Yup, it's that time of year again: Lent. And in the words of one of my favorite philosophers, Frank Davis of Natcher'ly N'Awlins fame, you know what that means: crawfish season!
Had dinner with a friend last night at a restaurant on world famous St. Charles Avenue, which looks a lot like it did B.K. (Before Katrina): Mardi Gras beads dangling from the live oaks (which don't have quite as many branches as they did B.K.), people strolling the sidewalks in the spring twilight, the grand old mansions and newer hotels and condos graciously lining the avenue. The only thing missing, alas, is the St. Charles Avenue streetcar (and I really miss it!). The old 1920s cars survived the flooding, but the new red-and-yellow, air conditioned, cost a million dollars apiece ones, well, guess where THEIR car barn was? Yup, drowned 'em all, 26 of them as I recall. Until they are replaced, the old 1920s cars are being used on the Canal Street line, the Riverfront line, and on the part of St. Charles that is in the Central Business District. The long line uptown and along Carrollton Avenue, where the crashing branches of the oak trees destroyed the crosspieces of the poles that hold up the electric wiring, is still under repair. And until new streetcars arrive to replace the ones destroyed in the flood, there really aren't enough to go around all those streetcar lines, unless you want to wait an hour for a streetcar. In the meantime, we have buses on the St. Charles route, but bouncing over the potholes on a bus just doesn't have the same ambiance as riding the swaying old streetcars with the windows open. The day that streetcars run on St. Charles Avenue again, I am going to be out there on the street waving an American flag to greet them! (Unless I am fortunate enough to get a seat on board.)
At any rate, my friend and I dined at this Mexican restaurant on St. Charles Avenue. And when I opened the menu, the first thing I saw was the insert with the evening's specials. Lenten specials. Seafood dishes.
When was the last time you saw seafood dishes on the menu in a Mexican restaurant? Maybe on your last trip to Cancun? Think about it. Mexico has long coastlines on the Gulf side and the Pacific side, but most Mexican restaurants only have beef and chicken dishes on their menus. There must be a lot of seafood dishes in Mexican cooking, but you never see them on restaurant menus in the U.S. I wonder why not?
So what did we eat, you ask? My friend had shrimp empanada, and I had...crawfish enchiladas. I have no idea if they serve crawfish in Mexico. They sure serve them in New Orleans. Especially during Lent.
And they were good, too! I look forward to having the other half of my dinner for lunch, thanks to the ever popular take-out box!
Lent equals crawfish. Remember that!
Friday, March 09, 2007
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Oops...
The title of the blog below should read "Happy trails," not "Hapy." Where's a good editor when you need one?
Hapy trails
I've been on the road. Took a trip to Georgia two weeks ago to visit Cinder the wonder horse, and I found him not doing so well. Seems he had gotten into another horse's supplement, the dosage of which was one ounce, and he had eaten the entire three-pound tub. Without going into the gory details, he was not a happy camper. It was an emergency call for the vet.
It's been a long road, but he was starting to do better, until this evening, when he choked on his feed -- it got stuck in his throat. Another emergency call to the vet. I can hardly wait to see this month's vet bill. But the vet was able to flush water down his throat and clear the food that was blocked. Now he has to have his feed wetted down before he eats it.
If he gets through all this, he will be thirty-one years old on April 26. I have had him since August, 1986 -- twenty years. And it's been a long, wonderful ride. On this last trip I stayed in Alpharetta, in a place that was pastureland and woods for most of the years that I have had Cinder. In fact, I think the expressway exit didn't even exist back in 1986.
Time flies when you're having fun. In many ways, that summer of 1986 when I found him at a farm in Alpharetta seems like just yesterday. He was ten then, and he was a dapple gray horse with a black mane and tail and black stockings (black legs up to the knees and hocks). Today he is white (when he's clean) with a creamy mane and tail. He still has the dark gray patch on his left shoulder that the Arabian people call a "bloody shoulder" -- his grandfather, the Arabian sire Morafic, had the marking too.
While I was visiting Cinder, I had dinner one evening with a friend who owns a horse that Cinder buddied up with, way back then in the 1980s. She still has her horse -- he's 27 now himself, and his beautiful chestnut coat has gotten darker with age and his back has a definite sway in it. My friend and I had a wonderful time reminiscing about the barns where we'd kept our horses and the people we had met along the way. She and I had moved the two horses to the same barns at least four times so we could keep them together. We would move because the barn was closing because someone was developing the property for a subdivision, or a new barn manager came in that we didn't like, or something along those lines. We have seen a lot of changes since 1986.
Part of the problem with having to acknowledge that your horse is getting old is that it means you, too, are getting old. I have started riding again, at a barn in New Orleans. Before my first lesson I cried like a child for two days. It meant I was going on without Cinder, and it broke my heart. I probably will never ride Cinder again -- long story, but I am afraid he might fall down with me. But I want to keep on riding. And in that first time back on a horse in I don't want to say how many years, I lasted about thirty minutes. Talk about pain. Good pain, as pain goes. But I was hobbling around for two days afterward. You see, like Cinder, I'm getting up there myself. And that, too, is a difficult thing to deal with.
In the early 1990s, when we were at a farm in Forsyth County, Georgia that is now a Jack Nicklaus golf course surrounded by very expensive houses, there was a woman there who had a Morgan mare. I first met this woman when I followed her up the long gravel drive to the barn. She was driving a red LeBaron convertible. Her name was Lavinia. And she was about 70 years old. The rest of the horse owners at this barn, all women, were in their 30s and 40s. We just loved Lavinia. She said to us, "Those old ladies at my church just want to sit around and play cards all day. I can't do that." So Lavinia was out there longeing her Morgan mare, Tessa (longeing, pronounced "lungeing," is putting your horse on a long lead line and exercising it by having it walk, trot, or canter in a circle with you in the center holding the lead line). Then she would put a heavy Australian stock saddle on her and ride her. All us thirty to forty year olds decided then and there that we wanted to be Lavinia when we got to be her age.
Yeah, I want to be Lavinia. I don't know if there is going to be another horse in my life after Cinder is gone. I am afraid if I got another horse and it lived as long as Cinder, I would either be going out there to visit him on a walker or he would outlive me. I wonder what Lavinia did.
I guess if I ever have a broken hip (and my mother had one, and I know just how awful that is), I would rather tell the doctor, "My horse threw me" rather than "I fell down in my house." Although if the horse threw me, I'd probably break more bones than just my hip. But I won't go there for now!
Cinder, it's been a great ride these twenty years. Thank you for all the fun times we've had, all the places we've been, all the people and horses we've met. And I hope we have some good days yet.
It's been a long road, but he was starting to do better, until this evening, when he choked on his feed -- it got stuck in his throat. Another emergency call to the vet. I can hardly wait to see this month's vet bill. But the vet was able to flush water down his throat and clear the food that was blocked. Now he has to have his feed wetted down before he eats it.
If he gets through all this, he will be thirty-one years old on April 26. I have had him since August, 1986 -- twenty years. And it's been a long, wonderful ride. On this last trip I stayed in Alpharetta, in a place that was pastureland and woods for most of the years that I have had Cinder. In fact, I think the expressway exit didn't even exist back in 1986.
Time flies when you're having fun. In many ways, that summer of 1986 when I found him at a farm in Alpharetta seems like just yesterday. He was ten then, and he was a dapple gray horse with a black mane and tail and black stockings (black legs up to the knees and hocks). Today he is white (when he's clean) with a creamy mane and tail. He still has the dark gray patch on his left shoulder that the Arabian people call a "bloody shoulder" -- his grandfather, the Arabian sire Morafic, had the marking too.
While I was visiting Cinder, I had dinner one evening with a friend who owns a horse that Cinder buddied up with, way back then in the 1980s. She still has her horse -- he's 27 now himself, and his beautiful chestnut coat has gotten darker with age and his back has a definite sway in it. My friend and I had a wonderful time reminiscing about the barns where we'd kept our horses and the people we had met along the way. She and I had moved the two horses to the same barns at least four times so we could keep them together. We would move because the barn was closing because someone was developing the property for a subdivision, or a new barn manager came in that we didn't like, or something along those lines. We have seen a lot of changes since 1986.
Part of the problem with having to acknowledge that your horse is getting old is that it means you, too, are getting old. I have started riding again, at a barn in New Orleans. Before my first lesson I cried like a child for two days. It meant I was going on without Cinder, and it broke my heart. I probably will never ride Cinder again -- long story, but I am afraid he might fall down with me. But I want to keep on riding. And in that first time back on a horse in I don't want to say how many years, I lasted about thirty minutes. Talk about pain. Good pain, as pain goes. But I was hobbling around for two days afterward. You see, like Cinder, I'm getting up there myself. And that, too, is a difficult thing to deal with.
In the early 1990s, when we were at a farm in Forsyth County, Georgia that is now a Jack Nicklaus golf course surrounded by very expensive houses, there was a woman there who had a Morgan mare. I first met this woman when I followed her up the long gravel drive to the barn. She was driving a red LeBaron convertible. Her name was Lavinia. And she was about 70 years old. The rest of the horse owners at this barn, all women, were in their 30s and 40s. We just loved Lavinia. She said to us, "Those old ladies at my church just want to sit around and play cards all day. I can't do that." So Lavinia was out there longeing her Morgan mare, Tessa (longeing, pronounced "lungeing," is putting your horse on a long lead line and exercising it by having it walk, trot, or canter in a circle with you in the center holding the lead line). Then she would put a heavy Australian stock saddle on her and ride her. All us thirty to forty year olds decided then and there that we wanted to be Lavinia when we got to be her age.
Yeah, I want to be Lavinia. I don't know if there is going to be another horse in my life after Cinder is gone. I am afraid if I got another horse and it lived as long as Cinder, I would either be going out there to visit him on a walker or he would outlive me. I wonder what Lavinia did.
