I Never Thought I'd Be So Happy To See A Swamp

***this post has been updated. See below for part II***

Happy Father's Day! I'm alive, not dead or in jail as some have speculated in the comments section, but thanks for the concern. I'm leaving New Orleans today after two great days of comfortable beds and air conditioning. If I had the money, I'd gladly stay another week - The Crescent City is one of my favorite places in the country. But alas, like Tom Delay's congressional career, my time here is over.

I crossed over into Louisiana from Texas on Wednesday, and the second I entered the state I was struck by the difference in geography. Gone were the barren stretches of treeless scenery; you're immediately greeted by green swampy goodness. It was still hot and humid, but at least there was something to look at. I took 171 North from I-10 towards Shreveport so I could see the top half of the state, and I'm glad I did. 171 is a great highway that really takes you through the heart of the state, traversing through small towns and swamps and dense forests. Louisiana is a study in dichotomy - extreme beauty surrounded by extreme poverty. And unlike my impression of Texas, every nook and cranny has history and character.

I spent the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Shreveport listening to talk radio out of New Orleans. They were talking about the recent report that suspects over a billion dollars of fraud has been committed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. People used the money they received from the government for tropical vacations, Saints tickets, and sex change operations. Instead of being outraged, or thinking that such fraud hurts the public perception of the people of New Orleans, most of the callers and the host were of the opinion that people had been through enough and deserved a pass. So what if they abused what was given them, the government failed them during the storm, so the actions of the perpetrators are justified. At least that's what the rationale seemed to be. It was my first sign that a year later, hurricane Katrina is still very much an open wound in this state, a wound that won't be healed for years to come.

Thursday morning I drove South through the state to Baton Rouge. Along the way, I pulled over to take a nap in the back of the van, and I got my first taste of Southern Hospitality. I was on a small two lane highway, and I couldn't sleep because every car that passed would violently rock Trudel. I heard a car pull up behind me, and a man came up and knocked on the window. He was wondering if everything was all right, and if I needed any help. I thanked him and told him no, I was just trying to take a nap, and he went on his merry way. Strangers don't pull over for strangers in Los Angeles, and it was a nice gesture.

I spent the night in Baton Rouge at a dirty Motel 6, and Friday I headed towards Slidell, just North of New Orleans, for a swamp tour. As I was driving, it started to rain, so I tuned to the local news/talk station to see if there was anything I should be concerned about. They breathlessly reported that a major storm was opening up, ready to dump tons of rain and thunder and lightning on the area to which I was going. The traffic reporter broke in to say there were reports of a funnel cloud in the area, and everyone should be very cautious. I called the tour company and asked what the situation was, telling them what I heard on the radio. There was a little rain, she said, but everything was still a go. She told me people here are hypersensitive to any storm, and not to worry. When I got to Slidell, it poured for about ten minutes, and that was about the extent of it. I can't blame people for being jumpy, but for the radio station to feed into the hysteria is a little irresponsible.

As I drove into Slidell, I started to see the first signs of Katrina's wrath. There were long stretches where whole trees were snapped in half, small fishing boats littered the side of the road, and houses sat destroyed and empty. There was a lot of construction and rebuilding taking place, but here in this small community East of I-10, where the eye of the storm had hit, it was more than obvious that things were not yet back to normal. In the bayou where I was taking the tour, small houseboats were standing vertically against trees, and several of the structures still remained miles down river from where they were originally built. Our guide told us that in this area, out of the hundreds who had previously lived here, only three had returned. He was hesitant to talk about the storm, he told us. He'd give us stories when the boat would pass something that needed explanation, like a houseboat that sat unintended in the middle of the bayou, but it was clear he wanted to be the bayou tour guide, not the post-Katrina tour guide. The tour itself was great; upon the suggestion of one of my commentors (thanks!) I did the Honey Island tour in a small boat that allowed you to get really close to things, and we saw tons of alligators and egrets and turtles. We'd get to certain sections of the swamp and the guide would call out "C'mhere Cindy!" and Cindy the gator would come swimming up to the boat for a marshmallow. Apparently marshmallows are the one trip alligators go nuts over, go figure. It was definitely worth the 21$, so if you're looking for a good tour, Cajun Encounters gets the Nathanson seal of approval.

