post-Katrina, we should be obligated to re-watch and re-read the accounts of New Orleanians who watched their City drown.

Because sometimes when we're partying till sunrise, New Orleans without the baggage feels too damn good.

My friends in DC, policy kids, capitol hill kids who get chided for their insatiable need to be inside are sending similar criticism towards New Orleans' transplants.

"You're using New Orleans," they say.

And now I wonder aloud. Is New Orleans becoming a frontier for socially-conscious opportunists? An it phrase on a resume?

I must disclose now that I didn't move to New Orleans with its professional benefits on my mind. I thought a year here would do me good. The "you're only young once" mentality.

Tulane University had more applicants for this year's incoming college class than ever. They stopped taking applications at 34,000. Shut down for an entire semester after Katrina, Tulane is now the most selective school in the country.

Seventeen-hundred new Tulanians began class on Wednesday.

People say the flood of applicants to Tulane is a direct correlation to the service trips by church groups and other organizations since the storm. Talk to any neighborhood activist and they talk about service volunteers like knights in shining armor or guardian angels.

But the need for unskilled grunt work is nearly gone now, any houses that still need gutting should be demolished. Volunteers are being used nicely to help curb neighborhood blight, however. Because, as I said earlier, one in three residential homes is vacant.

I sometimes question how people still coming to help view this place. Is it a pity trip? Is New Orleans like a kid whose black eye is seemingly still swollen?

Maybe.

The black has turned though. Kind of yellow and brown now. Just give it awhile.

Best,

Robert

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

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

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.

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

After Dark: St. Louis Cemetery #1

St. Louis Cemetery #1
New Orleans, La.
10 p.m.,
June 6, 2007

Family and Friends—

The wall was only seven feet high, and I wasn’t going sacrifice-hunting before sunset. The night was just beginning for the New Orleans Police Department, whose lights flashed on the upriver side of the St. Louis #1 cemetery wall.

Fables and news reports say drunken French Quarter tourists have been sacrificed in St. Louis #1 by Voodoo Priests or Priestesses. But, I couldn’t help humming “Thriller” to calm my heart rate. And then I smiled. Wait, I thought, is “Thriller” disrespectful to Voodoo?

I had come in peace to St. Louis cemetery #1, respectful and with no desire to be sacrificed.

People tell me that the easiest way to describe Voodoo is like a drink. Splash some pagan and splash some Catholicism and you’ve got Voodoo. Of course, to those inside the religion, the nuances are what make it special.

After I realized I may have upset someone much more than me, I made the sign of the cross. New Orleans is decidedly Catholic. I know no Voodoo symbolism.

St. Louis #1’s walls block the dead from the street. Only the most extravagant tombs can be seen from street level. Most tombs look like mini-houses, but the ones visible from North Rampart St. are more like mini-palaces.

The dead rest above ground in New Orleans. They’d float away in traditional underground sites.

The cockroaches have colonized on the wall of one mini-palace. They were nowhere else in this massive place. “Had a Voodoo priest cursed this family?” I wondered. I didn’t care to find out.

So I walked down the rows, more cautiously when I turned corners, knowing it doesn’t take an Olympian to hop the wall. I didn’t see anyone. I was alone with thousands of dead New Orleanians--old New Orleanians. The ones with , African, Caribbean, French and Spanish and Native American blood. A French Quarter transplant from Michigan will never be buried in any of the St. Louis cemeteries.

Angels and crosses were the norm. Many tombs are extravagant, a reverence to those who lay inside. And some are rather humble, with fireplace brick chipping in the corners. I climbed on top of one of these and looked at the New Orleans approaching midnight sky. The big house Canal St. hotels look out on the French Quarter and St. Louis #1, which is about one block to lakeside (north) of the Quarter’s boundary.

The sharp white marble tomb next to me read:

Armand le Merciep du Quesnay

Kingston, Jamaique 22 Juin, 1815-Nlle Orleans 13 Oct 1892.

The silence was peaceful.

I think they like it here. I hopped over the wall. A guy gave me a funny look. No sacrifices, tonight.

Best,

Robert

PS: I will never ever go to a cemetery alone after dark again for those who have already or who were planning on scolding me. Sorry.

Post-K Video for AmeriCorps Contest

You can vote for the winner after June 11 at www.americorpscontest.org

Robert