I guess if I ever have a broken hip (and my mother had one, and I know just how awful that is), I would rather tell the doctor, "My horse threw me" rather than "I fell down in my house." Although if the horse threw me, I'd probably break more bones than just my hip. But I won't go there for now!
Cinder, it's been a great ride these twenty years. Thank you for all the fun times we've had, all the places we've been, all the people and horses we've met. And I hope we have some good days yet.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
More on Ray (no, not Nagin!)
Ray Bradbury (mentioned in the post "There will come soft rains") is in his eighties now and still an American legend in fantasy and science fiction. I have a hardcover edition of The Martian Chronicles that he autographed at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference on June 21, 1997. I treasure it, and I treasured the insights he offered at the SWBC. (I see by their website that he is again the keynoter this June.)
I first read the Martian Chronicles when I was about eleven years old. We had a library of sorts at summer camp, basically a handful of old yellowed paperbacks. One rainy afternoon I found a tattered copy of the book there. As I recall, it was literally falling apart and had some pages missing. I read what I could, and at the end of the summer, when I came home, I found a better copy in the public library and read it through. For those who haven't had the privilege, The Martian Chronicles is a collection of short stories Bradbury wrote in the late 1940s - early 1950s. It tells the tale of several expeditions to Mars. The first few end tragically. There are Martians living on Mars (which is why this is fantasy and not science fiction -- even back then scientists were fairly sure Mars couldn't support any kind of sentient life) who thwart those early expeditions. But then, taking a page from American history, the Martians die of some common human childhood disease for which they have no immunity. And so Mars is colonized. But a great world war is brewing at home, and that is the setting for the story that oddly became my favorite in the collection: "There Will Come Soft Rains." It isn't set on Mars at all, but on Earth, after a great atomic war. All the humans have been killed, although there are a few pets running around. But for some strange reason, this house is left standing. In Ray Bradbury's imagined world of roughly 2050, houses are so automated that they do all the housework themselves, including cooking the meals, clearing the table, washing the dishes, etc. And so this house goes on merrily functioning with no human life present. (I guess it had its own generator, as I doubt if the electric utility company would have continued to function after a nuclear war.) The house also reads poetry to the no-longer-existent owner in the evenings, hence the reading of the Sara Teasdale poem. (I wonder if anyone will remember Sara Teasdale in 2050?)
And so Ray Bradbury has been one of my idols since I was quite young. When I learned that he was the keynote speaker each year at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, I was determined to go. And that's how I got to meet him and get his autograph on a copy of one of my favorite books.
When Ray Bradbury talks to writers, he tells of the metaphors that have driven his life and encourages writers to think about their own metaphors. For him, it was the cartoons that were published in newspapers back in the 1930s when he was growing up. Buck Rogers, Tarzan, others. He used to cut the cartoons out of the paper and save them, until his friends made fun of him for such "babyish" behavior, and then he destroyed them -- an action he regrets to this day. When he became famous, he was asked to write the foreword to a book about these classic cartoons, which was a kind of vindication for him. He urges his audience to never let others make them ashamed of their metaphors, for they shape who we are.
The Daily Cattown News is one of my metaphors. As a child, I created a whole world around the lives of my kittens -- mostly the lives I imagined for them, but also their games, their play, their personalities. Today, I envision Cattown as more a state of mind than a place. It's post-Katrina New Orleans, but it's also an interior landscape. Think of it this way: Garrison Keillor has his Lake Wobegon, I have Cattown.
So, welcome to my metaphor. And thank you, Ray Bradbury, for giving me permission to share it with the world.
I first read the Martian Chronicles when I was about eleven years old. We had a library of sorts at summer camp, basically a handful of old yellowed paperbacks. One rainy afternoon I found a tattered copy of the book there. As I recall, it was literally falling apart and had some pages missing. I read what I could, and at the end of the summer, when I came home, I found a better copy in the public library and read it through. For those who haven't had the privilege, The Martian Chronicles is a collection of short stories Bradbury wrote in the late 1940s - early 1950s. It tells the tale of several expeditions to Mars. The first few end tragically. There are Martians living on Mars (which is why this is fantasy and not science fiction -- even back then scientists were fairly sure Mars couldn't support any kind of sentient life) who thwart those early expeditions. But then, taking a page from American history, the Martians die of some common human childhood disease for which they have no immunity. And so Mars is colonized. But a great world war is brewing at home, and that is the setting for the story that oddly became my favorite in the collection: "There Will Come Soft Rains." It isn't set on Mars at all, but on Earth, after a great atomic war. All the humans have been killed, although there are a few pets running around. But for some strange reason, this house is left standing. In Ray Bradbury's imagined world of roughly 2050, houses are so automated that they do all the housework themselves, including cooking the meals, clearing the table, washing the dishes, etc. And so this house goes on merrily functioning with no human life present. (I guess it had its own generator, as I doubt if the electric utility company would have continued to function after a nuclear war.) The house also reads poetry to the no-longer-existent owner in the evenings, hence the reading of the Sara Teasdale poem. (I wonder if anyone will remember Sara Teasdale in 2050?)
And so Ray Bradbury has been one of my idols since I was quite young. When I learned that he was the keynote speaker each year at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, I was determined to go. And that's how I got to meet him and get his autograph on a copy of one of my favorite books.
When Ray Bradbury talks to writers, he tells of the metaphors that have driven his life and encourages writers to think about their own metaphors. For him, it was the cartoons that were published in newspapers back in the 1930s when he was growing up. Buck Rogers, Tarzan, others. He used to cut the cartoons out of the paper and save them, until his friends made fun of him for such "babyish" behavior, and then he destroyed them -- an action he regrets to this day. When he became famous, he was asked to write the foreword to a book about these classic cartoons, which was a kind of vindication for him. He urges his audience to never let others make them ashamed of their metaphors, for they shape who we are.
The Daily Cattown News is one of my metaphors. As a child, I created a whole world around the lives of my kittens -- mostly the lives I imagined for them, but also their games, their play, their personalities. Today, I envision Cattown as more a state of mind than a place. It's post-Katrina New Orleans, but it's also an interior landscape. Think of it this way: Garrison Keillor has his Lake Wobegon, I have Cattown.
So, welcome to my metaphor. And thank you, Ray Bradbury, for giving me permission to share it with the world.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Barbaro, we hardly knew ye
One of the denizens of Cattown is a horse. Abdul Cinder and I have been together for twenty years now, and if he survives the winter in North Georgia, he'll be 31 in April. Cinder has always been a wonder horse, and he deserves honorary status as a cat because he has darn near had nine lives. Cinder has survived two colic surgeries, at least three bouts of laminitis, and hurricanes Isidore and Lili (a week apart) and Katrina two years later. Post-Katrina, I moved Cinder to a retirement community in the foothills of the North Georgia mountains, out of hurricane territory. He spent most of his life in the countryside north of Atlanta, and I plan to let him live out his days there -- with his longtime vets nearby.
Cinder is the horse my mother wouldn't let me have when I was ten. Back in those days, I was a horse crazy little girl (I still am, for that matter). Through Walter Farley's Black Stallion novels, I was introduced to the world of horse racing. My mother was embarrassed to hear me spout off about race horses like some racetrack tout, but there was no holding me back. I followed the races at the New Orleans Fair Grounds, watching them on television every chance I got. Back then, you had to be 18 to get into the track, because you might be corrupted by all the gambling going on. (I have been to the Fair Grounds twice this season, and trust me, there are little kids running all over the place. Clearly, I was born a generation or so too early.) I had no interest in gambling. I just loved to watch the horses run. (I still do.)
I loved a horse named Tenacious, who won a number of stakes races at the Fair Grounds and held the track record for six furlongs for quite awhile. (I was tickled to discover that the Fair Grounds now has a stakes race named for him.) I watched my first Kentucky Derby on television in 1961 and loved the winner, Carry Back, who had a distinguished racing career as well. I haven't missed a single Derby since 1961, and one of my life's goals is to go to the Derby one day, although friends in Louisville tell me that it is like Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras, not one of my favorite places to be, and I can see a lot more at home on TV.
Twenty years ago, when I was looking for a horse to buy, I learned a few things about horses that I didn't know when I was a child. (I have learned a LOT more things about horses in the years I've had Cinder, and I still have lots to learn.) One thing I learned was that a horse's legs don't fully develop until it is five years old -- its knees don't fill in until it's five. This is why the hunter-jumper people don't start training horses to jump over fences until they are five.
The horse racing people start running colts and fillies on the track at two and three years old. The Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, the Belmont Stakes and many of the other top races are exclusively for three-year-olds. These young horses are being raced before their legs are fully developed.
When I found that out, it cooled my ardor quite a bit for horse racing. I had always known it was dangerous, but now I began to learn about the toll it takes on a young horse's legs -- and back as well. In my days of hanging out with Cinder at various boarding facilities, I ran into a number of folks who had bought thoroughbreds off the track, and I learned a lot about the injuries they can develop by being raced so early in life.
And beautiful Barbaro was one such horse. I saw him break down in the Preakness, and I bawled like a baby. What a beautiful, talented young horse, so full of life! If you watched the race, you know that he was so eager to run that he broke out of the starting gate before the race and took off down the track. His jockey had to pull him up and bring him back. It was at the second start that his leg snapped in three places.
It is a great tribute to the progress that has been made in veterinary medicine that they were able to take such heroic measures to save Barbaro. And I give a lot of credit to his owners. It would have been a lot easier to put him down right there at the track and collect the insurance money. (Race horses are insured out the wazoo for just such injuries.) They really tried to save him.