After the tour, I searched online for a hotel at which to stay in New Orleans, and Maison Dupuy in the French Quarter came highly recommended. I had originally wanted to stay in the Garden District because parking would be cheaper, but several of the hotels in that area are still closed and I wasn't able to find a room for two nights. The best price I found online was 89$ a night, and I called the hotel to see if they could beat that and they came in at 79$. Tourists are definitely coming back, but most place need the business pretty bad, so it's possible to talk hotel room prices down. I was even able to upgrade to a balcony room for free. I was very happy to walk into my room and find a very nice, clean bathroom with all the fixings, a balcony overlooking the French Quarter, and a very luxurious bed. At this point, luxurious to me means a bed where I'm not afraid to actually sleep underneath the blankets, but this place is almost high end. Maison Dupuy is three blocks from Bourbon Street, so you're in the French Quarter, but you're far enough away from the madness that it doesn't smell like vomit and you don't fall asleep listening to a pounding cover bad singing "You shook me aaalllll niiiight looooong" over and over again.

The French Quarter bears almost no scars from Katrina because this area remained safe from the flooding that devastated other parts of the city. Many roofs and windows were lost, and there was some water damage, but that was all fixed as quick as possible to get the tourist dollars flowing. Driving in, though, I saw a different story. Apartment projects sit vacant and destroyed, looking as if the storm hit last week. The spraypainted exteriors of buildings denoting what had been searched for bodies, which we all saw pictures of in the days after the storm, sit still stained by their morbid graffiti. In post-Katrina New Orleans, there are now two cities - the one that's been repaired and is thriving and partying, and the one that sits broken and bitter. I was here three years ago, and that was kind of the case then. There's a part of the city that's beautiful and magical that the tourists see, and there's a part of the city that was destroyed not by a storm, but by crime and poverty. Now, the line that divides the city is just that more obvious because the homes and projects which were previously broken only on the inside are now wrecked on the outside as well.

I have to check out soon, and I promise to finish my tales of New Orleans tonight, including the story of Dan the Shoeshine man, and whether or not I broke my vegetarian streak of five years. And anyways, what are you doing sitting around reading this crap? Go call your dad.


Part II
Friday night, after getting settled in the hotel and garaging Trudel (to the tune of 24$ a day!), I made my first foray into the heart of the French Quarter. As I walked down the street semi-buzzed from a Jack and Coke at the hotel, I walked past a guy asking for a dollar so that he could get a beer. Having lived in San Francisco, I know that the easiest way to ignore these people is to not make eye contact and keep walking, but I’m human, and when someone talks directly to me, I find it hard not to respond. I lied and told him I didn’t have any cash, and he tells me that’s okay, the bar takes credit cards. I laughed, and thought to myself “What’s the harm?” He and I walked into the bar and I bought a beer for him and another Jack and Coke for myself. And I told him that since I bought him a drink, he has to sit and talk to me. So we went back outside and sat on the steps of a building and I peppered him with questions about living in New Orleans after the Hurricane and his life. Immediately he asked me if I was a reporter or something, and I told him I used to work in radio and now I’m traveling around the country trying to learn about the United States. He used to live in Terrytown, across the Mississippi from where we were, and his place was destroyed by Katrina. He was staying at his sisters and he worked at Burger King. He was in the Ninth Ward after the storm hit and before the major flooding began, and he heard them blow up the levees. I asked who “they” were, thinking he’d say the government or George Bush, but his theory is that it was the rich and powerful of New Orleans. See, the French Quarter and the Garden District and other more affluent parts of the city weren’t nearly as destroyed as the more poor areas were, but the flooding was getting to the point that if something wasn’t done, the rich areas would be sunk as well. In order to stop this from happening, his story went, they blew up the levees and sacrificed the poor to save the rich. He was there, he said, he heard the explosions. Now, I’m not one to call a huge black half drunk man crazy to his face, but I expressed my disbelief, and he told me it didn’t matter what I thought, he knew it to be true. I thanked him and stood to leave, and he said “What, am I getting to real for you? You can’t handle what I’m saying?” I told him “No, I don’t want to ruin your street cred by being seen sitting here talking to a white guy.” He laughed and I sat back down. “The only people who would have a problem with you talking to me is the cops. They see a black guy like me talking to a tourist like you, and they think we’re up to no good, like I’m gonna score you drugs or something.” To be fair, when I was buying him a drink, he did ask me if I needed anything, that he knew some guys a couple of blocks away and could get me whatever I wanted. I asked him about crime in the city, if it was better or worse after the storm, and he told me the parts that were bad before had gotten worse. “It’s like Iraq out there, man. People be walking around with assault rifles slung over their shoulders, handguns in both pockets. If I was you, I wouldn’t take a wrong turn in this city.”

We talked for about another twenty minutes, and then he said he had to bounce. I thanked him for the conversation, and he told me to come by the next day, that he’d buy me a drink. “Just look for Dan the Shoeshine Man. And if you write a book or put this in your report, make sure you say Dan the Shoeshine Man was there when they blew up the levees. I heard it.” Suffice it to say I didn’t see him the next day, and I never got my drink.

