Greensboro had been quite the experience, that’s for sure.
In the space of just two months I have been pulled over by the police twice.
Not a bad average really.
To their credit, they were really nice and kinda embarressed and that’s what I get for shooting photographs downtown anyway.
I have been mauled by a potentially rabid squirrel and, I’m here to warn you, if you ever have to go to the ER with a savage squirrel story and a sore finger, all you will get is a hefty dose of ridicule and an ungodly number of anti-rabies inoculations. My backside will never be the same again.
Thank Christ I have plenty of padding down there or it could have been bad.
No, scratch that. It might have been worse but it was never going to be anything but bad.
I did make the doctors laugh though. And my editor. And, now I come to think about it, my mum, my friends, strangers in the ER and just about everybody else I know. Not a trace of bloody sympathy.
Evil lurking squirrels. Who knew? Sheesh!
I met and played with some seriously good musicians, who were kind enough to invite me into their homes.
I am a bit shaky on how many times I visited Vance Archer’s house and inflicted my guitar playing on the poor man – much wine was involved I seem to remember, but I could be wrong.
I will always remember how much fun I had though, and the welcome they gave a transplanted and homesick Scot.
Thank you, Vance, and I promise to try and actually learn those guitar scales.
And about those dark, looping and unmarked night roads in North Carolina!
What is going on there?
I have been hopelessly lost more times than I can possibly count. At least a million.
Which, it must be said, has totally failed to improve either my navigational skills or my panic-control techniques.
There were times when I thought it was all over and I was going to have to move into vacant sheds.
Where the hell is Wendover St?
It has to be here somewhere!
Keep driving! It will be all right! Honest!
Ah feck, there goes the exit again!!!!
Whimper. Sob. Whimper.
Doesn’t bode well for getting to Chicago in time for Christmas really, and isn’t that what Christmas is all about?
Friends and family. Kith and kin.
The people that I used to see in New Orleans every day.
I go online and get the old mapquest up and running; I have a long way to go and many miles in which to get lost.
My friends in Chicago have been up there since the Hurricane.
Note the capitalization; The Hurricane.
It’s odd, but when New Orleanians refer to the tempest visited such devastation onthe Big Easy, you can actually hear those big letters and the anger and wealth of things left unsaid.
A whole world ecapsulated in a two words; Katrina was an upper-case uppercut.
She will always be The Storm.
The Big One.
The Hurricane.
A strange new lexicon born August 2005.
I thought about moving to Chicago after the Storm. I thought about moving many places because the new New Orleans can tire you out and not in a good way.
People used to find it hard to leave New Orleans; now it’s hard to stay.
She breaks your heart in sudden and unexpected ways.
You have to keep your guard up; there is very little room for nostalgia. It is too sad.
You adjust to what the locals call the New Normal;some normal that means third-world hardships in a first world country.
It’s so quiet when the contractors go home and the silence envelops the empty streets.
Those damn blue tarps mock the myth of rebuilding, and New Orleans is no longer the city that care forgot.
She is forgotten by those in positions of trust.
I have traveled to Chicago and Dallas, Savannah and DC, Asheville and New York City. I went back home to Scotland and visited Greensboro, home of the savage squirrels.
Getting work, visiting friends, getting away from New Orleans for a month, a week, or even just a day or two and every single time I came back home to the Big Easy my heart leapt into my throat.
On one hand I am happy because I do know what it means to miss New Orleans.
Me and a thousand others.
When I hit that first sign that says New Orleans and points to I -10, I start to grin.
I don’t know how to explain it. It defies all logic and past experience.
As I pass over that verdant bayou, over all that impending water that surrounds that beautiful, unique town, and I hit the city limits, every single time I expect things to be better than they were. That there will be signs that things are going to be all right despite everything.
Uptown looks pretty much the same although that bloody waterline on the houses and fences and underpass is still there and my heart lifts a little. The knot in my stomach eases just a bit.
I bounce over the the huge potholes, past the ruined homes that line the I-10 and keep going past brightly coloured, intricately carved and irreparably ruined shotgun house, heading towards that small serendipitious crescent of land that defied those rising dark, oil stained waters.
The High Ground – where the new New Orleanians hold fast.
They stare outwards towards the rest of America with a strange defiant mix of steadfast, cynical stoicism and irrepressable gallows optimism. Their boat might be sinking but it’ll go down on their tems and and while they are waiting, might as well have a drink.
Lift the glass and toast the passing of our fragile, indomidable city.
The familiar streets still look like they have been lifted and shaken by some huge, clumsy hand. Vines bear flowering testament to the passage of time as they bloom on the roofs of burnt-out houses. Signs in empty, gutted shops mockingly offer cut-rate deals and fresh seafood. It’s over a year now since the Storm and the empty shops are on the rise.
The streets are lined with garbage. The doors of the houses stand open to the elements. Every now and again you spot someone on their porch, waiting.
My heart beats faster. I turn up the music in my car, WWOZ, baby, and I look straight ahead because I don’t want to see the ruin of New Orleans.
The houses, crumbling beneath bright flowering trees, are still marked with those ubiquitous numbered crosshatches. New Orleans is bowed down under her shroud of flowers.
How do people put up with this? What gets them through it? Where do they get the courage to stay? What makes them smile?
There is a Port-A-Loo on Mazant that has something to say in lieu of TV coverage.
One side reads “Bush Shit”, the other ” A throne for King George.”
Funny.
Tags: celtic music, Chicago, FEMA, Greensboro, Hurricane Katrina, irish music, Katie Smith, New Orleans, North Carolina, Rabies, Sharon J Armstrong, Squirrels, Yes!Weekly.