I know a thing or two, but by no means everything, about laminitis. Cinder has had it and is at risk for getting it again. It is an inflammation of the foot or feet. A horse's foot is encased in a solid hoof wall. When it gets inflamed, the swollen tissue has nowhere to expand. So the inflammation actually pushes bones in the foot out of place as it tries to find ways to expand. This is called "rotation of the coffin bone." As far as I know, when that coffin bone is moved out of place, it's permanent, and it can cause lameness -- sometimes to the point that the horse has to be put down. And laminitis -- which is also called "founder" -- is extremely painful. It is awful to see your horse standing in the pasture, his feet hurting so much that he can't walk. He rocks back on his heels to take some of the pressure off his toes (the front of the hoof), where the pain is worst. Anti-inflammatory drugs help, but they also eat up the stomach lining, so there is a limit to how much can be given. Cinder's laminitis comes from a thyroid problem called Cushing's Disease. Barbaro's laminitis developed because he had to put the weight normally distributed between two back legs onto one while the broken bones healed. (There are other causes for laminitis as well.)
I recently got to see some two-year-old fillies in the paddock area before a race. Their legs were like matchsticks, so thin and so fragile. The following week I was up in Georgia with Cinder, and his thirty-year-old legs are at least twice the size of those fillies'. Yet he could take a misstep and break a leg out in his pasture one day too -- just like humans when we get old. But he's managed to make it all these years, and beautiful Barbaro never had that chance.
Barbaro, we hardly knew ye.
Cinder is the horse my mother wouldn't let me have when I was ten. Back in those days, I was a horse crazy little girl (I still am, for that matter). Through Walter Farley's Black Stallion novels, I was introduced to the world of horse racing. My mother was embarrassed to hear me spout off about race horses like some racetrack tout, but there was no holding me back. I followed the races at the New Orleans Fair Grounds, watching them on television every chance I got. Back then, you had to be 18 to get into the track, because you might be corrupted by all the gambling going on. (I have been to the Fair Grounds twice this season, and trust me, there are little kids running all over the place. Clearly, I was born a generation or so too early.) I had no interest in gambling. I just loved to watch the horses run. (I still do.)
I loved a horse named Tenacious, who won a number of stakes races at the Fair Grounds and held the track record for six furlongs for quite awhile. (I was tickled to discover that the Fair Grounds now has a stakes race named for him.) I watched my first Kentucky Derby on television in 1961 and loved the winner, Carry Back, who had a distinguished racing career as well. I haven't missed a single Derby since 1961, and one of my life's goals is to go to the Derby one day, although friends in Louisville tell me that it is like Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras, not one of my favorite places to be, and I can see a lot more at home on TV.
Twenty years ago, when I was looking for a horse to buy, I learned a few things about horses that I didn't know when I was a child. (I have learned a LOT more things about horses in the years I've had Cinder, and I still have lots to learn.) One thing I learned was that a horse's legs don't fully develop until it is five years old -- its knees don't fill in until it's five. This is why the hunter-jumper people don't start training horses to jump over fences until they are five.
The horse racing people start running colts and fillies on the track at two and three years old. The Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, the Belmont Stakes and many of the other top races are exclusively for three-year-olds. These young horses are being raced before their legs are fully developed.
When I found that out, it cooled my ardor quite a bit for horse racing. I had always known it was dangerous, but now I began to learn about the toll it takes on a young horse's legs -- and back as well. In my days of hanging out with Cinder at various boarding facilities, I ran into a number of folks who had bought thoroughbreds off the track, and I learned a lot about the injuries they can develop by being raced so early in life.
And beautiful Barbaro was one such horse. I saw him break down in the Preakness, and I bawled like a baby. What a beautiful, talented young horse, so full of life! If you watched the race, you know that he was so eager to run that he broke out of the starting gate before the race and took off down the track. His jockey had to pull him up and bring him back. It was at the second start that his leg snapped in three places.
It is a great tribute to the progress that has been made in veterinary medicine that they were able to take such heroic measures to save Barbaro. And I give a lot of credit to his owners. It would have been a lot easier to put him down right there at the track and collect the insurance money. (Race horses are insured out the wazoo for just such injuries.) They really tried to save him.
I know a thing or two, but by no means everything, about laminitis. Cinder has had it and is at risk for getting it again. It is an inflammation of the foot or feet. A horse's foot is encased in a solid hoof wall. When it gets inflamed, the swollen tissue has nowhere to expand. So the inflammation actually pushes bones in the foot out of place as it tries to find ways to expand. This is called "rotation of the coffin bone." As far as I know, when that coffin bone is moved out of place, it's permanent, and it can cause lameness -- sometimes to the point that the horse has to be put down. And laminitis -- which is also called "founder" -- is extremely painful. It is awful to see your horse standing in the pasture, his feet hurting so much that he can't walk. He rocks back on his heels to take some of the pressure off his toes (the front of the hoof), where the pain is worst. Anti-inflammatory drugs help, but they also eat up the stomach lining, so there is a limit to how much can be given. Cinder's laminitis comes from a thyroid problem called Cushing's Disease. Barbaro's laminitis developed because he had to put the weight normally distributed between two back legs onto one while the broken bones healed. (There are other causes for laminitis as well.)
I recently got to see some two-year-old fillies in the paddock area before a race. Their legs were like matchsticks, so thin and so fragile. The following week I was up in Georgia with Cinder, and his thirty-year-old legs are at least twice the size of those fillies'. Yet he could take a misstep and break a leg out in his pasture one day too -- just like humans when we get old. But he's managed to make it all these years, and beautiful Barbaro never had that chance.
Barbaro, we hardly knew ye.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
There will come soft rains
The title of this post actually comes from a short story that is part of the classic work by Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles. And he borrowed the title from a poem by Sara Teasdale. The point of the poem and that particular short story (in my humble opinion, as they say), is that even if all of humanity kills each other in a war, nature will go on: "And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn/Would scarcely know that we were gone."
In New Orleans this Sunday, as it grew dark, rain began falling softly over the city. It was fairly warm, in the sixties, and the streets were quiet. It was a kind of Ray Bradbury ending to the story that began back in September, the roller coaster ride of the Saints that had just enough of an air of unreality -- are these OUR Saints, the ones who have never made it this far in 40 years? -- to have been written by the master of fantasy.
And the snow that came in great showers in the last half of the game would have been lovely to see out in the woods somewhere, or from a window. The snow didn't care that two teams of human beings were wrestling in slippery, freezing mud, hardly able to see one another for the heavy snow falling around them. Or that the thousands of fans in the stands were getting covered with wet, cold snow. The snow was just being snow. And the rain in New Orleans on this quiet night is just being rain.
And it's going to be a rainy, somber day in New Orleans tomorrow. At least we have had a lot of practice saying, "Wait till next year." But next year is such a long time to wait.
In New Orleans this Sunday, as it grew dark, rain began falling softly over the city. It was fairly warm, in the sixties, and the streets were quiet. It was a kind of Ray Bradbury ending to the story that began back in September, the roller coaster ride of the Saints that had just enough of an air of unreality -- are these OUR Saints, the ones who have never made it this far in 40 years? -- to have been written by the master of fantasy.
And the snow that came in great showers in the last half of the game would have been lovely to see out in the woods somewhere, or from a window. The snow didn't care that two teams of human beings were wrestling in slippery, freezing mud, hardly able to see one another for the heavy snow falling around them. Or that the thousands of fans in the stands were getting covered with wet, cold snow. The snow was just being snow. And the rain in New Orleans on this quiet night is just being rain.
And it's going to be a rainy, somber day in New Orleans tomorrow. At least we have had a lot of practice saying, "Wait till next year." But next year is such a long time to wait.
Friday, January 19, 2007
The weather in hell, zip code 00000
One of my favorite jokes goes like this:
Boudreaux the Cajun lived down the bayou (Bayou St. John, maybe?) and he led a less than holy life. When he died, alas, he didn't get into heaven. He ended up in the other place. The devil made sure he kept hell good and hot, but when Boudreaux arrived, it didn't bother him a bit. He settled into a hammock and said, "Ah, just like the old days before we had air conditioning, back home on the bayou." The devil was more than a little annoyed, so he cranked the heat higher. Boudreaux poured himself a glass of lemonade and said, "Oh, jes' like the old days when we used to go crabbing on the Mississippi Gulf Coast." The devil cranked the heat all the way to the limit, so that hell started to melt, but Boudreaux just smiled and said, "This is just like back home when my mama used to fix a big pot of gumbo in the kitchen."
Finally the devil couldn't take it any more. "All right, Boudreaux," he said. "If you like it hot, then I'm going to fix you." And the devil turned on the air conditioning, and it got reaaally, reaaally cold, way beyond cold, colder than you can possibly imagine. With a big grin on his face, the devil went to check on Boudreaux.
He found Boudreaux dancing a second line and laughing and shouting and leaping for joy. The devil was astounded, outraged. "Boudreaux! I thought you liked the heat, so I made it so cold down here that you wouldn't be able to stand it! What is with you, anyway? Why are you dancing around like that?"
Boudreaux could hardly contain himself for joy. "Hell's freezing over!" he cried. "The Saints must be in the Super Bowl!"
The weather forecast for game time, 2 p.m. on Sunday in Chicago, is 27 degrees with a 60 percent chance of snow showers. Hell is freezing over! Go Saints!
Boudreaux the Cajun lived down the bayou (Bayou St. John, maybe?) and he led a less than holy life. When he died, alas, he didn't get into heaven. He ended up in the other place. The devil made sure he kept hell good and hot, but when Boudreaux arrived, it didn't bother him a bit. He settled into a hammock and said, "Ah, just like the old days before we had air conditioning, back home on the bayou." The devil was more than a little annoyed, so he cranked the heat higher. Boudreaux poured himself a glass of lemonade and said, "Oh, jes' like the old days when we used to go crabbing on the Mississippi Gulf Coast." The devil cranked the heat all the way to the limit, so that hell started to melt, but Boudreaux just smiled and said, "This is just like back home when my mama used to fix a big pot of gumbo in the kitchen."