It was now time to get some dinner, and I’d made up my mind about what I was going to eat. I’ve been a vegetarian for a little over five years now, and to be honest it hasn’t been that hard to give up meat and fish. I miss sushi the most, but there’s enough non-meat items in the world to keep me satisfied. But it’s been hard on this trip, because the variety of foods that are available back home aren’t so easy to get when you’re on the road. I’ve toyed with the idea of eating mussels and clams and oysters; it’s easy to rationalize that they aren’t really animals. They don’t have brains or eyes or faces, and to me, there’s not that much different between them and plants. So sometime around Texas I decided that when I get to New Orleans, I’m going to take the plunge. I found a great looking place on Bourbon, sat down, and ordered myself an Oyster Po’Boy and another Jack and Coke. At this point I was nicely liquored up, so there wasn’t a lot of hemming and hawing over the decision. I was just going to do it. Ten minutes later, a huge sandwich filled with fried oysters was sitting in front of me, and after about thirty seconds of contemplation, I dug in. I took my first bite, and it was rather anticlimactic. I don’t know what I expected, but after five years of not letting any formerly living creature past my lips, it seemed appropriate that fireworks might explode or angels might sing or that something would occur to mark such a milestone. The sandwich was good – spicy and crunchy and tasty. A couple of bites in, the consistency of the oysters made it apparent that this was something a little foreign to what I was used to, but there wasn’t really any nausea or queasiness, and I made it about halfway through the sandwich before calling it quits. The waitress took a while to come over and clear my plate, and I sat there staring at the last bite I took, half an oyster splayed open and looking rather unappealing. I kept staring at that oyster, kept tasting the foreign taste in my mouth, paid the check, and promptly went to the restroom and puked it all up. Those that know me probably aren’t too surprised at this – I’m a puker. At a very young age, I learned that if my stomach is giving me the slightest trouble, the quickest way to alleviate the feeling is by throwing up. It’s gross, but it’s what works for me, so I go with it. I got through half my meal and then psychologically psyched myself out, and I think my little experiment is over.

After dinner, I walked around the French Quarter for a little while, drinking and talking to various drunk tourists, and then I headed over to Harrah’s casino to play a little poker. I got pocket aces four times in the span of an hour and a half (they were cracked twice), and left after about three hours up $100 (which I promptly lost the next night). I walked the fifteen or so blocks back to the hotel, meandering through the French Quarter at 2am, watching sloppy drunk guys almost get in fights and sloppy drunk girls slip in piles of puke and break their heels. Once I hit my bed I was asleep in minutes.

Saturday morning I was up early, and I walked down to Café Du Monde for coffee and beignets. The last time I was in New Orleans I missed out on this experience, and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. It was crowded and hot and great – in New Orleans everyone just seems to be happy. It’s the kind of electricity that comes from a 24 hour city, kind of like Vegas minus the depression and shame. Unfortunately it rained most of the day, and during the times it didn’t I just walked around. You haven’t lived until you’ve walked through the French Quarter in tractionless Birkenstocks the Saturday morning after a heavily partied Friday night when it’s raining and all the sludge from the night before gets wet and slippery. Thank god I never fell on my ass, but I came close several times.

It was raining even harder when I woke up Sunday morning, complete with thunder and lightning. New Orleans is probably like Vegas, in that it’s best to only stay for two or three days – anything more and things start to get out of control. But I remember absolutely loving the city when I was first here three years ago, and I’m glad it was the sort of place that you go back to and it’s just as great as you remember.

Since then, I left Louisiana and drove along I-90 into Mississippi, or at least I tried to drive along 90, but parts of it are still washed out from Katrina and Rita. I remember pictures of Gulfport and Waveland from last year, and I remember the people who lived there being upset that so much attention was being paid New Orleans when their situations were just as bad or even worse. Seeing it now, I can understand their frustration. The entire bottom of this state still sits decimated, like god took his arm and just wiped across the south. What looks like was once vast beachfront resorts sit in ruin mile after mile. It’s truly heartbreaking, but rebuilding is taking place and I stopped for the night at the newly re-opened Hampton Inn to contribute a little money to the local economy. On the one hand you think these people must be crazy to rebuild, because you know it’s only a matter of time before it happens again. On the other hand, this is all they have and all they know, and you can’t blame them for not wanting to leave. The rain and clouds hover ominously over the gulf, like a pack of coyotes just waiting to come in and ravage the area again, and it’s great to see the construction and signs saying “We’ll Be Back!” but you can’t help but wonder how much these people can take until their spirit is finally broken.

I imagine I’ll be in Alabama by tonight, and Trudel is ready for an oil change. At this point, I could use an oil change myself.