Finally the devil couldn't take it any more. "All right, Boudreaux," he said. "If you like it hot, then I'm going to fix you." And the devil turned on the air conditioning, and it got reaaally, reaaally cold, way beyond cold, colder than you can possibly imagine. With a big grin on his face, the devil went to check on Boudreaux.
He found Boudreaux dancing a second line and laughing and shouting and leaping for joy. The devil was astounded, outraged. "Boudreaux! I thought you liked the heat, so I made it so cold down here that you wouldn't be able to stand it! What is with you, anyway? Why are you dancing around like that?"
Boudreaux could hardly contain himself for joy. "Hell's freezing over!" he cried. "The Saints must be in the Super Bowl!"
The weather forecast for game time, 2 p.m. on Sunday in Chicago, is 27 degrees with a 60 percent chance of snow showers. Hell is freezing over! Go Saints!
Monday, January 15, 2007
The kingdom of heaven
A long, long time ago, circa 1981 or so, long before I went to seminary, I was in a study group at a church in New Orleans. We were reading Shirley Guthrie's now-classic book, Christian Doctrine. (Shirley was a man, by the way, and many years later I studied with him at seminary. He also worshiped at my church, and I was honored to have known him. In case you are interested, he published a new edition of Christian Doctrine 25 years after the first one, updated to reflect some of the changes that had gone on in our society and in his own thinking. He died in the fall of 2004, and I had the opportunity to attend his memorial service at my former church in Atlanta. But I digress. I way, way, digress here.)
At any rate, we were at a point in our study when we were considering the kingdom of heaven. As a theological issue, the kingdom of heaven is hard to pin down. Depending on which scriptures you read, you may decide that the kingdom of heaven will come when Jesus returns at the end of time. Or you may decide that it is already here ("the kingdom of heaven is in your midst"). Or maybe it is beginning to "break in" to human history. Or maybe we, by our actions as Christians in the world, can do something to help usher it in. (In the revised edition of Shirley's book, the discussion runs through pp. 275-287.)
So we pondered that for awhile, trying to develop our own imagery of the kingdom and what it must be like. And then the Holy Spirit came upon me, and in a flash, I saw the whole kingdom laid out before me, and it was glorious. And I said to the group:
"The kingdom of God is like the Saints going to the Super Bowl, and having the game played in New Orleans!"
Friends, we are almost halfway to the kingdom of God! What we saw on Saturday night at the Superdome was pretty darn close! As Jesus would say, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." (Matthew 12:34)
And so I give you a new parable: The kingdom of God is like a man who had a football team...
At any rate, we were at a point in our study when we were considering the kingdom of heaven. As a theological issue, the kingdom of heaven is hard to pin down. Depending on which scriptures you read, you may decide that the kingdom of heaven will come when Jesus returns at the end of time. Or you may decide that it is already here ("the kingdom of heaven is in your midst"). Or maybe it is beginning to "break in" to human history. Or maybe we, by our actions as Christians in the world, can do something to help usher it in. (In the revised edition of Shirley's book, the discussion runs through pp. 275-287.)
So we pondered that for awhile, trying to develop our own imagery of the kingdom and what it must be like. And then the Holy Spirit came upon me, and in a flash, I saw the whole kingdom laid out before me, and it was glorious. And I said to the group:
"The kingdom of God is like the Saints going to the Super Bowl, and having the game played in New Orleans!"
Friends, we are almost halfway to the kingdom of God! What we saw on Saturday night at the Superdome was pretty darn close! As Jesus would say, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." (Matthew 12:34)
And so I give you a new parable: The kingdom of God is like a man who had a football team...
Thursday, January 11, 2007
I went down to the demonstration...
We in New Orleans have been putting up with slaughter in our streets for years, long before Katrina. After the storm the murder rate dropped to zero...for awhile. Then, as people started coming back, the drug dealers (and, presumably, their customers) came back, and the dealers started competing for the little unflooded turf (and, one would think, the smaller customer base) that there was, and the murders started up again. I could be a bit cynical here for a moment and say that as long as "the good people" thought it was just drug dealers killing other drug dealers, it was okay -- let the bad guys kill each other and leave the court system out of it, I guess was the prevailing attitude. But when in the space of a few days, a couple of people who clearly had nothing to do with the drug scene were murdered, the citizen outrage boiled over.
A young black man who played with a jazz band and taught music in the public schools was shot in the back of the head as he drove down the street with his wife and stepson. The gunman was after his stepson, and oopsie, hit the wrong person in the car. That was outrage number one. A few days later -- and the details are still disturbingly vague on this one -- a gunman shot a white woman to death when she went to her door at 5:30 a.m. He wounded her husband. The couple's two-year-old son was uninjured. She was a filmmaker and he was a doctor. Since the shooting, the father has left the city with the child. But this shooting, one week ago today, really galvanized the people of New Orleans.
Today I marched in a demonstration to protest the violence going on in our city, and our government's seeming helplessness to do anything about it. There were three groups marching: I was in the one that started at the foot of Canal Street, another came from the neighborhood where the filmmaker was murdered, and another came from Central City where the young musician was murdered: his band led the procession, and we all applauded as they joined us. We all converged on City Hall at high noon. I saw groups of students from several prominent private and Catholic schools. There were mothers with babies in strollers. There were college students and business people. In a city whose population is majority black, this crowd was majority white, and I'm not quite sure how to interpret that -- perhaps it's best not to draw any conclusions.
There were speakers, but from where I stood, under some live oaks on a little hill overlooking City Hall, I could hardly hear what they were saying. The only speaker whose words came through loud and clear shouted, "I am p*****!" Yeah, we hear you. Like the anchorman in "Network," a generation ago, we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.
Except none of us is quite sure how to stop the killing. There were all sorts of signs, all sorts of suggestions (mostly about firing the mayor, police chief, and district attorney). But the truth is we haven't a clue. I have been getting some emails from someone who has been attending some community meetings, and her reports are that the court system is so fouled up that it is going to take some major reorganizing to get anything accomplished. People are being put back on the streets who have no business being put back on the streets, and here we are.
I have no idea if our march today will do any good. But we did tell the world (I did see the Gulf Coast Region CNN satellite truck parked there) that New Orleanians are still here, we are fed up with what is happening, and we care passionately about out city. So there.
A young black man who played with a jazz band and taught music in the public schools was shot in the back of the head as he drove down the street with his wife and stepson. The gunman was after his stepson, and oopsie, hit the wrong person in the car. That was outrage number one. A few days later -- and the details are still disturbingly vague on this one -- a gunman shot a white woman to death when she went to her door at 5:30 a.m. He wounded her husband. The couple's two-year-old son was uninjured. She was a filmmaker and he was a doctor. Since the shooting, the father has left the city with the child. But this shooting, one week ago today, really galvanized the people of New Orleans.
Today I marched in a demonstration to protest the violence going on in our city, and our government's seeming helplessness to do anything about it. There were three groups marching: I was in the one that started at the foot of Canal Street, another came from the neighborhood where the filmmaker was murdered, and another came from Central City where the young musician was murdered: his band led the procession, and we all applauded as they joined us. We all converged on City Hall at high noon. I saw groups of students from several prominent private and Catholic schools. There were mothers with babies in strollers. There were college students and business people. In a city whose population is majority black, this crowd was majority white, and I'm not quite sure how to interpret that -- perhaps it's best not to draw any conclusions.
There were speakers, but from where I stood, under some live oaks on a little hill overlooking City Hall, I could hardly hear what they were saying. The only speaker whose words came through loud and clear shouted, "I am p*****!" Yeah, we hear you. Like the anchorman in "Network," a generation ago, we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.
Except none of us is quite sure how to stop the killing. There were all sorts of signs, all sorts of suggestions (mostly about firing the mayor, police chief, and district attorney). But the truth is we haven't a clue. I have been getting some emails from someone who has been attending some community meetings, and her reports are that the court system is so fouled up that it is going to take some major reorganizing to get anything accomplished. People are being put back on the streets who have no business being put back on the streets, and here we are.
I have no idea if our march today will do any good. But we did tell the world (I did see the Gulf Coast Region CNN satellite truck parked there) that New Orleanians are still here, we are fed up with what is happening, and we care passionately about out city. So there.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
The Catmobile
My midlife crisis is officially over.
Yesterday I sold the ultimate symbol of my midlife crisis: my 1992 red Camaro convertible, the one with the red leather seats and the 25th anniversary special edition package. That one. Little Red #2 was the successor to Little Red #1, the 1987 version with the T-tops and a cargo area that would kinda sorta let you bring home a Christmas tree if you finagled it just right. The midlife crisis went on long enough that I wore out the first midlife crisis car and bought a second one.
When I bought these two cars, I was living in a nice, family-oriented, fairly conservative suburb north of Atlanta. When I bought the second Camaro, the dealer made me such a poor offer on the first one that I kept it. I still find it odd that my neighbors never said a word to me about the two red Camaros parked side by side in my nice suburban garage. My hunch is that they had already made up their minds about me, and they decided I was certifiable, so they left it alone.
At any rate, somewhere midway through my seminary career, I had racked up way too many miles on Little Red #2, the fancy convertible, driving 30 miles each way to school. (Yes, I had the only red Camaro convertible in the seminary parking lots.) So I traded in Little Red #1 for a sport utility vehicle more suited to commuting down the expressways of metro Atlanta at rush hour. (Read: great big side mirrors and cupholders, lots of cupholders.) Now I had Little Red and Big Blue, also known as the Bookmobile -- when I was at seminary and the book I needed for a class was 30 miles away, going home to get it was out of the question, so I just kept ALL my books in the back of the SUV.
Eventually I ended up in south Louisiana with both vehicles. Big Blue got traded in for Big Red. It was a long time before I revealed to my rural congregation that I had a red Camaro convertible. Most of the time it sat in my garage in New Orleans.
After my emergency appendicitis surgery two years ago, I couldn't sit upright for quite awhile. Little Red's battery went dead in the garage. Eventually I had her towed in to the dealer and I told them, "Fix what needs fixing," which I know is a dangerous statement. Little Red got a new convertible top (the old one took a pine tree through the top in an Atlanta ice storm), extensive brake work, some transmission work, and, oh yes, a new battery. For awhile I drove it around the rural community and tried to reconnect with that woman who bought it and put 90,000 miles on it. Every now and then I caught a glimpse of her, listening to WRNO (the Rock o' Noo Awlins). But then Pastor Kathy resurfaced, and I went back to the SUV.
Little Red rode out Katrina in my garage in New Orleans. She didn't flood, and miraculously, the garage didn't collapse on top of her. (We have a saying in New Orleans about buildings like that: "The only thing holding it up is the termites holding hands together.") The battery didn't even go dead during the month the city was shut down, although I suspect someone siphoned some, but not all, of the gas. (With no electricity after the storm, people were desperate to get gas to get out of town.)
But in New Orleans A.K., the roads are in terrible shape. We had potholes B.K. In the world of A.K., crews cut huge squares in the asphalt to repair water and gas lines and hastily filled them with shells and other materials that quickly settled. I don't know what to call the caverns in the street, but "potholes" doesn't do them justice. For a car that rides about three inches off the pavement, it's not a fun ride anymore.
So when I learned on Saturday that my longtime dealer was going out of business, I upped my timeline for replacing Big Red and hustled downtown. (Katrina played a factor in the dealership's decision to close -- there are just fewer people working downtown to patronize a car dealership -- but the downtown dealership is quickly going the way of the dinosaur, no matter what city you live in.) I traded in Big Red and Little Red and got a good deal on a new SUV.
A HUGE SUV. OK, there are bigger ones. But this one is pretty big. It's going to take some getting used to, and on our narrow streets and in our narrow parking lots, I'm going to have to learn how to maneuver it.
It's the Catmobile. One of the facts of life in New Orleans A.K. is that we have geared ourselves to thinking about the next evacuation. I figure in the next five years our chances of having to evacuate the city for another hurricane are probably 100%. And the new Catmobile is big enough to handle six cats in cat carriers, plus all their stuff (kitty box, kitty litter, food, dishes, and bottled water) with a little room left for me, maybe even enough for a small suitcase and a laptop (so I can communicate with my friends by email).
Cinder, my 30-year-old horse, now lives back in North Georgia, well out of hurricane country. But if, and I say if, I got another horse down here, and if I should get a horse trailer, and if I learned how to pull it, this new SUV is big enough (and has a trailering package) to pull it. So picture me, six cats, and a horse stuck in contraflow traffic trying to get out of the way of a hurricane. I hope it never comes to that. But if it does, the Catmobile will be ready!
Okay, I admit it. What really sold me on the Catmobile was the cool XM Satellite Radio package. WRNO, the Rock o' Noo Awlins, bit the dust a month or so ago after nearly 40 years on the air. But now I have a gazillion channels of satellite radio to keep me amused. It's a brand new day.
Yesterday I sold the ultimate symbol of my midlife crisis: my 1992 red Camaro convertible, the one with the red leather seats and the 25th anniversary special edition package. That one. Little Red #2 was the successor to Little Red #1, the 1987 version with the T-tops and a cargo area that would kinda sorta let you bring home a Christmas tree if you finagled it just right. The midlife crisis went on long enough that I wore out the first midlife crisis car and bought a second one.
When I bought these two cars, I was living in a nice, family-oriented, fairly conservative suburb north of Atlanta. When I bought the second Camaro, the dealer made me such a poor offer on the first one that I kept it. I still find it odd that my neighbors never said a word to me about the two red Camaros parked side by side in my nice suburban garage. My hunch is that they had already made up their minds about me, and they decided I was certifiable, so they left it alone.
At any rate, somewhere midway through my seminary career, I had racked up way too many miles on Little Red #2, the fancy convertible, driving 30 miles each way to school. (Yes, I had the only red Camaro convertible in the seminary parking lots.) So I traded in Little Red #1 for a sport utility vehicle more suited to commuting down the expressways of metro Atlanta at rush hour. (Read: great big side mirrors and cupholders, lots of cupholders.) Now I had Little Red and Big Blue, also known as the Bookmobile -- when I was at seminary and the book I needed for a class was 30 miles away, going home to get it was out of the question, so I just kept ALL my books in the back of the SUV.
Eventually I ended up in south Louisiana with both vehicles. Big Blue got traded in for Big Red. It was a long time before I revealed to my rural congregation that I had a red Camaro convertible. Most of the time it sat in my garage in New Orleans.
After my emergency appendicitis surgery two years ago, I couldn't sit upright for quite awhile. Little Red's battery went dead in the garage. Eventually I had her towed in to the dealer and I told them, "Fix what needs fixing," which I know is a dangerous statement. Little Red got a new convertible top (the old one took a pine tree through the top in an Atlanta ice storm), extensive brake work, some transmission work, and, oh yes, a new battery. For awhile I drove it around the rural community and tried to reconnect with that woman who bought it and put 90,000 miles on it. Every now and then I caught a glimpse of her, listening to WRNO (the Rock o' Noo Awlins). But then Pastor Kathy resurfaced, and I went back to the SUV.
Little Red rode out Katrina in my garage in New Orleans. She didn't flood, and miraculously, the garage didn't collapse on top of her. (We have a saying in New Orleans about buildings like that: "The only thing holding it up is the termites holding hands together.") The battery didn't even go dead during the month the city was shut down, although I suspect someone siphoned some, but not all, of the gas. (With no electricity after the storm, people were desperate to get gas to get out of town.)
But in New Orleans A.K., the roads are in terrible shape. We had potholes B.K. In the world of A.K., crews cut huge squares in the asphalt to repair water and gas lines and hastily filled them with shells and other materials that quickly settled. I don't know what to call the caverns in the street, but "potholes" doesn't do them justice. For a car that rides about three inches off the pavement, it's not a fun ride anymore.
So when I learned on Saturday that my longtime dealer was going out of business, I upped my timeline for replacing Big Red and hustled downtown. (Katrina played a factor in the dealership's decision to close -- there are just fewer people working downtown to patronize a car dealership -- but the downtown dealership is quickly going the way of the dinosaur, no matter what city you live in.) I traded in Big Red and Little Red and got a good deal on a new SUV.
A HUGE SUV. OK, there are bigger ones. But this one is pretty big. It's going to take some getting used to, and on our narrow streets and in our narrow parking lots, I'm going to have to learn how to maneuver it.
It's the Catmobile. One of the facts of life in New Orleans A.K. is that we have geared ourselves to thinking about the next evacuation. I figure in the next five years our chances of having to evacuate the city for another hurricane are probably 100%. And the new Catmobile is big enough to handle six cats in cat carriers, plus all their stuff (kitty box, kitty litter, food, dishes, and bottled water) with a little room left for me, maybe even enough for a small suitcase and a laptop (so I can communicate with my friends by email).
Cinder, my 30-year-old horse, now lives back in North Georgia, well out of hurricane country. But if, and I say if, I got another horse down here, and if I should get a horse trailer, and if I learned how to pull it, this new SUV is big enough (and has a trailering package) to pull it. So picture me, six cats, and a horse stuck in contraflow traffic trying to get out of the way of a hurricane. I hope it never comes to that. But if it does, the Catmobile will be ready!
Okay, I admit it. What really sold me on the Catmobile was the cool XM Satellite Radio package. WRNO, the Rock o' Noo Awlins, bit the dust a month or so ago after nearly 40 years on the air. But now I have a gazillion channels of satellite radio to keep me amused. It's a brand new day.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Book of the Year
During the early part of 2006, I spent some time working in a large national-chain bookstore. It was a natural choice for me, and I was much more comfortable telling my friends I worked there than if I were working, say, for FEMA, which no doubt would have brought their wrath down on me. At any rate, when you love books as much as I do and you spend your day surrounded by upwards of 200,000 titles, you find books you want to buy. Books and books and books...and there's that seductive employee discount! So by the time my bookstore career ended in early summer, I had a huge stack of books to read. Some are still waiting to be read, but of the ones that I have devoured, I can name one my personal Book of the Year. It is Barbara Brown Taylor's autobiographical Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006).
I already owned at least seven of her books, mostly collections of sermons but also essays and lectures. She has been calleld "one of the most effective preachers in the English-speaking world," and she writes beautiful narrative-based sermons that catch you by surprise with their insights into the Biblical text. Not a bad preacher to read when you are starting out as a preacher in your own right!
In Leaving Church, I discovered that she and I are the same age, although our lives have taken very different paths. She served on the staff of a large urban Episcopal church in downtown Atlanta for a number of years. The long hours, the endless adminstrative tasks and meetings involved in big-church ministry were burning her out, and when an opportunity arose for her to pastor a small-town church in the North Georgia mountains, she grabbed it. She and her husband moved to the country and built their dream home on mountain acreage. It sounds like the idyllic life, but when you are a world-famous preacher like Barbara Brown Taylor, your small church in a small town doesn't stay small very long. Soon she had associate pastors working under her, multiple services every Sunday, and the potential for a huge building program as the church grew by leaps and bounds. She found herself putting in the same crazy hours as she had back in the city, with little time to read and reflect and experience the holy. And so she left parish ministry to teach religion (in an endowed chair) at Piedmont College, and also to be adjunct faculty at my seminary outside Atlanta. She writes of the sense of loss at "leaving church," but the book cover shows a white bird in flight, escaping from a cage. It is clear that she left parish ministry in hopes of finding the freedom of the white bird in flight. (Anyone remember the 1960s song, "White Bird" by It's a Beautiful Day? "White bird/in a golden cage/on a winter's day/in the rain...White bird must fly/or she will die.")
Like Barbara Brown Taylor, I too left parish ministry a little over a year ago, but it is my hope to go back. For the last six months I have been a guest preacher somewhere every Sunday, and I know my call is, indeed, to preach and serve in a local congregation. I have had that affirmed time and again in these last six months. I do believe that sometime in the new year, God will show me where I am supposed to be. But in the meantime, I have a great stack of books to read...
I already owned at least seven of her books, mostly collections of sermons but also essays and lectures. She has been calleld "one of the most effective preachers in the English-speaking world," and she writes beautiful narrative-based sermons that catch you by surprise with their insights into the Biblical text. Not a bad preacher to read when you are starting out as a preacher in your own right!
In Leaving Church, I discovered that she and I are the same age, although our lives have taken very different paths. She served on the staff of a large urban Episcopal church in downtown Atlanta for a number of years. The long hours, the endless adminstrative tasks and meetings involved in big-church ministry were burning her out, and when an opportunity arose for her to pastor a small-town church in the North Georgia mountains, she grabbed it. She and her husband moved to the country and built their dream home on mountain acreage. It sounds like the idyllic life, but when you are a world-famous preacher like Barbara Brown Taylor, your small church in a small town doesn't stay small very long. Soon she had associate pastors working under her, multiple services every Sunday, and the potential for a huge building program as the church grew by leaps and bounds. She found herself putting in the same crazy hours as she had back in the city, with little time to read and reflect and experience the holy. And so she left parish ministry to teach religion (in an endowed chair) at Piedmont College, and also to be adjunct faculty at my seminary outside Atlanta. She writes of the sense of loss at "leaving church," but the book cover shows a white bird in flight, escaping from a cage. It is clear that she left parish ministry in hopes of finding the freedom of the white bird in flight. (Anyone remember the 1960s song, "White Bird" by It's a Beautiful Day? "White bird/in a golden cage/on a winter's day/in the rain...White bird must fly/or she will die.")
Like Barbara Brown Taylor, I too left parish ministry a little over a year ago, but it is my hope to go back. For the last six months I have been a guest preacher somewhere every Sunday, and I know my call is, indeed, to preach and serve in a local congregation. I have had that affirmed time and again in these last six months. I do believe that sometime in the new year, God will show me where I am supposed to be. But in the meantime, I have a great stack of books to read...
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Santa Claus wears brown
Santa Claus wears brown. On warm days here in subtropical South Louisiana, it's brown shorts. And he drives a big brown truck. Yup, Santa brought me a nice big box for Christmas. I kinda known what's in it, as I am the one who ordered it from Amazon. Five books. We're talking heaven here. Some of them are theology books, but there is one Doctor Who novel and one Battlestar Galactica novel, and do you want to take bets on which category I open first on Christmas morning? Theology or science fiction? Ho ho ho.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Holiday trees
I hear some of my fellow Christians are a little bit up-set that people are referring to the trees they decorate in their homes this time of year as "holiday trees." These folks seem to think the proper name for these trees is "Christmas trees." Y'all come on down to New Orleans. What we have down here are "holiday trees." And I'll tell you why.
Take one New Orleans home and set up a tree in it. Preferably an artificial tree. If it's a real tree, better it should be alive and growing in a pot, otherwise it might start to become a fire hazard as we move along. Okay, it's December. Put white lights on this tree (if it doesn't already come with them) and all the ornaments, angels, stars, tinsel, popcorn strings, whatever suits your fancy this time of year. You have a "Christmas tree."
On January 6, Twelfth Night, take off the ornaments, etc., and leave the white lights. Put on strands of purple, green and gold beads, theatrical masks, and any ornaments, tinsel strands, etc. you may have in these colors. You now have a "Mardi Gras tree." (Last year, the Uptown post office, one of the few that was open A.K., had a Mardi Gras tree in the lobby. Some federal bureaucrat must have loved that, because this Christmas there is no tree at all in the lobby.)
On February 21, Ash Wednesday, take off the purple, green and gold and leave the white lights. Decorate the tree with pastel colored eggshells, chicks, or any other ornaments along these lines. You now have an "Easter tree."
Easter is a season. It lasts officially until May 27, which is Pentecost. You can take down the Easter ornaments and put up red bows or other red ornaments on May 27.
On June 3 you can put up white ornaments for Trinity Sunday.
On June 10 you can take everything off the tree except the white lights. You are now in Ordinary Time. And you can leave it like that until December 2, the first Sunday in Advent, when you can put the Christmas decorations back up.
And the good news is, you never have to take the tree down, which is something a surprising number of people in New Orleans figured out a long time ago! (Except here in Cattown, where certain felines think even an artificial tree is edible and throw up bits of tree as if they were blades of grass.)
It's a holiday tree. So there.
Take one New Orleans home and set up a tree in it. Preferably an artificial tree. If it's a real tree, better it should be alive and growing in a pot, otherwise it might start to become a fire hazard as we move along. Okay, it's December. Put white lights on this tree (if it doesn't already come with them) and all the ornaments, angels, stars, tinsel, popcorn strings, whatever suits your fancy this time of year. You have a "Christmas tree."
On January 6, Twelfth Night, take off the ornaments, etc., and leave the white lights. Put on strands of purple, green and gold beads, theatrical masks, and any ornaments, tinsel strands, etc. you may have in these colors. You now have a "Mardi Gras tree." (Last year, the Uptown post office, one of the few that was open A.K., had a Mardi Gras tree in the lobby. Some federal bureaucrat must have loved that, because this Christmas there is no tree at all in the lobby.)
On February 21, Ash Wednesday, take off the purple, green and gold and leave the white lights. Decorate the tree with pastel colored eggshells, chicks, or any other ornaments along these lines. You now have an "Easter tree."
Easter is a season. It lasts officially until May 27, which is Pentecost. You can take down the Easter ornaments and put up red bows or other red ornaments on May 27.
On June 3 you can put up white ornaments for Trinity Sunday.
On June 10 you can take everything off the tree except the white lights. You are now in Ordinary Time. And you can leave it like that until December 2, the first Sunday in Advent, when you can put the Christmas decorations back up.
And the good news is, you never have to take the tree down, which is something a surprising number of people in New Orleans figured out a long time ago! (Except here in Cattown, where certain felines think even an artificial tree is edible and throw up bits of tree as if they were blades of grass.)
It's a holiday tree. So there.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
The party crasher
From a sermon I preached on the Third Sunday of Advent:
It's the annual children's Christmas pageant in the church sanctuary. Mary and Joseph and the shepherds are wandering around the chancel area, and little angels with bobbing halos are running up and down the aisle. The three wise men are trying to adjust their headscarves so they can see. One complains that the band around his head is too tight. Adults are scurrying about, trying to get everyone to come in at the time they're supposed to in the story.
And then...
This wild man bursts in the side door and into the sanctuary. He's wearing some sort of coat made from animal skins and he's got a scraggly beard. And his eyes look...eerie. Wild. Like maybe he's not all there. He bursts into the middle of the pageant, bellowing at the top of his lungs, and sending frightened children scattering in all directions. He yells,
"You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"
The children run to the adults and huddle against them. The adults themselves begin moving toward the doors, never taking their eyes off the wild man. "Who IS he? Who let that guy in here? What's he doing?" And then, the ultimate solution to all problems, "Quick! Somebody get the pastor! Let's get the pastor to handle this!"
The pastor hurries up the aisle, consulting a list of scripture texts. "Um, yes, here it is. Um, actually, he's supposed to be here. He's in the lectionary for today. He's John the Baptist."
John the Baptist? What's he doing here in the middle of the angels and shepherds and wise men?
John shakes his fist at the crowd. "Every tree that doesn't bear good fruit will be cut down and used for firewood!"
One of the adults huddled by the door raises a hand. "Excuse me! I thought I read something somewhere that said the Third Sunday of Advent is "Joy" Sunday. What does this business about 'you brood of vipers!' and cutting down trees -- I assume he's talking about us -- have to do with joy?"
John the Baptist reaches into a pouch dangling from his waist and pulls out a locust and pops it into his mouth, washing it down with a swig of wild honey from a flask. "You want joy?" he asks. "I'll give you joy. The Messiah is coming. I'm not worthy to untie his sandals, but he, oh, he's going to gather all the good wheat, yes he is!"
One of the children points to John. "Hey, I remember him!" he exclaims. "We learned a song about him in Vacation Bible School. 'John the Baptist ate bugs for lunch!'" And the children launch into a chorus of the Vacation Bible School song, "Bugs for Lunch." (Honest, there really was such a song!)
The adults look from the children to John the Baptist to the shambles of the Christmas pageant. One adult turns to the minister and says, "This is all your fault."
It's the annual children's Christmas pageant in the church sanctuary. Mary and Joseph and the shepherds are wandering around the chancel area, and little angels with bobbing halos are running up and down the aisle. The three wise men are trying to adjust their headscarves so they can see. One complains that the band around his head is too tight. Adults are scurrying about, trying to get everyone to come in at the time they're supposed to in the story.
And then...
This wild man bursts in the side door and into the sanctuary. He's wearing some sort of coat made from animal skins and he's got a scraggly beard. And his eyes look...eerie. Wild. Like maybe he's not all there. He bursts into the middle of the pageant, bellowing at the top of his lungs, and sending frightened children scattering in all directions. He yells,
"You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"
The children run to the adults and huddle against them. The adults themselves begin moving toward the doors, never taking their eyes off the wild man. "Who IS he? Who let that guy in here? What's he doing?" And then, the ultimate solution to all problems, "Quick! Somebody get the pastor! Let's get the pastor to handle this!"
The pastor hurries up the aisle, consulting a list of scripture texts. "Um, yes, here it is. Um, actually, he's supposed to be here. He's in the lectionary for today. He's John the Baptist."
John the Baptist? What's he doing here in the middle of the angels and shepherds and wise men?
John shakes his fist at the crowd. "Every tree that doesn't bear good fruit will be cut down and used for firewood!"
One of the adults huddled by the door raises a hand. "Excuse me! I thought I read something somewhere that said the Third Sunday of Advent is "Joy" Sunday. What does this business about 'you brood of vipers!' and cutting down trees -- I assume he's talking about us -- have to do with joy?"
John the Baptist reaches into a pouch dangling from his waist and pulls out a locust and pops it into his mouth, washing it down with a swig of wild honey from a flask. "You want joy?" he asks. "I'll give you joy. The Messiah is coming. I'm not worthy to untie his sandals, but he, oh, he's going to gather all the good wheat, yes he is!"
One of the children points to John. "Hey, I remember him!" he exclaims. "We learned a song about him in Vacation Bible School. 'John the Baptist ate bugs for lunch!'" And the children launch into a chorus of the Vacation Bible School song, "Bugs for Lunch." (Honest, there really was such a song!)
The adults look from the children to John the Baptist to the shambles of the Christmas pageant. One adult turns to the minister and says, "This is all your fault."
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The little things
Sometimes, it's the little things.
When I was a child, back in the early 1960s, we had hard freezes in New Orleans three winters in a row. By "hard freeze" I mean it got down around 17 degrees. In most parts of the country, 17 degrees is par for the course when it comes to winter, or maybe it's even a warming trend. But in New Orleans, it's a big deal. You see, back in the old days, before people discovered it was cheaper to build houses on slabs, all the houses were built two to three feet off the ground on piers. This enabled easy access to water and gas pipes under the house. It provided a cool breeze in summer. It provided some termite protection (maybe) if there was no wood-to-ground contact. And it gave you one to two feet of protection when (not if) it flooded.
However, when it gets down significantly below freezing temperatures and stays there for a few hours, unless you run a thin trickle of water from your faucets, your exposed pipes under the house will freeze. And that's what happened in the early 1960s. We had an exposed water line running the length of the north side of the house, and when a freeze was predicted, my mother would turn the hose on a fine spray. It came down from the upstairs porch and settled all over the confederate jasmine below. In the morning the whole bush would be an ice sculpture. Really pretty. I can't recall if it killed the bush or not. Maybe we replaced it, or maybe it came back in the spring. But for a child who rarely saw snow and ice, it was a wonder.
We also had a bouganvillea on the south side of the house, beside the brick chimney. Now, you may have seen bouganvillea growing in places like Hawaii and the Caribbean. Or you may have grown one in a hanging basket. You might think the branches get around 12 to 18 inches in length. This bouganvillea went all the way up the chimney to the second floor level, more like 12 to 18 feet. When it bloomed, it was covered with gorgeous deep red sprays of flowers. And it had thorns. Must have been an inch long. You didn't go anywhere near the bouganvillea unless you wore tough leather work gloves.
Well, the bouganvillea is a tropical plant. When it hit 17 degrees, the bouganvillea froze. Not an easy job, to cut down 12 to 18 feet of dead bouganvillea, whose vicious thorns were still very much operative. Every year, when the bouganvillea froze, we thought that was the end of it. But in the spring it would surprise us, putting out new shoots from the roots and growing up just as tall as ever by midsummer.
I sold the house twenty years ago, a few years after my mother died. It has had three owners since then, and they have all kept the bouganvillea. I would drive by the house and see it with its magnificent red cascades of blossoms and smile.
The other day, I went by the house. I've been by there a few times since Katrina. The neighborhood took on about six feet of brackish water that sat for about two weeks. I went to check on the bouganvillea. It has a thick stump with two or three trunks, maybe two or three inches in diameter. There are no shoots coming up from the base. I saw a few hopeful green things coming up, but on closer inspection they turned out to be weeds. The bouganvillea, which must have been fifty years old, which survived three winters of hard freezes, is dead.
Katrina, you b****.
Sometimes, it's the little things that get to you.
When I was a child, back in the early 1960s, we had hard freezes in New Orleans three winters in a row. By "hard freeze" I mean it got down around 17 degrees. In most parts of the country, 17 degrees is par for the course when it comes to winter, or maybe it's even a warming trend. But in New Orleans, it's a big deal. You see, back in the old days, before people discovered it was cheaper to build houses on slabs, all the houses were built two to three feet off the ground on piers. This enabled easy access to water and gas pipes under the house. It provided a cool breeze in summer. It provided some termite protection (maybe) if there was no wood-to-ground contact. And it gave you one to two feet of protection when (not if) it flooded.
However, when it gets down significantly below freezing temperatures and stays there for a few hours, unless you run a thin trickle of water from your faucets, your exposed pipes under the house will freeze. And that's what happened in the early 1960s. We had an exposed water line running the length of the north side of the house, and when a freeze was predicted, my mother would turn the hose on a fine spray. It came down from the upstairs porch and settled all over the confederate jasmine below. In the morning the whole bush would be an ice sculpture. Really pretty. I can't recall if it killed the bush or not. Maybe we replaced it, or maybe it came back in the spring. But for a child who rarely saw snow and ice, it was a wonder.
We also had a bouganvillea on the south side of the house, beside the brick chimney. Now, you may have seen bouganvillea growing in places like Hawaii and the Caribbean. Or you may have grown one in a hanging basket. You might think the branches get around 12 to 18 inches in length. This bouganvillea went all the way up the chimney to the second floor level, more like 12 to 18 feet. When it bloomed, it was covered with gorgeous deep red sprays of flowers. And it had thorns. Must have been an inch long. You didn't go anywhere near the bouganvillea unless you wore tough leather work gloves.
Well, the bouganvillea is a tropical plant. When it hit 17 degrees, the bouganvillea froze. Not an easy job, to cut down 12 to 18 feet of dead bouganvillea, whose vicious thorns were still very much operative. Every year, when the bouganvillea froze, we thought that was the end of it. But in the spring it would surprise us, putting out new shoots from the roots and growing up just as tall as ever by midsummer.
I sold the house twenty years ago, a few years after my mother died. It has had three owners since then, and they have all kept the bouganvillea. I would drive by the house and see it with its magnificent red cascades of blossoms and smile.
The other day, I went by the house. I've been by there a few times since Katrina. The neighborhood took on about six feet of brackish water that sat for about two weeks. I went to check on the bouganvillea. It has a thick stump with two or three trunks, maybe two or three inches in diameter. There are no shoots coming up from the base. I saw a few hopeful green things coming up, but on closer inspection they turned out to be weeds. The bouganvillea, which must have been fifty years old, which survived three winters of hard freezes, is dead.
Katrina, you b****.
Sometimes, it's the little things that get to you.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Tixie 2.0
When I was eleven years old, I got for my birthday the present I had been begging and whining for: a tomato red transistor AM radio. It fit in the palm of my hand, and it had a cute little earbud so I could listen to it without bothering anyone. I named it Tixie because I kept it tuned to my favorite station, WTIX, the Mighty 690 ("Double Yew Tee Eye Ex, and We Loooooove You, Da Na Na Na Na!"). "I Want to Hold Your Hand" had just been released in the U.S., followed quickly by "She Loves You," followed quickly by the Beatles' U.S. tour and appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. It was a great time to be listening to AM radio. And I did. Once I wore out a set of two double-A batteries in two days. I made a little bed of cotton batting for Tixie and kept it on the shelf above my bed. I sewed a little case out of fabric scraps for Tixie and decorated it with glitter. I loved Tixie! [Imagine a paragraph break here; fellow Blogspotters, if you know how to get this thing to do a paragraph indent, please let me know!] Years passed, and I discovered FM radio sometime in high school. One day little Tixie just didn't work any more, and that was the end of her. I had moved on to "The Heavy Sound of the Underground, Double Yew Jay Emm Arr, Eff Emm!" [paragraph] Now, if I were eleven years old again, what would I crave? Yup. This year for my birthday I got myself the current generation's equivalent of Tixie: an iPod. Call it Tixie 2.0. As I like to say, why should kids have all the fun? [Paragraph] What I found particularly amusing was that when I bought it at the computer store, the person who sold it to me wouldn't let me carry it to the cash register. He took it up there and left it with the cashier until I got to the head of the line. The man ahead of me bought $2600 worth of computer equipment and pushed it to the cash register himself. (It was heavy.) However, I was not permitted to touch my $250 iPod until I had paid for it. It tells me a lot about how stealable these iPods are. I may not take it out in public. Do youth mug old ladies like me for their iPods? Don't answer that. By the way, I bought Tixie 2.0 a nice pink leather carrying case, partly for old times' sake and partly because I read on the Internet how easily these things get scratched. I also bought a $20 book to tell me all the things the skimpy little leaflet that comes with the iPod fails to mention. I was amused to note that the book had an inventory tag in it to set off the alarms in the bookstore in case you tried to slip out without paying for it. iPods must bring out the worst in people. [paragraph] At any rate, I managed to get it set up and figured out how to load music on it. Videos to come. I am telling you, I am not letting these 15-year-olds get the best of me. If they can figure out an iPod, so can I. And so far it's going pretty well. [paragraph] What does disturb me, though, is that when I tell people of my generation what I have bought, almost all of them give me blank stares. "A what?" If they know what it is, they say quickly, "Oh, I could never..." Oh, please. But these are the same folks who can't figure out their e-mail and probably the only reason they fool with a computer is that their grown children bought them one. [paragraph] Pastor Kathy's prayer for the day: "Dear God, never let me get so old that I won't try something new."
Monday, April 03, 2006
Lent and beyond
We're more than halfway through Lent, although I must confess that this year the liturgical season of Lent didn't coincide with my emotional season of Lent. As far as I am concerned, Lent began sometime around August 29 and in some sense is still going on. If Lent is a season for spiritual reflection and self-denial, well, we in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast have had plenty of that since August 29. And in terms of the tradition of "giving something up for Lent," we have along the way given up such taken-for-granted luxuries as electricity, gas, water, phone service, newspapers, mail delivery, garbage pickup...and let's not forget cable. In my little corner of the world we have all that back now, except for the delivery of magazines and catalogs (never mind the junk mail -- it's really nice not to have all that, except for the few mailers who have switched to first class to get those ads through anyway). I have had enough of Lent in the sense of self-denial, to be honest with you. I am ready for Easter. In fact, I would be happy to sail from Mardi Gras (the ancient religious feast day immediately preceding Ash Wednesday) directly to Easter this year, thank you very much. Sorry, the blog creator is again not permitting paragraph breaks. Since September I was telling people we really needed Mardi Gras this year. We did have Mardi Gras, and it was wonderful, but now we really need Easter...a spiritual resurrection. This coming Sunday is Palm Sunday, and then comes Holy Week. I wonder what Holy Week will be like this year? Perhaps a time to sit down, take a deep breath, stop worrying about levees and federal funding and upcoming elections and all that "stuff" for just a little while, and look to the horizon, to the much bigger picture, to the road leading to the cross and beyond. What happened that week in Jerusalem two thousand years ago is still valid in the post-Katrina world we live in. It's one of those few things that didn't change when life as we knew it went from B.K. to A.K. And that's important to remember.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Mardi Gras A.K., Part I
The Carnival season is starting, and high time. As you would expect, this year we have a great opportunity for a little dark humor. I wish I could take credit for these, but they're not mine. They come from an interview Angus Lind did with a member (code named Deep Float) of one of the less sane Mardi Gras organizations called Krewe du Vieux for the Times-Picayune, February 10 edition. Many apologies, but the blog creator is having one of its "what do you mean, create a paragraph?" days. Just read 'em: 1. It's not a parade route, it's a projected path. The final destination of the parade is its landfall. 2. FEMA's just another word for nothing left to lose. 3. The parade theme is "C'est Levee!", a pun on "C'est la vie!" Couple that with "C'est la guerre" transformed into "C'est la mer," and you end up with "That's life, that's war" turned into "That's the levee, that's the sea." 4. Every float will probably break down along the parade route, and FEMA will be there two months later to fix them. They're designed for only a Category 2 parade. 5. Katrina gave new meaning to the terms "open house" and "waterfront property." 6. Life's a breach, and sometimes you just have to go with the contraflow. Some themes for parade floats: 7. A Day at the Breach. 8. Fridge over Troubled Water. 9. "Attention, K-Mart Looters." 10. A new Carnival throw: floating key chains. The next time you're swimming from your house to your car, you won't lose your keys. (Of course, your car won't move, either...) Stay tuned for more Mardi Gras After Katrina goodies...
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Food, glorious food!
This morning our local Whole Foods store reopened. I had a mental list of local places I missed tremendously since the storm...my local coffee house, a favorite neighborhood grocery, and Whole Foods. Now all three of them are open. It is a glorious morning in New Orleans, headed for seventy degrees, the sun is shining, and Whole Foods is open. Yes, I had to park three blocks away. It was a wonderful day for a walk. I just had to make sure I didn't buy more than I could carry in my arms back to the car. (Sorry, the blog creator is in one of its moods today and won't let me create new paragraphs.) The store was jammed, and everybody (including me) had to tell every store employee, "We are so glad you are back!" I stuffed my basket with fruits and veggies, salad goodies, Italian chicken sausage, no-mad-cow ground beef, and other delights. (imagine a paragraph break) This store hadn't been open very long B.K. -- maybe a year or two. It is housed in a wonderful renovation of an old city bus garage called Arabella Station. The old metal building was rusted out and a neighborhood eyesore, and when Whole Foods announced it wanted to build a huge store there, guess what? The neighborhood opposition was enormous! Why? Well, the local businesses were afraid it would take up all the parking in the neighborhood. (The indoor parking lot at the back of the building holds maybe 50 or 100 cars, but unless you go early in the morning, it's always full.) And it was "too big." And, the real reason: it would cut into the business of the already established groceries in the area -- two large chain stores, two smaller neighborhood groceries, and a prepared foods shop just across the street. Well, I'm sure it did -- but I notice the other stores are still in business, even A.K. Nevertheless, Whole Foods overcame the opposition and opened the store. And it has been a boon for consumers. Sure, organic stuff costs more, and I pay more for produce there than I do at the chain supermarket three blocks away. But it's better produce! I have seen stuff for sale in the local supermarket that, if I were the produce manager, I would be embarrassed to have out there. Apples with wrinkled skins. Rotten tomatoes. That sort of thing. Whole Foods forced them to improve the quality of their produce -- and even offer an aisle of natural and organic products. So there. (imagine a paragraph break) Welcome back, Whole Foods! Every store that reopens A.K. is a cause for rejoicing, and we sure are glad to have you back in the neighborhood!
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Levees
I commend to you a website: www.levees.org. It is a group in New Orleans that is working to get the word out that New Orleans didn't just flood after Katrina because it is below sea level and why rebuild a city below sea level, anyway? The site directs the reader to articles in major newspapers about the real reason why the city flooded: because the levees that were supposed to protect the city from storm surges even greater than Katrina were not built to the original design specifications, and huge, really stupid, engineering mistakes were made. One engineering consultant described it as the biggest engineering disaster in the United States.
I mention this because this weekend we are seeing stories about the twenty-year anniversary of the Challenger disaster. (I can hardly believe it's been twenty years. I remember I was sitting in an editorial staff meeting when someone brought the news to our editorial director and he announced it to the room. I knew this man wouldn't make up something like that, but I didn't want to believe it.) And at its heart, the Challenger disaster came about because someone decided to save money by using cheaper materials or parts, and in spite of having it pointed out that this was a bad idea, this "someone" went ahead and authorized it anyway. And seven people died and the space shuttle program got shelved for years. (The cause of the Columbia disaster was a little different, but it sent the engineers back to designing a new way to do things, too.)
At any rate...someone in the Vicksburg, Mississippi office of the Corps of Engineers questioned the plans for the levees back in 1990 and was told that, essentially, "this will do." But this didn't do. And this little mistake cost more than 1100 lives, with bodies still being pulled out of houses as of this week.
And there are people in Congress who are questioning whether to spend the money to rebuild the levees the way they should have been built in the first place, and President Bush is balking at providing federal funds to rebuild rental properties (by the way, New Orleans has far more tenant-occupied properties than homeowner-occupied properties; we are talking about not covering 180,000 homes here).
What makes me angry is that we would not be in this situation if the levees had been built the way they were supposed to be built in the first place -- the way we THOUGHT they were built, but you can't tell what the interior structure is like from looking at them on the side of the road.
My slogan for a sign I have yet to create, to carry in some future demonstration about the levees:
If you build it
RIGHT
They will come
BACK!
This city is in shambles. It probably will not recover economically in the remainder of my working years. It makes me angry, and it makes me sad.
Do you worry about terrorists attacking your city? Time and again as I drove through flooded neighborhoods in the weeks after the storm, I shook my head and thought, not even terrorists could do this much damage. It boggles the mind.
San Francisco came back after the 1989 earthquake. In time, New Orleans will come back too.
I mention this because this weekend we are seeing stories about the twenty-year anniversary of the Challenger disaster. (I can hardly believe it's been twenty years. I remember I was sitting in an editorial staff meeting when someone brought the news to our editorial director and he announced it to the room. I knew this man wouldn't make up something like that, but I didn't want to believe it.) And at its heart, the Challenger disaster came about because someone decided to save money by using cheaper materials or parts, and in spite of having it pointed out that this was a bad idea, this "someone" went ahead and authorized it anyway. And seven people died and the space shuttle program got shelved for years. (The cause of the Columbia disaster was a little different, but it sent the engineers back to designing a new way to do things, too.)
At any rate...someone in the Vicksburg, Mississippi office of the Corps of Engineers questioned the plans for the levees back in 1990 and was told that, essentially, "this will do." But this didn't do. And this little mistake cost more than 1100 lives, with bodies still being pulled out of houses as of this week.
And there are people in Congress who are questioning whether to spend the money to rebuild the levees the way they should have been built in the first place, and President Bush is balking at providing federal funds to rebuild rental properties (by the way, New Orleans has far more tenant-occupied properties than homeowner-occupied properties; we are talking about not covering 180,000 homes here).
What makes me angry is that we would not be in this situation if the levees had been built the way they were supposed to be built in the first place -- the way we THOUGHT they were built, but you can't tell what the interior structure is like from looking at them on the side of the road.
My slogan for a sign I have yet to create, to carry in some future demonstration about the levees:
If you build it
RIGHT
They will come
BACK!
This city is in shambles. It probably will not recover economically in the remainder of my working years. It makes me angry, and it makes me sad.
Do you worry about terrorists attacking your city? Time and again as I drove through flooded neighborhoods in the weeks after the storm, I shook my head and thought, not even terrorists could do this much damage. It boggles the mind.
San Francisco came back after the 1989 earthquake. In time, New Orleans will come back too.
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